Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
A French horn, a toboggan, and one very steep hill.
There were three rites of passage that every rising 6th grader at my elementary school looked forward to. First, a week of outdoor school at Camp Moran; second, access to the 6th grade woods (a small grove of trees in the middle of our playground’s field); and third, the option to participate in 6th grade band.
As someone who had been taking piano lessons since kindergarten, I was ready to expand my musical instrument repertoire and had my sights set on joining the band.
Much to my mother’s chagrin, I’m sure, I was never one to choose the easiest option that lay in front of me and choosing my musical instrument for band was no different. Most of the girls chose the flute or clarinet but I was considering something in the brass section.
My mother was a huge fan of musicals, and she made sure we were watching whenever they came on our local television channel throughout the years—The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and of course, The Music Man. I was quite invested in the romance between the Music Man and Marian the Librarian, and their duet of Seventy-Six Trombones and Goodnight, My Someone was constantly taking up residence in my mind.
I did consider the trombone as an option for band, but ultimately decided it might be a bit too big for me. So, I chose the French horn. Still brass. Not quite as big. And not a trumpet like all the boys.
Patience is what my mother must have had a lot of when raising me. She did agree to get me the French horn…or rent it as we did…but the deal was that I had to practice it every evening in addition to my piano practice, and I was responsible for hauling that thing to and from school. There was no car “drop off/pick-up” line. If there wasn’t a bus stop near your house, you walked. And no, it wasn’t miles, but it was a reasonable distance up and down a steep hill.
Always someone with a little ingenuity to make work what I wanted to happen, I loaded that French horn in its huge black case into my red wagon and pulled it to and from school.
I spent those first few weeks getting the hang of buzzing my lips to create the sound, resting my right hand in the horn and using my left hand to operate the three levers. Early on, the sounds coming from our band were off-key and out of sync, but I remember feeling quite proud of us when we made it through our first song all together, Hey Jude by The Beatles.
After years of playing the piano by myself, I found it thrilling to have so many of us playing different instruments of varying sizes, different notes, different rhythms, and yet all together producing the rich sound for one song. I loved it.
As the months went by, we settled into a routine after band in which my friends would pack up their shiny silver flutes into their small cases and skip off with them held in one hand. I would have to stay behind with the rest of the brass and clean my horn.
Specifically, I would have to pull out the tubing and shake the spit out of it. And yes, while we were provided “spit buckets,” much of that spit ended up on the floor. Except for me, all the brass players were boys on the edge of puberty, and flinging spit at each other was a fun pastime for them.
By the time I headed out of the band room each afternoon with my clean horn, my friends had all left. I trudged up the hill toward home—just me, my wagon, and my French horn.
That winter we had a record snowfall, which may have resulted in a day or two of no school. I can’t fully remember, but I do know that they called us back to school while there was still snow on the ground. Tasked with the challenge of getting my French horn to school with the slick roads, I loaded it in a plastic toboggan I found in our garage.
The first couple blocks I easily pulled my load, but once I started down the steep decline toward my school, it became more difficult to keep the toboggan behind me. Other kids were running and flinging themselves onto their stomachs or backs to slide down the hill. One kid, in his acceleration, accidentally kicked my toboggan, and I lost control of it.
I watched helplessly as my horn and the toboggan flew down the hill without me. Eventually the horn toppled out of the toboggan and continued rolling over on itself until coming to a stop at the very bottom. I stood on the hill looking down at the huge black case in contrast to the snow and thought, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
The following year, I moved up to junior high. It still required a walk down the hill to my elementary school and then down another hill to where the junior high was located.
On that first day of 7th grade band, I found my seat at the end of a long line of chairs in the front row. I opened the small black case that I had carried in one hand down both hills. I pulled out the pieces, put them together, and warmed up blowing gently over the mouthpiece of my shiny, silver flute.
I kept my eyes forward toward the conductor and never looked back for fear of being judged by the brass players. For feeling like I had caved or, as we might say today, “sold out” and given in to the easy, the expected.
Over the next couple of years, I made my way up the chairs and even took on the piccolo. I played that flute in parades and on football fields. I started being asked to play at weddings, for formal functions, as part of the pit band for musicals, and even as a lone flautist in a Shakespearean play in college. I still loved it all as much as I did playing Hey Jude on the French horn. I still loved the feeling of all the different instruments making music together.
I’ve learned over time that I have a tendency to overcomplicate things for myself. Decisions. Goals. Workouts. Cooking. Editing photographs beyond what anyone would notice but me. Running my business with detailed spreadsheets for every aspect of it.
Sometimes I make something harder because part of me believes harder is more worthy. More ambitious.
But sometimes, a little less complicated, or, in this case, a little less bulky and easier to clean, is still just as enjoyable.
It was never about the instrument I chose being hard or easy. It was about making music.
The flute wasn’t settling. It was choosing something I could carry, day after day.
And I wouldn’t have to worry about spit buckets in my future.
How about you?
Cheers,
Carrie
The more life I live, the more I understand how precious our time is. What even a few minutes is worth. It doesn't go unnoticed that you spend some of your day here with me. Thank you for letting me be a small part of it. I hope you always leave with something meaningful.🤍☕️