Sentiment Traps
The other night, inspired by framed sheet music at Restoration Hardware, I dug out my music bag and got swept away by band memories.
These kinds of moods can be dangerous if certain conditions are met. You get immersed in relics of the past, your emotions sharpen, and time starts to become simultaneously a palpable thing both right there in front of you and something slipping away right outside your grasp. Suddenly you're waxing poetic, every phrase and thought SO eloquent and fitting you imagine the world paused on bated breath to hear the jewels that come spilling out of your brain.
This is no problem if you don't have an immediate audience. In fact, these sentimental moods, the times when your emotions seem right up there at the surface, are perfect for writing. It's just that there's a 50% chance you'll look back on what you wrote a couple days later and want to puke all over it. Or you find your defenses are back up and you can't stand the vulnerability you showed in the midst of all that sentiment. Maybe that vulnerability makes for better writing, but it still feels better to have some unemotional editing time before you launch your words out into the world.
Unfortunately or not, I had an immediate audience for my music nostalgia. My high school band director retired this year -- he was both an extremely formidable and intimidating man and probably one of the best teachers I've ever had. We took music very seriously at my high school and it was a huge part of my life. When I went to college and the little "non music major" band I played in for a semester just wasn't the same, I took it very hard; it was a moment where I could see my life irrevocably changing, and I knew I was going to lose that part of me.
So my fellow former band members, not just from my year but from the many years Mr. Watkins taught, are putting together a book of letters. It just so happened that the last chance to submit something coincided with my sentimental memory dive, and I wrote the following letter and sent it away that night. I don't hate it -- but there are a couple parts I want to puke on, now that the emotions driving it all aren't taking up so much of my brain. But here it is:
Dear Mr. Watkins,
The other day I came across my music bag, filled with old reeds and metronomes, set books and sheet music. I must have sat there for an hour looking through pieces like Hindemith’s Symphony in B♭ and Camphouse’s A Movement for Rosa, the notes jumping through my head and my fingers like I still could pick up my clarinet and play them today (I could, but it might not be the prettiest sound!).
I got a little swept away by memories – yes, memories of the friends I made, the long practices, and the crush I had on that trumpet player, but most of all memories of silence. The silence between the last note at a concert and the audience applauding, when you knew everything had come together right and we had created something beautiful. The silence between the “Mark time hut!” and the first woodwind runs, when the great machine of the marching band started moving. And the silence after the last run-through of a 9-9 practice, when your muscles hurt but your heart felt happy with what you’d accomplished.
I loved those moments, when I felt part of something bigger than myself. I miss knowing how my voice, my melody, fit into the whole, how my steps helped create the bigger picture on the field. You and Ms. Samuels taught me, at an age when it’s natural to be self-absorbed and impatient, how awesome it is to be part of a group with a common goal, and how worth it hard work can be. I was able to play those woodwind runs only because I spent hours and hours breaking them down note-by-note, learning that time and effort make things possible. I made student leader only after missing it the first time around and working twice as hard the next year, learning that failure doesn’t mean you can’t get there eventually.
I learned so many life lessons while a member of the Lassiter Band, lessons that have stayed with me through college, graduate school, teaching, and career changes. You taught me music, yes, but you also taught me how to work, how to learn, how to teach, and how to try, even when it’s difficult. I framed some of the music I found the other night and hung it on my living room wall, where it reminds me now not only of the music that’s been in my life, but also of the experiences that have made me who I am. Thank you so much for your part in that, and for all you’ve done for so many students.
Haley, Class of '01
These kinds of moods can be dangerous if certain conditions are met. You get immersed in relics of the past, your emotions sharpen, and time starts to become simultaneously a palpable thing both right there in front of you and something slipping away right outside your grasp. Suddenly you're waxing poetic, every phrase and thought SO eloquent and fitting you imagine the world paused on bated breath to hear the jewels that come spilling out of your brain.
This is no problem if you don't have an immediate audience. In fact, these sentimental moods, the times when your emotions seem right up there at the surface, are perfect for writing. It's just that there's a 50% chance you'll look back on what you wrote a couple days later and want to puke all over it. Or you find your defenses are back up and you can't stand the vulnerability you showed in the midst of all that sentiment. Maybe that vulnerability makes for better writing, but it still feels better to have some unemotional editing time before you launch your words out into the world.
Unfortunately or not, I had an immediate audience for my music nostalgia. My high school band director retired this year -- he was both an extremely formidable and intimidating man and probably one of the best teachers I've ever had. We took music very seriously at my high school and it was a huge part of my life. When I went to college and the little "non music major" band I played in for a semester just wasn't the same, I took it very hard; it was a moment where I could see my life irrevocably changing, and I knew I was going to lose that part of me.
So my fellow former band members, not just from my year but from the many years Mr. Watkins taught, are putting together a book of letters. It just so happened that the last chance to submit something coincided with my sentimental memory dive, and I wrote the following letter and sent it away that night. I don't hate it -- but there are a couple parts I want to puke on, now that the emotions driving it all aren't taking up so much of my brain. But here it is:
Dear Mr. Watkins,
The other day I came across my music bag, filled with old reeds and metronomes, set books and sheet music. I must have sat there for an hour looking through pieces like Hindemith’s Symphony in B♭ and Camphouse’s A Movement for Rosa, the notes jumping through my head and my fingers like I still could pick up my clarinet and play them today (I could, but it might not be the prettiest sound!).
I got a little swept away by memories – yes, memories of the friends I made, the long practices, and the crush I had on that trumpet player, but most of all memories of silence. The silence between the last note at a concert and the audience applauding, when you knew everything had come together right and we had created something beautiful. The silence between the “Mark time hut!” and the first woodwind runs, when the great machine of the marching band started moving. And the silence after the last run-through of a 9-9 practice, when your muscles hurt but your heart felt happy with what you’d accomplished.
I loved those moments, when I felt part of something bigger than myself. I miss knowing how my voice, my melody, fit into the whole, how my steps helped create the bigger picture on the field. You and Ms. Samuels taught me, at an age when it’s natural to be self-absorbed and impatient, how awesome it is to be part of a group with a common goal, and how worth it hard work can be. I was able to play those woodwind runs only because I spent hours and hours breaking them down note-by-note, learning that time and effort make things possible. I made student leader only after missing it the first time around and working twice as hard the next year, learning that failure doesn’t mean you can’t get there eventually.
I learned so many life lessons while a member of the Lassiter Band, lessons that have stayed with me through college, graduate school, teaching, and career changes. You taught me music, yes, but you also taught me how to work, how to learn, how to teach, and how to try, even when it’s difficult. I framed some of the music I found the other night and hung it on my living room wall, where it reminds me now not only of the music that’s been in my life, but also of the experiences that have made me who I am. Thank you so much for your part in that, and for all you’ve done for so many students.
Haley, Class of '01