I haven’t played my flute regularly for more than four years now. This is a fact that either upsets me or flits by unnoticed, like all of those other interests of mine that I let slide over the years, depending on the circumstances in which it is brought up that yes, at one point I did play regularly enough to consider myself a musician. Not a very good one, mind you, but good enough to be called on Thursday and be patted on the head Sunday for a reliably adequate job.
A few factors besides all of the usual excuses contributed to the end of my playing. The first was that I decided not to audition for the college band. This led to it generally being understood that I’d cease lessons with my teacher at the end of the summer after I graduated. The next was that I became predictably busy during the next four years of school, although again, not so much so that I couldn’t blow off the dust and drag out my old music stand once or twice a year for Easter and Christmas. And my attendance to church service anyway became limited to these occasions. Anyway, the last half reason why I decided to be all right with not playing anymore was because my aunt unceremoniously demanded the return of her professional instrument.
She’d loaned that instrument to me in high school, after I’d been playing on some other piece of crap for the last five years. I readjusted to the open holes and the extra pressure I had to apply to most of the keys thanks to rotting pads and air leaks, and just tried to tell myself I was an adequate player, if nothing else. Then during my first two or three private lessons, I let my teacher play my instrument. Her reaction to it was similar to the one I got from the doctors when I moved down here to Atlanta with that terrible affliction. What the hell?
“That’s what you’ve been practicing with?” I remember her saying, incredulous. So I got it fixed, and maybe a hundred and fifty dollars later I had an instrument that suddenly exploded with sound, which changed notes with ease, and which felt lighter, better. Happier. Mine. I loved it from then on and lost all desire to quit and ship it back to my aunt.
Of course, in the back of my mind, while I regarded the instrument as mine, I knew I’d have to give it back someday. It still came as a shock though, when my aunt demanded that I return it the moment I’d finished my last recital the August after my senior year. I’d thought that perhaps after all this time she’d let me buy it off of her, since she would never play it again, or that at least I could have held onto it a little longer. You know, in case I wanted to tinker with it some more in college. Maybe join the pep band, or something.
But no. So I shipped it back and complained bitterly to my father until he bought me a lesser-quality Gemeinhardt to shut me up.
Even still, when the new flute arrived, it looked shabby and felt shabby and played shabby (or did I play shabby? Probably this one), and I treated it as an object of contempt and refused to play it extensively. For the next four years, through college. It was with this instrument that I grudgingly went to church when they asked and played, although never with as much relish as I should have. And then I’d return the instrument to the case, silently lament that I didn’t play anymore — because those few minutes up in front of the congregation and actually making music again each time made me feel lighter, happier, more together — and then I’d push it far under the bed and forget about it until the next holiday.
I began to accept that maybe music wasn’t as important to me as I’d thought. Each time I picked up my flute it was harder to play for as long as I knew I used to, harder to make the piece sound like I remember it sounding. I’d get frustrated and sit down heavily on my bed. Vow to play some more, then forget. And accept. Well, I’d think, maybe it’s okay to retire this as a hobby if my life doesn’t provide the time or reason to pursue it anymore.
I took it with me when I moved.
I remember debating for a long moment more than once over the space of the several weeks I spent packing. Take it? Should I? Shouldn’t I?
You haven’t even played for more than eight months, I told myself as my belongings began to disappear into haphazardly stacked boxes around the edge of my room. You don’t even take lessons anymore. It’ll just take up space. That first time I left it under the bed.
A few weeks later I dismantled my bed and drove it to Georgia, where my new life was supposed to start. Objects previously forgotten under my bed but now exposed included the following: two tubs of miscellaneous shit from the dorms, papers, pens, about twelve hair ties that were thought ‘lost,’ two Cosmopolitan magazines, a brush, six double shot glasses, one shoe, one green sock, and my flute.
Once I’d sorted all the other junk into neater piles, I looked the dusty flute case, then set it against a wall in a corner behind another more important box. Should it be part of my new life? I wasn’t sure yet. After all, I’d spent the last few years deciding it wasn’t part of my life anymore. But then I packed this box and the tubs into my car and went to sleep on the remaining mattress on my floor, ready to leave bright and early the next morning.
All that was left in my room was the flute case, some stuff in the closet that I wouldn’t be taking, my mattress, and my empty desk. Clouds sat over Rockville the morning that I left, with a thin stripe of blue on the horizon. I went to the bathroom and took a last look around my bedroom. Made a snap decision. Grabbed the flute case and wedged it under my seat in the car, which was already full to the brim. Drove away.
