Facing the Music

by Jennifer Knapp

  I’ve got a mule her name is” (Wrong note, start again.)

  —(Okay.)I’ve got a mule her name is Sa— (Oops, okay, start again.)

  I’ve got a mule her name is Sal, fifteen miles on the Erie Canal. I would sing along in my head as I played the notes on my trusty recorder.

  On and on it went until my poor parents, in hopes of maintaining their own sanity, demanded that I play no more than one hour inside the house and, if that weren’t enough, I’d have to go outside. So, outside I went. I played under the shade trees and in the boughs of the trees. I’d go to the barn and serenade the horses. I’d crawl up into the hay loft, make a hay bale my music stand and play every last song I could manage.

  Much to my father’s amusement, my talents never reached the same magical effect as the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Though my playing failed to abate the never-ending raid of oat-pilfering field mice from the barn, as far as I was concerned, I was a virtuoso.

  In those rare moments of youth, when we are oblivious to facts, logic, and our insecurities, everything is possible. Nothing is beyond our reach. I played my songs with abandon. I looked to the notes on the page, I sent my breath through my recorder, I moved my fingers, and the world came alive. There was not a dream I could conjure that wasn’t possible. Every song was an invitation to an experience that would otherwise be too far away for a little girl from Kansas. It had never occurred to me that the music that I heard might be received as noise to ­another person. It never occurred to me to judge it as good or not good. It never occurred to me that I was performing for anyone’s pleasure other than my own. Music was a part of my body, a part of my experience that allowed me a safe space to feel and express my heart. Before music, I was just another kid who cried when they didn’t get what they wanted. With music, I was becoming a person who began to see emotion as the tangible, real stuff of being.

  The feeling of freedom and escape was similar to when I found writing. Yet it seemed to assuage a burden that my writing could not. I could write until my fingers bled, but there were times when words didn’t seem sufficient. There was still more inside of me. There were emotions that failed to be fully expressed without words.

  Music seemed to give voice to what I knew in my heart but could not spell into being. I might write down words about sadness, but with the help of a minor key, I could make all the world vibrate with resonant empathy.

  It’s easy to wax poetically about it now, but, at the time, I was just a nerdy little girl who failed to have an age-expected obsession with Cabbage Patch Kids or My Little Ponies. Nope. I was enamored of a noisy hunk of plastic, that, along with my love of writing, would form the fabric of how I learned to communicate with the world.

  As with my private writings, I had grown wary of letting my need for creative expression lead me to a place of vulnerability with my stepmother. While I found ways to keep my enjoyment in writing out of her reach, it was more difficult to keep my love of music a secret. By the time most kids’ recorders were gathering dust and our music classes were no longer amusing, I was still blowing away. But, as I got older, my recorder appeared more like a child’s toy rather than a proper instrument. If I wanted to expand my musical horizons, I needed to devise a plan to step up my skills with a more grown-up instrument. Doing so would mean taking a risk and appealing to my stepmother’s own love of music.

  My stepmother was a respectable piano player herself. In the summer, she played for the children’s Vacation Bible School at the United Methodist Church in town. Some Christmasses she’d even take a break from our wars and play a few carols on the old piano she kept at her mother’s house. Maybe, if I was convincing enough, she could see that I shared a similar passion? Maybe I could give her a reason to respect me?

  I spent a season begging my parents for piano lessons. I wasn’t particularly drawn to the piano, but there were other girls who spoke of their weekly lessons and periodic adventures in something they called “recitals.” I didn’t even know what a recital was, but I wanted it so badly. I wanted to play a grown-up instrument.

  “Please,” I bargained, “let me stay after school. I’ll do whatever it takes. I promise I’ll be good! I’ll feed the dogs every night. I’ll water the horses so you guys don’t have to. I’ll mow the lawn every weekend. I’ll clean out the stalls.” I named every loathed family chore I could think of, trying to convince my folks of my sincerity.

  “The piano teacher is walking distance from my school. I’ll do more chores. I’ll dust. I’ll do the dishes every night! Please . . .!”

  Though I hoped my enthusiasm would spark my parents’ sympathies, there was little discussion about it. My campaign was short-lived, the answer came down firmly: No.

  It was risky business in my household to voice such an obvious desire for pleasure. To ask for anything that might have required an extra effort from my father and my stepmother seemed to always be met with restraint, if not outright denial. Through the years I had discovered that speaking up often came with the risk of upsetting whatever rare calm might have been. A simple request like asking to be allowed to spend a Friday night at the skating rink or to be taken to the movies had the potential to erupt into full-blown drama.

  It’s not that my sister and I were completely denied the pleasures of childhood. It was just that it usually came with a cost. There were times when my father would splurge. Joy would wash over us when he gave my sister and me a twenty-dollar bill and dropped us off at the skating rink. However, that joy would be short-lived. When we would return home, our parents would be in an all-out war. My father would be relegated to sleeping on the couch, my stepmother having locked herself away in their bedroom. My sister and I reckoned that it was our fault for having wanted to go play; it was because of us that our father was in trouble because he had given us money that would have been better spent on something more important.

