Marching Band PTSD

When I was in the third grade, my mom initiated an intense mother-daughter moment. She brought out from hiding her treasured silver flute that she'd had since she was a little girl and had played in a marching band in Missouri. She presented me with the reflective wand and dubbed me suitable to carry on the second generation of her melodic legacy. Being a dramatic eight-year-old, I sobbed with honor and swore to her that I would practice 'til my fingers were bruised from the oppression of obsessive diligence and my airway had become a cracked canvas sucked dry by persistent pursed whistling-- so help me God. My mom said, "Oooh there's a hummingbird outside!" and I set myself to my purpose. My mom's experience back in Missouri was that it was not only socially acceptable to be in the school band-- it was necessary for popularity! Everyone who was anyone bumped elbows in the band room, giggling about B-flats and boys and passing notes over their trombone cases. That's great. In California, however, that just wasn't the case. I was joining a realm of social outcasts and future geniuses who would later credit their success to their lack of companionship throughout adolescence. But it was too late-- I was already decorating my flute case with stickers and scribbling "band practice" on the calendar on top of my former obligations of "school dance" and "event that people go to to try to be cool."


By the time I entered Junior High I was accustomed to the looks of disgust I received when my flute case butted into people's ribs in crowded hallways. I held my nose high with my distinguished stature of 5'4" because I realized something that they did not: we were no longer in elementary school. Nay, we were now members of middle school, which meant one thing: marching band. Yesssss! FINALLY a chance to literally follow in my mother's footsteps out on that football field of dreams.


I felt so confident in my first day of Jr. High band. The teacher was the same teacher I'd been receiving lessons from for years during elementary school. Take THAT, suckas!!! While everyone gulped at the instructor's commanding presence, there were only three or four of us who smiled warmly at him in familiarity. We had no idea that the Mister Music Teacher who clapped along with us to "Hot Cross Buns" and congratulated us on trying again when we fell flat on our bass clefs was only here in body. His soul had been consumed by a heartless beast who stomped on innocent aspiration and spat (literally SPAT!) in the face of failure.


On our first day, we went around in a circle and each student had to perform a brief solo to demonstrate his or her talent. Mister Music's facial expressions carried the weight of the Emperor's approval in a gladiator ring. When it was my turn, I blacked out and only regained consciousness after my thirty-second spotlight was over. I looked up fearfully to see Mister Music's reaction, and was relieved to see his face sorta half-smile, half-wink at me. Either I'd done a good job or he'd just passed gas, but either way he didn't look upset about my performance, so it was all good with me. I was pleased to decide that I was one of the better flautists in the bunch. My biggest competition seemed to be that Bex girl over there, but she played trombone, and I couldn't see how we'd ever have to battle for a lead solo. I sized her up anyway and decided that in hand-to-hand combat I could totally take her if I just relied on the sheer width of my hips to trump her height advantage. I knew exactly who she was, but I hadn't spoken to her since kindergarten when I'd pegged her as my mortal enemy for drawing a better self portrait than me on Back to School Night. (Later that year she would become my best friend and would remain so for the rest of eternity.) Anyway, I eyed her warily but allowed myself to relax while the rest of the solos bounced off the cupboarded classroom walls. It was then time to attempt our first song together as a group. It went alright, but someone over there in that trumpet section sounded like he was blowing his nose into a microphone and--


"AGAIN!!" Mister Music glared across the room at the blushing trumpeter. "IT'S A C-SHARP NOT AN E-FLAT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!! HAVE YOU NO EARS?!!!"


The silence of thirty-one jaws dropping in fear was heavy in the wake of the mid-life crisis that had just spewed explosively from Mister Music's mouth. You could hear a lone pimple push to the surface on the hormone-ridden face of the percussion guy in the back of the room as we all held our breath in terror. The white part of our teacher's eyes turned a venomous yellowish hue, and I found myself wondering as chills ran down my spine if the spiky hair now protruding from the tip of his nose had always been there or was just a side effect of mutating into the spawn of Satan. 

