Grown-up band

I just about cried on my husband's chest last night, I was so grateful to him.

It's because he agreed to help me with the children so I can participate in Grown-Up Band. I love my students to death, but truth be told, I really could use some Grown-Up Band right now. All day, every day, I work with students at various levels of musical competence and interest, and I hardly ever get to play the piano, much less my true love, the oboe.

In several of my classes, I have high school students working on independent things. They only need me to check in on them weekly, I trust them to work on their goals. With this minimal amount of what they see as interference, I can keep them on track and happy.

In the other classes, it's barely controlled chaos (see Chinese fire drill and The Covenant).

My fifth graders are working on opening cases and putting instruments together "slowly" and "carefully." These happen to be the same words I use with my three year old. These little guys are jumping all around, they're so eager to get their instruments, the problem is, you can't jump around with an instrument in your hand, especially when everyone else is jumping around too.

In the sixth grade, we are working on one song at a time out of their method books, and having to stop and learn new fingerings at the same time. It's such a big group that it's really hard to give any one student individual attention. What's most difficult is that at that age, they clamor for it. So I solve problems at the same time that I try to keep the rest of the thirty-five kids occupied, at a noise-level that is acceptable, and by acceptable I mean less than 100 decibels.

In the middle-high band, it's like pulling teeth, or, as I told them, brushing a three-year-old's teeth the hard way. I have to do everything I can in that class--firmness, frowns, humor, dances, self-deprecation--everything, to get them to do what I want. Even then, some students still struggle with the notes. Some students won't hold their trumpets properly even if I remind them every day. Some students take forever to learn the notes and by then we've moved on.

So my life, with regard to music, isn't easy. Kids with instruments. I love them all to death, but they drive me nuts.

Here is what Grown-Up Band involves. Adults and responsible high school students coming to rehearsal on time. They've practiced their music at home so they are familiar with it. They don't have gum in their mouths.

During rehearsal time of Grown-Up Band, these aforementioned responsible, prepared, non-gum-chewing individuals--gasp!!--stay quiet. They listen to what the conductor is asking them to do, and then--may the heavens open and shine forth a bright and beautiful light--they do it.

And beautiful music is the result.

No teeth pulling or brushing the hard way. No waiting for silence. No waiting for the trumpets to get with the program and participate. Nobody sitting in the back pretending to play. Best of all, no drummers messing around tossing mallets or poking each other with drumsticks.

It's a thrilling feeling, one I didn't know I've missed all these years, to be part of a living, breathing organism called a wind ensemble, where all the individuals who are a part of it work together, participate fully, are competent at their musical craft, and where the resulting whole is much greater than the sum of its parts because the individuals have laid aside their personal agendas in favor of the greater good.

In just two weeks, I get to be a part of that, once again. Aside from the worm of panic squirming in my gut wondering if I have any decent oboe reeds, I could dance on a cloud, because I'm going to get to go to Grown-Up Band.

Now, I have to go mop up the front of my husband's shirt.

Chinese fire drill

I hate to be so politically incorrect, because I certainly have no prejudicial intent toward residents of China or our esteemed fire fighters, who bravely do their jobs every time they are needed.

But everyone will instantly know what to picture in their minds when I start talking about passing out musical instruments to ten-year-olds.

The last six weeks of school, for the fifth-graders, have been about getting them up to speed on how to be good band students. We tackled the concepts one by one, starting with whole, half, quarter, eighth notes and rests, and then moved on to the staff and the pitches. I didn't spend a really long time on that because I knew we'd get to it later, one note at a time, with their music books in front of them.

I also know that you can't just expect kids to know how to be a good student in a rehearsal setting. You have to teach them. So I sat them down and showed them a conductor's beat pattern, and told them what to do at every moment of the rehearsal. (I love that part.) I showed them which books they will need and how to read the instructions for learning new things.

But it takes a while to master, and in the meantime, the kids are positively falling all over themselves, itching to get an instrument--any instrument--in their hands. And no matter how carefully you plan, and go over procedure, the actual event is something like a, well, Chinese fire drill.