  Through the tension of it all, my sister and I learned to stifle our desires for adventures away from the farm, especially those which required a little spending money. I wasn’t surprised at the denial, but I was disappointed all the same.

  My sister and I began a ritual of bartering between us. We would draw straws to see who would have the unenviable task of asking our parents for permission for an activity. Only one of us could be crowned the loser. The winner was the one who pushed the other forward to be the lamb to the slaughter. I found the whole exercise to be an excruciating ritual of disappointment. I never wanted to be the one who returned with the report that I had failed.

  The whole exercise was fraught with danger. Get a yes and there was potential for family turmoil. Get a no, and live out the reality of feeling isolated and unsupported. The only thing that seemed to help us handle the disappointment is that we shared the journey together. If we had success, we were equal beneficiaries. And, when we failed, at least we could entertain each other.

  For so many years, my sister and I relied on our unified front. In a way, we were a single identity in our family unit. “The girls,” we were often called. One body. One space. What was good for one often seemed to be good for us collectively. We were, after all, twins. But, as we grew, our individual personalities and interests each began to take their own shape.

  I had already found a way to explore my own identity with writing and now, my interest in music was one that seemed to be my own as well. I found that I couldn’t rely on my sister to speak for me in my desire for learning music. It seemed that it was unique to me.

  By the time we were in the fourth grade, my sister and I were being allowed to spend entire summers living with Mom. Three whole months to release the cares and stresses of life back home. A place where we felt free to be our true selves. With Mom, we were encouraged to dream. We could ask for anything without worry of upsetting the applecart. We didn’t always get what we hoped for, but there she was always inspiring us to see all of life’s possibilities. I felt safe enough to tell her
all about how I wanted piano lessons, knowing that even if it wasn’t something she could afford, at the very least I would be heard. I could count on her to listen, to feel and appreciate what I was longing for.

  One summer, she found a way. For the few short weeks that we were together, Mom managed to set enough money aside so that both my sister and I could take piano lessons. My sister seemed to like it enough, but I was beside myself.

  After a few short lessons I began learning to read chords and play more complex music than I had ever imagined. To my delight, I ended the summer with an ability to pound my way through recognizable works from Chopin and Beethoven. I relished that I had my very own books filled with all manner of songs, each that I now had the skill to dance into life.

  It was a life-changing gift. No matter what happened now, I knew that I would always have music. I couldn’t unlearn it. As much as I knew how to read and to write to express myself, music had expanded how I experienced the world around me.

  Back home, with my father, us girls had been moved from our country school to a school in town. For the first time ever, my sister and I would find ourselves separated during the day. Up until then, we had always been in the same classroom. Things were different in town. There were several classrooms for each grade, so we were assigned different teachers. As a result, we became more individual. She built a world with the friends in her class and I built one with mine. In doing so, we began to form a divide in our personal interests.

  My identity with music was becoming decidedly my very own, and my new school had a lot of possibilities by which to explore it.

  Unlike my country school, my new school had a dedicated music room. Rather than the echoic, cold, and uncomfortable gymnasium, my new music room had carpet and permanent, tiered risers. The walls were decorated with posters of wildly gesticulating conductors and cartoons of composers like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. I didn’t even know who any of these people were, but it didn’t matter. They were music and the entire room was dedicated to them. No more duct-taped staves on the gym floor. Now, we had a blackboard painted with imperishable staff paper. And there were instruments, too! So many instruments, just lying around. There was a guitar and lots of percussion, like wood blocks, claves, and tambourines. I was in hog heaven! I was so ready to leave behind the childish lessons delivered by a stuffed toy frog. I wanted more, and everything about this room made my dreaming seem possible.

  However, it was the music that happened after school hours that really stirred my lust. Every day of fourth grade, while I waited in line to board the bus back out to the country, I watched as what seemed every fifth grader from my school commandeered the auditorium. I watched, green with envy, as they unpacked extravagant instruments like saxophones, trumpets, snare drums, and flutes. All the noises of their bustling and tuning in preparation of a coming Sousa march had me aching with desire. Without question, I wanted in on the action. I couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful than being able to have a saxophone all to myself. I still had my plastic recorder to go home to, but this . . . this was sexy!

  It was all I could to do imagine how I was going to survive a whole year until I was old enough to be a part of the fun. If piano lessons were out, asking my parents to buy me an expensive ­instrument and make a way for me to stay after school was going to be a challenge of epic proportions. I couldn’t be afraid of no. I had to find a way to press on.

