Cadets

Most of the sleep I get tonight will be on this bus floor, right here.
I did 100 push-ups before we left.
But everything is so easy now... Now that I have been cheating. Somehow... M&M's are magic. I can eat a bunch and sprint for over an hour. My tuba feels like it weighs 5 pounds, and I don't get tired at all. But do you know how terrible M&M's are? Maybe I have found a good use for them, because the corps needs someone to look up to. Too many people look up to me already; in fact someone admitted to me today that they think I am the most inspirational person in the world.
No.
Fuck No.

I am not.... I'm not.


...
Its a lie if I say I am not strong. I have gotten strong from this. Its not good enough. Not for me, not for this organization. The people I march with... need something to help them. I am only allowed to help myself. And I'm ashamed of that.
I pull my weight here, that is my job. If I tell others to work harder, then I anger them, or get in the way. Maybe not... But I don't want to do it. I can't live up to the person that they want me to be.


One of our instructors here gave me a private lesson on my tuba tonight. I kept saying the word interesting to describe what we did... Because I don't know what else I can say.
Basically I would play a note and listen to it. I would try to get the greatest tone I could.
Then I would play again, but instead of listening I would feel my instrument. I would lightly put my fingers on the valve caps and try to feel the small vibrations caused be the note. After I felt that I reached my hand out to my bell to feel that ring.
The last step... Was the most interesting. I played the note, ignoring the sound, ignoring the instrument, and tried to feel the vibrations the instrument sent through me. I would then go backwards through all of this, adjusting my tone to allow myself to resonate, then listening for how the horn resonated, then paying attention to my embouchure and such to produce that tone.
The point was... to feel notes instead of just playing them. This is the method he uses to get his students to feel what they play.
...
I'm just stupid.
I was able to do it. The resonance felt like a snake entering down your throat or through your arms that would slither into your chest and sit there hissing. The thing is... if you tense the slightest bit it leaves. Thinking of something different will close that snake away from using you as a home.
So I did it, but then I just sat there. I didn't want to do it. I wanted to curl up into a ball and wither away.
But then I missed the feeling of the snake.
And I'd recreate it... But it wouldn't feel amazing. It wouldn't feel like much at all. Its just a snake the size of a butter knife; and the feeling it gives you is dull like the edge of a butter knife.


I laid down thinking...


And nothing came up



A while later I had to get up and get back to work. So I packed up the tuba and prepped myself for a 12 hour bus ride.
I'm laying down; I should be sleeping. But all I can think about is conflicting feelings of guilt for eating so many M&M's, and satisfaction for finally conquering a day of rehearsal. My head feels a little too empty right now, and for some reason I keep thinking its because I'm missing that feeling that you get when you feel yourself play with good tone. I'm feeling an empty space where that snake of resonance would be.
Meh... I'm so stupid.