Today's class has certainly earned their instruments, sometimes a bit painfully. I think most everyone could indentify a quarter note under duress, and they will know, by reading the poster on the wall, the things I expect them to bring to class, chief among them, a thinking cap.

"Who is interested in playing the drums?" I asked.

Seventeen hands shot up. Hmm, that wouldn't do, especially because the class only had twenty-three students and they were all talking at once.

But I noticed who was saying what. One kid, who looks to me like a particularly intelligent kid and who has not unduly distinguished himself by bad behavior, asked me what the big drum was.

"A bass drum," I said, and added, "if you're interested in that you will have to be a leader, and be able to help me lead the band by keeping a steady beat."

That sounded fine to him, and I marked him down. Twenty-two to go.

I walked around to individual students, remembering their effort in past classes and the way they interacted with other students. Some students had already told me what they wanted to play, such as a trombone, and I was happy to oblige.

Slowly I found the trombone players, several boys willing to try the saxophone, a girl who thought the trumpet sounded good.

My cache of instruments dwindling, I assigned a couple of girls with piano experience to the xylophone. I remembered that one girl had a violin. I'd bend my rules about non-band instruments because, frankly, I was getting desperate. I even assigned two girls to play auxiliary percussion.

It came down to a question of the flutes. I only had two left. (By the way, this was only the first set of fifth-graders to be assigned instruments. I have another class to figure out on Friday.)

Four girls were interested in becoming flute players. Very interested, and not willing to consider another choice. I talked to them for a minute, saying that we had to solve the conflict in a grown-up way. I could see the look in one girl's eyes that said, "if I don't get a flute I'm going to create drama. Big drama."

Finally, two of the girls said they would consider the trumpet. Thank the Lord. I wasn't going to have to draw names out of a hat and deal with the diva.

Once the instruments were marked down by their names I arranged them in order. We practiced coming into the room and the beginning rehearsal procedure. They were extremely quiet, watching me for the cue of stepping behind my stand to get rehearsal started.

That will happen again approximately never.

Today, an activity I had been dreading was over. I'd been worried about it partly because I don't have that many instruments left because my other groups are so big. I'd also been worried about it because it would be a kind of chaos for a little while, and there's nothing I can do about it. I've tried giving the rest of the class an assignment to do but that never works, not when we're talking about instruments.

The cool part is that a whole new group of beginning students will get that look on their face that you can't find them with in any other class. They get behind their instruments and they feel important. They have an identity, one that they will forever associate themselves with. Kids need that, and playing music gives that to them, something that will never be taken away.

I'm sorry, but calculating the area of a rectangle just doesn't compare.

The part I just really like best about my job though, when dealing with brand-new musicians, is transforming a chaos-minded batch of kiddoes into...a band.

E.'s As

Today I want to tell you about one of my students. Since names are changed to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent, I'll call him E. E is a student in my 6th hour class, middle-high band. See my posts Die trying, or Just Die and The covenant for more about middle-high band and what this kid, and I, are up against.

This particular kid falls on the side of the innocent. Well, in my class, at least. I've seen his standardized test scores and I've seen his grades in his other classes. They're fairly pathetic.

And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Somehow or another, somewhere along the line, E. just isn't getting the hang of x and y, the five-sentence paragraph, the scientific method. He's not quite grasping the applications of mean and mode, mass versus weight, and what a business letter looks like.

But in my class, he excels.

Let me explain my grading methods, that is to say (forgive this little bit of teacher-talk) my formative and summative assessments. Formative being the feedback you give along the way--"great job with the rhythm in that section, now add the flam on the second beat"--and summative being the final exam kind of grade, for me, the performances. In my class, I give constant formative feedback every step of the way, and I go as fast as the kids go, and I rehearse what needs to be worked on, not what doesn't. If the kids learn, we go forward, if they don't, I stop and explain it again.

I grade the kids on their effort. I can't possibly grade them on mastery of notes and then the next week move on to the rhythm, and two weeks after that, teach about the dynamics and key signatures. Everything's mixed up, so the best way for me to gauge progress is to see the kids making effort.