  FIFTH GRADE AND sixth grade blew by and, with them, what appeared to my dream of joining the band. My parents couldn’t get out of work to drive me home after band, so I had to be on that school bus every day. Through every Christmas that approached, I would plead my case for the season, hoping, at last, that my joy would be found under the tree—to no avail. I did my best to behave. I paid more than the average attention to my grades. Everything I did, I did with the motivation of pleasing my parents so that they would have no choice but to reward me. Undaunted and still yearning, I continued to keep my hopes alive. Soon, I would be entering junior high, where band was a class that I could take during school hours. It no longer required staying after school. It meant that I didn’t have to worry about whether my parents had to make any changes in their work routines; all I needed now was the horn.

  I had always imagined myself playing saxophone. It seemed similar to my much beloved alto recorder, only much more curvaceous and seductive. I did all the research, constantly pricing just how much it would cost, and mapping a barter system for the household chores, so that I could show I was willing to earn it. My parents seemed to be softening a bit.

  “I played clarinet in high school,” my stepmother confessed. “Such a honky thing. There’s no way you’re bringing that screechy instrument into this house. You’ll drive me crazy.”

  “Okay. Okay? Not saxophone then,” I conceded. “Maybe something else then? Anything . . . I’ll play anything. I just want to join the band.”

  “If you do this, it’s got to be something we can afford. We can’t afford all the broken reeds and what-nots.”

  Was this a light at the end of the tunnel?

  Christmas that year came and went, but by spring the word came down. The words I had longed to hear for years.

  “There’s a program for private lessons through the city parks and recreation department this summer. Maybe it would be a good way for you to catch up with the other kids,” my stepmother finally offered.

  “Yes! Yes!” I thought to myself. I couldn’t believe it. But the rush of satisfaction quickly came to a halt when I realized that I was facing an agonizing decision.

  Summer was the time that I spent with my mother. As it stood, we scarcely had enough time together. One factor that had led to an extended visit was that she had moved farther away from my hometown, making it difficult to keep up what was once our bimonthly schedule. We compromised with fewer visits during the school year by spending entire summer breaks with her. It wasn’t lost on me what a predicament I was in.

  I tried to maneuver without loss. “Maybe I could practice while I’m at Mom’s?” I hoped aloud.

  As usual, my options came down with limited discussion. “You want to play; you have to stay here for the summer. It’s an option for both you girls if you want it,” she expanded. “We can go down to the music shop and pick out an instrument that we can afford, but it has to stay here.”

  There it was. I was twelve years old, facing what would ultimately be a life-changing decision. Which sacrifice would I choose? That of losing the summer spent with my mother, or never getting to play?

  Before I committed, I consulted with my sister.

  She didn’t seem flummoxed by options. There would be no drawing of straws to see which way we went together. I tried to convince her to join me, but music didn’t seem to have the hold on her that it did on me. Her choice was going to Mom’s. Whatever decision I made, it was going to be a choice I made on my own.

  It would be the crossroads that would ultimately alter both our lives. Never before had we experienced being apart for more than the hours when we were at school in separate classrooms. We were developing our own identities, each with individual and unique desires. My imagination was captured with the call of music in a way in which she did not share. Faced with the opportunity to realize my dream, the idea of deciding against it seemed a choice against myself.

  I knew what I wanted, apart from anyone else’s influence. I wanted music. I chose to stay and she chose to go. I didn’t know it then, but those days before the summer came would be the last we would share under the same roof.

  I WILL NEVER forget the day that my stepmother took me down to our town’s only music store to buy my first horn. It was memorable in so many ways.

  I was filled with excitement and unease in equal parts. Strained as my stepmother’s and my relationship was, we had little practice in how to share such a personal moment together. So fierce had words been between us at tim
es, that I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of caution. I wondered if I could trust her to know just how momentous this occasion was for me. I had dreamed about this day, but had never imagined that it would be she that walked me through it. I had always pictured my father taking me to the shop, having squirreled away his pennies, to help me in my endeavor. All that faded as soon as I walked into the store.

  I had no idea what I was going to choose. It was already made clear that a saxophone was off the table, so what then? A flute? I picked one up and tried to play it, but it seemed awkward and too girly. Clarinet was on par with the sax, so no-go there. Drums? I didn’t even bother. I wanted to make music; I didn’t care about the beat. All that was left was the brass.

  The trombone seemed pretty cool, alien with its slurry slide and it was as long as I was. The shopkeeper handed it over, gave me a few pointers in how to approach the imposing beast and I blew . . . Phffflurrrrgh . . . What came out was a noise akin to a dying calf. Hardly inspiring.

  I began to sweat a little. There was a moment where I wondered if I wasn’t made for this. How ridiculous would it be to have spent all those years pining and then have it turn out that I actually had no talent for it whatsoever?

  “Maybe the trumpet?” the shopkeeper offered sheepishly.

  He pulled the thing down from the display wall, cleaned off the mouthpiece, and handed it to me. Solid and heavy in my hands, it didn’t exactly feel like the romance of music that lived in my head. Still, I had to try.

  As directed, I put the cold, metal mouthpiece to my pursed lips and buzzed. To my amazement, what came out the other end was immediately recognizable. The noise I made actually sounded like the real thing. I pushed at the piston valves, making out differing notes.