My First Love Affair

Fifth grade was a year of changes. The most important change was this year marked my last year of elementary school.

We were the big kids on campus. We held our heads high, snickered at the crying kindergartners, scared second graders out of our way with our holier-than-thou looks, and dreamed of sixth grade and all that came with it . . . like lockers.

If you believe I was involved in any of that, you’re crazy.

Okay, well maybe I dreamed about the lockers. I was mostly concerned I’d never figure out how to open mine, but I was not the scary type. All fifty pounds of me—yes I was scrawny—couldn’t scare a spider.

All that aside, the biggest permanent life changing event happened to me in fifth grade. It was wonderful and unexpected. It was music.

Mom and Dad bought me a radio. It was plastic, cheap and the most beautiful fuchsia color I’d ever seen. It even had a tape player! I’d spend hours adjusting the long antenna, trying to find a suitable station to listen to.

Country stations were the easiest to pick up and the songs were the easiest to memorize. Yes, this girl-who-swears-off-country-music knows quite a few older songs. No, don’t ask me to sing them cause I won’t.

Every day I’d adjust the tuner, discover a new music and love it as much as I did the one before it. I tried to fall in love with a particular style, but found I fell in love with all styles. Grunge, classic rock, classical, country, Christian contemporary . . . it didn’t matter. As long as the music offered me some emotion to connect with, I liked it.

The little radio wasn’t the only way music added itself to my life that year. Mr. Beatty, the middle and high school’s band director, paid the fifth grade class a visit. He wanted to talk to those of us who might have been interested in joining the band. I was desperate to join, but also scared to death I’d be awful and wind up being made fun of.

Creativity won out over fear and I signed up. Ideas of being the world’s best clarinet player or flutist filled my head. Any notion I may not be picked to play either of those instruments didn’t exist.

And I wasn’t.

The Double French Horn was assigned to me and I was devastated. Arguing the director’s choice . . . not an option.

So I played the French Horn and I loved it. The sounds were clear, warm, soul touching. I connected with music in a way I’d never been able to before because I was creating it.

Much like my words, creation of music offered me release of built up emotions. The differences I experienced with the other kids, the poverty, the feeling like I’d never be accepted—all of them went right into my music.

I’d cart my French Horn to and from school, memorize the songs and practice, practice, practice. And I went on to play for seven years. Enjoyed many concerts, many solos even. Fear of being terrible disappeared.

My band director was always pushing me to do more, always telling me I was more. Always helping me heal in some way or another. I don’t play now, although I’d like to, but I still keep in contact with Mr. Beatty. Just last week he suggested I join a local orchestra. I laughed . . . all these years later he still believes in me.

The only difference now is I believe in me, too.