And wouldn't you know, the kids who make some effort, see results. It's really not rocket science.

Anyway, E. comes into class prepared every single day, except for today, and is extremely polite at all times. In fact, I can't think of another student who is quite so polite. He always says hello and goodbye. He's the first one with his hand up when I ask for attention with my "high five" sign, he's the first one ready to play, and he knows his parts. Um, because he pays attention when I teach them to him.

I recently had the opportunity to see him in another context, at the cross country meet. He was doing his mile and a half race last week against some other schools. At the finish line, where I was poised to take nametags off of shirts as kids ran through the chute, I had the chance to see E. running as fast as he could to beat another kid and we yelled and cheered for him. Unfortunately he didn't come in before the other boy, but I could see the effort he was putting forth. Some days, the other kid beats you no matter what you do.

I am very impressed with his effort on the race course and in music, and I can see that as he gets older, he's going to be the student that everyone loves to have because of all the characteristics that I mentioned.

He's going to be that kid that a teacher in math, science, or language arts goes home at night, pours him or herself a celebratory beverage, and thinks, I'm SO happy for E., getting him from an F to a D....

In my class, he's the kid I look forward to seeing. I wish I had more like him.

But I get to say, "I'm so proud of E. for getting an A in band!"

My own personal live music

"That brings joy to my heart," I said. "Not that you care about my joy, but it's what I've been waiting for these last couple of weeks."

Last year, every fourth hour, around 11:00 or so, five guys would strap on their guitars, slide behind the drum set, and crank their amps. Then they'd jam.

They had a set of songs they worked on. First the chords, then the sequence, then getting the structure of the song down, and finally, the start and end. It was a real hands-off kind of class. All I had to do was sit behind my desk and make sure they knew I was listening. It was kind of impossible not to listen.

The occasional request to turn down the volume notwithstanding, most every teacher in the building seemed to enjoy it to a certain degree, probably not as much as me, but they did kind of like hearing the five guys working together and producing a cohesive sound.

I considered it my own private live music every day. Loud, but mine. And I LOVED it.

I have a little confession: I was raised on opera and classical music. Yes, that's right. While I was in the womb my mother played her cello mere inches from my rapidly developing self. I went to my first opera at the age of five and have been to several dozen since. The Nutcracker ballet was a yearly ritual that I attended with my dad and my sister, just them, because my mom was playing in the orchestra. Organ music makes me weep with joy. I've heard or played about 70% of the classical repertoire, and the strains of a symphony orchestra or wind ensemble still elicit a visceral memory of sweat, spit, muscle coordination, furrowed brows, and the flash of a baton.

So why do I like rock and roll so much? Rebellion, pure and simple. Sorry Mom and Dad, but it's true, the electric pulse of amplified guitar strings and rhythmic drumming set my heart afire, too.

The hardest part for me is letting these five guys work it out for themselves. Unlike my other groups, where I conduct and tell them how to sit and when to breathe and what to do every second of the class, these guys, like most teenage boys, would rather splinter their guitars into shreds and never play again than be told what to do.

So I have to let go and let them do their thing. When they do, it's beautiful.

The first few weeks of school were a little out of sync. The drummer wasn't, or isn't, sure if he'll stay out his senior year or move with his parents. The lead guitar is the sweetest kid imaginable, and darn smart, but emotional when things don't go his way. There was a switch of a lead guitar for a bass, who had to learn the songs and then teach them to the old bass player. (Go figure.)

Last year they were in their element, doing what they loved, trying not to smile too wide. None are going to shatter records as an athlete, or become Ivy Leaguers. But every one of them is a musician to his soul, and I got to see their souls soar every day at 11:00 am.

This year, I figured, first day, they'd get right back to it. It took them two weeks. 'Til today, they sat and worked on their own stuff, and it sounded like, well, four guitarists and a drummer sitting and working on their own stuff. Chaos. Cacophony.

A little unpleasant.

Which is why, when they played together for the first time a song they did last year, it was like the heavens parting, revealing a ray of sunshine. I breathed deeply, soaking in the fresh waves of coordinated sound, and carried on with work at my desk.