It sat in the closet for the last six months.
Part of my life? Not really, except as a memory. But I had other things to worry about, like my failing relationship and the subsequent disintegration of the identity I thought I’d been forming all this time.
So it was forgotten for more important things. That is, until this past weekend when I stood around in the back holding a plate of firecracker bruschetta–Bruce’s own recipe–and was cajoled into going to church. Laughing, and cramming the last bite of bruschetta in my mouth, I said to Bruce,
“You know, I don’t like church very much. I only go to church when I’m asked to play. I might burst into flames or something if I go with you, it’s been so long.”
“Play?” Bruce asked. “Play what?”
“Flute,” I said, because everybody knows this about me. I tossed the greasy, empty plate into the trash and wiped my hands on my pants.
“Flute? You play the flute?” Bruce asked. He didn’t believe me.
I’d forgotten that I had decided to label the flute as something belonging to my previous life and not this one.
We talked a little more, and I related how long I’d played, and how I played every Christmas service since ninth grade, and then I left to go sit at my post in the front of the showroom. But it was as though there was a tiny spark inside of me that wouldn’t go away for the next few hours. A small voice that I tried to ignore, but finally gave into. And I listened. And started to search for some of the flute pieces that were at the top of my mind. This lead me to a Wikipedia page that outlined some of the common pieces in the flute repertory (of course, it being Wikipedia and all, this is fairly unsubstantiated and isn’t necessarily fact), and I surprised myself by knowing more than half of them (although in the end I’d only played a handful).
One of my coworkers caught me poring through a site full of sheet music available for purchase, and then another, an older woman and one of our road representatives, came up behind me, pursed her lips and said, “Well, I think it’s a wonderful thing, that you played. It’s one of those skills you should hold onto.” She left.
The annoying spark turned into something of a warm blaze. Maybe it’s okay to have this as a hobby again, I thought, to justify the $50 I charged to my card on sheet music. This contradicted my previous attitude, but those few moments in the kitchen with Bruce’s comment almost sounding…respectful of the fact that I am not just a simple receptionist but also something of a musician. This inspired something of a change of heart.
Subsequently, I spent the rest of the afternoon fingering through these pieces on the internet, or what parts of them would appear in PDFs through these websites. Snatches of melody here and there returned quickly, but I knew playing them would be a lot harder once I had music again.
That evening I went home and since it was still too early to be considered disturbing the peace with noise, I got out my flute and held it. Played some long tones. Not great, but not bad, either. After ten minutes my mouth and fingers and right arm ached so badly I had to stop, and then I cleaned the instrument and put it away.
There was still another annoying little voice that rebuked me when I thought that I might play again the next evening. Why? it said. You couldn’t even play for a solid twenty minutes and you sounded like a dying balloon. Plus the neighbors probably thought you were crap, you don’t have music, and there’s no reason to play!
Except that there is reason to play! And I will have music, and I won’t hurt as much the next day, I told myself, in my own defense. There is reason to play just for the sheer comfort it brought me, the small moment of familiarity and, I daresay, happiness, to hold that instrument again and know that the old skill I had and enjoyed was still inside of me there, buried somewhere under the surface.
And so the next night I played again. The little baby next door began to scream when I tried something by Mozart off the computer, for my sheet music had not arrived yet. This was discouraging, but at least my mouth didn’t hurt quite as much, and my fingers uncramped after a few moments of rest. This was enough to banish the discouragement and continue for another few pages, until the pain came back. But the next day I played again, and again, and remembered better and better why I had kept playing in the first place. I don’t really need more of a reason to play, except that I like it. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have a teacher to push me anymore, because I can push myself now. I’m an adult. And it doesn’t matter as much that my flute isn’t top-tier professional, because I’m not a top-tier professional and it suits me well enough for being such an amateur. So maybe it never disappeared as part of my personality, but was just waiting to reemerge. And playing flute makes me happy, right? That, to me, is what matters most, because I tried to convince myself otherwise for so long.
Of course, the cracking and out-of-tune notes, flubs, and low cursing I’m sure only adds to the baby-next-door’s discontent. But hopefully all of those things will diminish in time as I get better again, and start to feel like a real musician again, and keep remembering the happiness that music can bring.
