What I’ll miss about this four year journey will be my band family. I still consider myself a band member, a band geek, even if it’s been two years since I was actually in band. All through middle school until my sophomore year in high school, band had always been listed on my forecasting sheet for classes. The bonus to being in band was the feeling you got when your band succeeded and made a name for itself. You knew you had a part in the success and that was always a good feeling.
In middle school, our class (year) was the first class since the eighties to win the Junior Rose Festival. Our class kept punching it out. When I got to high school, it was our class that was the first freshman of a newly built school and this June, we’ll be the first class to graduate from the beginning to the end. I don’t know if that makes sense. We were the first freshman to attend the high school from the beginning. Everyone else transferred over from a scattering of high schools in the district. We’ll be the first class to have attended all four years and graduate this year. Sounds about right.
From the start, our marching band made a name for ourselves with our choice music pieces, our level of performance, and our discipline. Just because we were disciplined didn’t mean we didn’t have fun. I’m pretty sure we enjoyed football games more than anyone else attending. Our band took up HUGE sections in the stands and the school playing against our football team all the way across the field could hear us clearly. One high school mom from an opposing team even emailed a complaint about our aggressive band music and performance. Aggressive? It was more enthusiastic than aggressive, to be honest. Anyone would look at us and realize that we chose to be in band and we are a family. Sharing late night rides on router buses for over two hours to state games and performing in official stadiums was just a bonus. There were the stops at malls for shopping and lunch, the movies and the band couples cuddling on the router buses, the laughs and inside jokes created on these trips, the silly videos posted on YouTube, and the relationships we built on these rides. What I enjoyed the most though, was when we were all dressed in our intimidating yet distinguished marching uniforms at the Tacoma Dome. With everybody playing and the sounds bouncing off the domed ceiling, every time, I could hear something which took over me. I would always look around to see if anybody else heard it but I guess it was just me.
Behind the music, the shrill sounds of the whistles blown, the announcer’s resounding voice throughout the stadium, and the cheers of everybody in it, I could hear a distinct sound. Now that I’m trying to describe the sound, it seems to be a lot more difficult than I thought. What I heard resembled a cross between cheering crowds, fire, the sound you hear when you’ve been lying upside down for a long time so that the blood comes rushing up past your ears, the sound of the waves at the beach, late night bonfires, submersing underwater and hearing the sound of it, a choir singing a single note, and an indescribable rush of voices. Standing among a sea of people in a whole whiff of excitement, I called that sound I heard spirit - if spirit could make a sound, that’s what it sounded like.
It’s been two years and I’ve missed that sound. The longer it’s been, the more faded my recollection of it has become. But last October during football season, I stood as a mere football enthusiast in the crowd. When the band began to play, I swore I could hear it again. And it took me off guard. Maybe spirit sounds different to all of us but if not everyone can hear it at least once in their lifetime, an optimist would say, they won’t miss out on what they never knew. Shame..