And when they stopped, I told them with a big smile on my face, "That brings joy to my heart. Not that you care about my joy, but it's what I've been waiting for these last couple of weeks."

They laughed and kept on playing.

The covenant

To review with you on what happened yesterday in my last class of the day, middle school band:

I've been having a miserable time trying to get them to behave with positive rewards. Points equaling one minute for a party? They didn't care about that. Didn't care about nuthin'.

What they did care about was ending up in the AP's office, getting their butt chewed, with some paperwork documenting their bad behavior. This is something their parents might actually find out about.

I vented and strategized to my husband last night. When I could take no more and my eyelids were drooping, I slid down into bed, only to promptly lie there wide awake thinking of all the nasty things I could say to the kids and what they might do or say in response. There were some bad little voices in my head saying things like, are you really cut out to be a teacher? Are you sure you want to do this?? Remember...it's your tenure year.... what if the AP and the S/P hear you say something they don't like????

Those voices, and the awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, reminded me of when I got out of the pool and headed out on the bike portion of the olympic-distance triathlon I completed a couple of weeks ago, and I got out on the county road and felt the breeze and soaked in the beautiful blue sky, and saw the green grass and then, to my horror, saw the enormous hill up ahead that I was going to have to somehow pedal my bike up and over, and so I started cranking my gears down one at a time, and while I was doing that and realizing there was no way my legs would carry me over that big bad hill, the evil little voices of despair started in saying, what made you think you could do this anyway? You're not the athletic one! You're never going to get over that hill, much less twice, you can't hack it... Yeah, the situation in class reminded me of that, as I lay in bed last night.

But I did get up and over that hill, twice, and both times I did not do it according to the prescribed strategy, which was, to ride it. I have gained some experience in beating back those voices of despair by counteracting them with a positive pep talk, like say, with the voice of Hulk Hogan. Both times I went over the hill by getting off my bike and walking over it. And once I got over, it was smooth sailing. I didn't care what anyone thought of me walking my bike, I was gonna get over that hill.

So I lay in bed pretending I was Hulk Hogan: "you can do it! Don't be a whiner, don't give in! Just get in there and do it! Don't let a bunch of twelve and thirteen year olds make you miserable and doubt yourself!"

And it worked. I fell asleep. Ok, then I woke up thinking about it again an hour before I was supposed to wake up this morning, but I did fall asleep.

This morning I went to my AP and talked to him. I warned him that I might have a stream of students leaving the room that hour and why. He agreed, go negative. If the positive isn't working, nail 'em.

When the class time came I felt like I had grasshoppers in my stomach. I wouldn't let the students in the door. They had to listen to me talk straight with them about a deal. If they abided by my expectations, we'd have a good class. If they didn't, I'd write a referral right then and there. I got mad, and they knew it. But I gave them an opportunity to make a choice, and to ask questions. I laid it on the line.

Unfortunately for me, and for them, some very formally dressed official-looking men and women showed up at the front door, which is right next to the lobby where I was letting my students have it. (For here, "formal" means cowboy boots you've scraped clean and a nice shirt. They were all wearing suits and ties.) I had to tell the students to please move so they could pass and tell the formally-suited people where the office was. I hope I don't get in trouble for blocking their path with my rant.

Anyway, I told my students straight out--again--what I expected. And what would happen if they didn't meet those expectations.

Class was better. It wasn't perfect, but it was better. I had to pretend to nail a lot of students. Including one poor motherless child who was examining her friend's hair when she should have been getting ready to play. It just about broke my heart. The expression on her face when she left made me want to cry. I told her I didn't really want to go to referral today, but she needed to try to set an example.

I don't care if I'm fired tomorrow. We sounded like the bomb today.

Die Trying, or Just Die

When I found out that I would have all of last year's 6th graders in band and all of the current 6th grade class in one band class, I knew one thing was certain.

I was either going to die trying to get them somewhere, or, just die.