Mister Music shook himself from his Tourette's tantrum and tried to calm himself enough to announce at a normal decibel that we should "take it from the top." The effort of this restraint caused his arms to twitch at the shoulders and his jaw to grind against the fangs we all knew were growing under his thin reptilian lips. We prepared to repeat our efforts, willing the shitty trumpet guy to step his game up a notch so our adrenaline levels could normalize once again. It didn't work. We spent the rest of the first day wiping hateful saliva off our foreheads (well, at least we five flautists who sat in the front row did) as it flecked off his now-forked tongue with each berating bellow. When the bell rang to end the class, I clambered shakily to my feet, trying to tame the Something-About-Mary-reminiscent curl mohawk that had formed under the direct line of spittle fired at me from Mister Music's disapproving mouth.

Ten minutes to get to my next class on the exact opposite side of the entire campus. 

I collected my sheet music and stuffed it into my backpack, which I then threw over my shoulders as I clutched my precious flute case covered in smiley-face stickers to my chest. As I ran through the halls full of chattering teenagers I struggled to ward off the thought that was fighting to stake its claim on the opinion-forming portion of my brain. I tripped on uneven sidewalk mid-jog and the distraction caused me to drop my intentional mental block, allowing the creeping thought to take center stage: I hate band. My heart sank at the realization just as I rounded the final corner to my classroom. I plowed straight into one of those attractive I'm-bad-cuz-I-wear-my-hat-backwards boys, jousting him in the gut with my flute case. 

"Oh my gosh I'm so sorry!" I felt my cheeks' fluorescent red lights switch on and tried to hide my face under my Mary-bang-bob. He laughed condescendingly and spit at the pavement as he shoved his hands into his oversized pockets. Why do cool kids never care about being late?! The BELL is about to ring! I shoved past him just in time to grab the door handle as the bell chimed from the loudspeaker above and just in time to hear him smirk behind me:

"Ruuuuun, Foooorrest! Run with your trumpet!"

His voice echoed between the ears above my burning cheeks. It's a FLUTE, I thought sourly. I looked down at the cheerful smiley faces peppered across the case in my hands. The yellow circles just reminded me of the sickening color of Mister Music's angry eyes that day in class. I hate band. 

Needless to say, after an entire year of enduring verbal whippings every week in Mister Music's band class, I became less attached to the idea of fulfilling my genetic duty as a marching band flautist. Heck, by springtime I was counting down the days to when I could take the metal instrument in my hands and stake it into the instructor's blackened unbeating heart. My flute case sat in the corner of my room under piles of wanna-be-Shakira belts and fringe-y leather pants (don't worry I now wear pleather!)-- the yellow smiley stickers had faded to an unambitious pastel and I'd drawn angry eyebrows and frown lines across their faces with a hateful Sharpie. I switched my eighth-grade elective to art and prepared to forget all the musical-angst that had built up in my muscle memory over the last year. 

Boy was I wrong.

I haven't touched my mother's flute since that year. But to this day, I wake up drenched in sweat from a recurring band dream starring Mister Music and a present-day me who doesn't remember how the fuck to play the flute. In this dream, I'm always pulled from the audience to spontaneously perform in Mister Music's band despite years of musical negligence. l try to explain that I don't know how to play anymore, but he hears none of it and drags me by a haggard claw to take my place as lead flautist. And, invariably, I attempt to sight-read the piece and I hack it to pieces with my murderous lack of practice. Everyone in the band whips around to face me with pale faces of panic and Mister Music's snout opens to belch out his fiery outrage-- and then I wake up. 

I have this dream so often that I'm wondering if I'll EVER be rid of the trauma caused by that one year in marching band. It's been over TEN YEARS, brain!! Although I think I'd prefer the nightmares to the other side effects that still linger over from my band days: any time I'm not using my hands, I compulsively tap my fingertips to my thumbs and breathe in-and-out to the beat of whatever song is in my head. This isn't an entirely unnoticeable motion, and my measured breathing isn't EXACTLY silent... so it just adds one more bullet-point to my list of Reasons that I'm Socially Awkward. God, I hate band.