It's my fault, really. I tricked them into thinking they had to be in band. I told the secretary, who was partially in charge of arranging the school's schedule of classes, that I wanted her to put everyone in band. That way I'd get a chance to build the program. I'd increase my numbers, get a chance to work on the kids another year, and hopefully capture plenty of them before they decided they weren't going to do it any more because of being in high school, or sports, or wanting to play video games, or tired of the high expectations. Or whatever.

I wanted this. So It's MY fault I'm about to cry.

Right now I'm leaning toward the "just die" end of the spectrum. Forget "die trying. "

The classes are slipping out of control. Everyone was kind of on their best behavior the first few days of class and I thought, oh well, the classes are huge but it won't be bad. But yesterday I had a somewhat negative day with my 7-8th graders. Today was worse. I wanted so badly for it to go well and be positive. I reminded them of expectations. I told them how they could earn points for their party.

One of the ways was bringing me a box of kleenex and someone did.

But the real way they need to be earning points is staying quiet while I'm talking, and they don't. They have to stay quiet when we finish playing a piece. They don't. They have to pick up the room before they leave. They don't. They have to get through a class period without knocking anything over. They don't. They have to get quiet when I ask them to in 5 seconds or less. They don't. They have to be ready to play when I ask them to. They aren't.

They can't seem to get themselves together long enough to earn a SINGLE freaking point. Other than the box of kleenex, which is coming in real handy right now.

I just finished printing rosters with names and phone numbers on them. I will be starting to call parents. I just have to be prepared for them to say, "my kid hates band!" And then to explain why. That they hate band because they hate having to stop talking long enough to show some discipline and focus.

I really really wanted to be able to start calling parents to say, "your kid is showing real leadership. They are living up to expectations. They are doing a great job helping their neighbors and being ready when asked. They know their notes."

But I just can't, right now.

There are definitely some kids that sit quietly and do what they're told, or don't know what they're doing so they sit quietly. I regret that I can't devote more time and energy to them. But the rest of the class is just screwing themselves up. It's at the point where they are seeing me get frustrated.

Hah! We made Miss get red in the face!!! We made her voice crack!

Some kids should be left the heck behind.

Ok. Now that I've reached that low point, I will gather the shreds of my sanity and attempt to put them back together into something resembling a functioning human teacher. Someone who can actually write decent lesson plans and see if we can get the classes into sectionals, which will hopefully help.

Today, I'm going to die trying.

Immersed

It's amazing to me that I spend seven hours straight each day immersed in nothing but music. The occasional teen problem or paperwork issue, but mostly music. I never left my band room today, the students just came and went like ocean waves.

A long time ago, I was totally immersed in music. About the age of 16-17, I lived, breathed, and spoke music. School band and orchestra, two regional ensembles that had weekly rehearsals, public school regional band and orchestra, weekly private oboe lesson, and regular paid gigs.

And then it trickled away. In college I continued my oboe lessons for another year. I played in the concert band for one year. I took guitar lessons after that, so I didn't really ever quit music in college, but I laid the oboe aside for a while.

Quite a long while, as it turned out.

Once done with college, I pursued other interests--art, mainly, and went back to school for a degree in art history and got a job at a big city art museum.

I sang in the church choir for a while, and my singing voice got better, and I went back to playing oboe a little bit, at funerals and occasionally in regular services.

Finally, I moved to Colorado to get married. A couple of years later, I found myself with that teaching job I mentioned, the one where I blurted out, I could do that. I hadn't played piano in twenty years, I hadn't played my oboe in four, and hadn't even opened the guitar case for about fifteen.

And now, it is a wonderful blessing to be able to sit at the piano and describe the circle of fifths to a student wanting to become a better bass guitar player. It is wonderful to be able to play a phrase on my oboe to show someone how to articulate that phrase. And despite the students' struggles with talking and fidgeting and dissatisfaction with having to meet my high expectations, I even think it's pretty cool to sit and conduct a 36-member middle school band.

I get to play piano whenever I can, and show 5th graders how cool a trombone is. On open house night I brought my 3 year old son into my room and he sat at the drum set banging away. When I set my little baby girl at the piano, I get to watch her face explode with delight.

I suppose if you have to immerse yourself in a job, it couldn't get too much better than music.

The first football game

Many of you might know that I stumbled into being a band teacher (see "About Me") and that the program had been in shambles for a few years til I got there and started tricking the 5th graders into thinking they had to be in 6th grade band, and the 6th graders into thinking they had to be in 7th-12th grade band.

Right now I've filled the room with middle schoolers--next year being the year the core group of 8th graders moves on to high school, and I get to decide how long to keep up the trickery game considering that I'm about out of instruments.

So this big group of raw, unformed 7th graders were told, in no uncertain terms, that they had to attend the first home football game of the season or else they'd get a nasty "alternate assignment." They not only had to sit where they were told, but play when told. They were giving up their precious Saturday afternoons sitting inside watching TV to be outside on a glorious early fall afternoon cheering for their team.

I bet myself that I would get fifteen kids, tops. Twenty-five showed up. I bet myself that they would be unruly and wouldn't watch or pay any attention to me. I was wrong. I bet myself that none of the girls playing drums would want to play their drums with people all around them watching. I was mistaken. I made all these bets with myself so no matter what happened I could either celebrate or console myself with chocolate chip cookies. Luckily, it was a celebration.

To be quite fair, they exceeded my expectations. Which were low in the first place, but still.

In our little town, going to the football games is a big deal. People turn out and cheer their hearts out. The guys on the team are treated affectionately by the adults in the community. It's a place to go and see and be seen, to stand around cheering but also texting on your cell phone and laughing with your friends. Kids run around eating enormous pixie stix and nachos and babysitting their little brothers and sisters while their parents talk to one another. It's a place to greet people you don't normally see. Even though I don't know a whole lot of people because I've been in the community as a teacher for only two years, it felt to me like I did know an awful lot of the people there--fellow teachers, parents, graduated students, and current students.

It's hard not to compare it to my own high school band experience, no matter how hard I try. The bleachers hold about 200 people, tops. You can barely hear the announcer over the loudspeaker. This year, we have about seventeen guys out for football, some of them ineligible due to bad grades, and a couple of coaches, so the sideline was a bit sparse. In my high school, we had 200 kids in the band. Thousands of people attended the games and the teams were as big as college teams. Some of the schools we played against had bands as large as ours, not all, of course, and you'd battle across the distance. And then there was the halftime show.

My kids did pretty well. The trombones tried hard, 7th graders all, playing left-handed because I taught them wrong. My three core clarinet players who show up every time, and who know the songs cold and even have some memorized. Unfortunately, the five trumpet players that showed decided they were just there for looks and didn't play a note all afternoon. We'll have to work on that.

Some things I could have done better for next time, and I will. But for now, I'm really satisfied with how it went and the fact that we got several compliments on being there, and playing the school song. I was excited that my drum players were excited and my little cymbal player, barely four feet tall, crashed the heck out of those things.

If I had to spend time at a school event, a gorgeous Saturday afternoon football game with a couple of dozen band kids is not too bad.

Building a culture

When I was in high school, in the band, I was already prepared for the culture of football games, uniforms, field shows, parades, pep rallies, and all that. We marched in 8th grade band and when we got to high school being in the band was a big deal. I never ever questioned my role and my motivation for attending all the events, I don't even know if I missed one. Something like twelve football games a season, parades, and pep rallies. Not to mention being ready for practice every day at 6:45 in the morning.

Now that I'm a band teacher in a small, rural, resource-poor, minority school, I'm trying to instill a little bit of the band culture in my students. This is my third year teaching. My first year, as it is for any new teacher, was about just getting through it. My second year, I started the year eight months pregnant, and having a newborn killed pep season or any kind of marching activity, which students hadn't done for many years because the program was kind of going down the toilet.

This year I have 36 kids in the middle-high band. All but two are 7th and 8th graders. I have 35 6th graders in the 6th grade band class. I just gave out 60 instruments on loan from the school. I have a core group of dedicated, talented 8th grade players. The rest are raw, unformed, with a noticeable lack of maturity.

So this week, the first full week of classes, I've been intensely preparing them to play at the home game tomorrow afternoon. The school song, to be played in the event of a touchdown (I've heard that the team is a little thin this year so Viking touchdowns may be infrequent), a couple of goofy pep songs, like We Will Rock You--ever been to ANY sporting event where that one wasn't played? And the one you stomp your feet on the bleachers to.

I think if all 36 kids show up, I'll fall over. I know I have plenty that will blow it off. Some can't come because of conflicts--other sports, family--and one already mentioned to me they live so far out of town and have no money there is no way the kid's mom will drive him back to school on a Saturday. I'm intensely curious to see how many will actually come. Haven't gotten any notes or phone calls from parents yet.

Some of the kids wanted to know why they couldn't just go to the game and watch, would that count? And not play? You've got to be kidding me. How to remain patient in the face of that question. I did, though. Some other kids felt like they didn't want to be in band anymore if they had to go play in front of people. Surely, another innocent attempt at humor...but no. That comment was real, too.

How do I start instilling a sense of pride in being in band? How do teach kids to be responsible and help each other? Long uphill battle, an intense challenge. I know I can bring about 3/4 of the kids along with me. The rest won't come no matter what I do.

The problems I seem to have as a teacher are not knowing how NOT to do something, so I can't understand being in that place of not getting it. I think if I could understand how cultures form and what I can do to create it, I'd be better off. But I just can't remember ever not getting the band culture I was in as a high school student. Just like I don't remember a time when I couldn't read music.

We'll see what happens tomorrow at the game. I'll bet I have fifteen--three clarinet players, a trumpet or two, maybe a trombone, and the rest drummers. That's my bet to myself. If I lose, I have to give the winner a bag of chocolate chip cookies. If I win, I get a bag of chocolate chip cookies.

Up in the Mountains

Yesterday was a refreshing change of pace. At breakfast my husband proposed that we go up to Creede and see his cousin's paintings on view in a gallery there. It was the last day of the show and I know he'd been wanting to see it.

The day was absolutely beautiful--one of those late summer days that just shimmers with possibility, but also hints at the cooler weather to come. No matter where you live, you experience those days. Here in my high mountain valley, late summer is rapidly turning to fall, and harvest, but today we bypassed the fields and headed upwards. Traveling through the mountains is always a wonderful experience, but particularly on days like yesterday. We were searching for fall color, and we found it. Just hints of yellow peeking through the aspen groves, most of the leaves still bore the rich green of summer. In a few weeks, though, the color will be out in full force, and it will make its way down the slopes to the valley floor where we live.

On the way the little kiddoes dozed and snacked. I sat in between them working on my latest pair of knitted socks in yarn to match the colors of the landscape. When we got there, I was reminded of how little time it takes to get somewhere out of the ordinary. We took turns viewing the paintings in the gallery, leaving the little ones outside to enjoy the late-afternoon sunshine, and then we got ice cream and drove up Bachelor loop. It is always amazing to me to see the mine ruins spilling down the steep, rocky hillsides, and to wonder if the old rail lines, clinging to cliffs, will someday just come crashing down. I always try to imagine, amid the serenity of the trees and hints of broken cabins, the teeming life that was in this area one hundred years ago as miners and their families and camp followers lived, worked, partied and died here.

Before, I close, I also wanted to talk about my husband. Leaving the ordinary routine, and leaving behind the expectations I had for the day, always creates a space in which thoughts occur to me that would not have if we were not out of the ordinary. We stopped for gas, and while the truck filled up he washed the windshield. Underneath his baseball cap I could see his temples were almost completely gray. I thought about his birthday coming up on Tuesday, and realized, he's going to be 34, and he's our Dad. Not mine, but, the Dad of the family. He's the kind of dad that would want to take his family up into the mountains for a day to look at paintings, drive on the old mining loop, and buy them ice cream. He takes care of us, and I was able to see this clearly through the windshield, as it were. I was just struck by how necessary it is to continue to see your loved ones like this, just simply, as who they are.

Maybe I'll remember this little excursion better for having seen my husband a little better.