What body memory kicked in
the first night back in band
that had me automatically flip
the hard mallets to their nearly
silent plastic ends to practice
the bells part?

I peered at the music on the stand
before me and gently tapped the silver
glockenspiel keys laid out like
a small gleaming piano keyboard,
learning which notes go where
when.

It was not a difficult part, but
it’s been a minute, as the kids say
(or used to say?), and my fumbling
hands did not hit the right notes
in the right rhythms for most
of the first practice, getting lost
in the music more than once.

Yet, standing at the back of this small
symphonic wind ensemble in a new-to-me
band room and director, I felt a frisson
tingle my spine, a sweet hit of dopamine
that I remember from long ago
as the low brass warmed up,
as the tremble of tympani opened
a familiar spot below my ribcage.

And, doing the breathing exercises
along with everyone flowing air
through their horns, I remembered
the advice of my long-ago percussion
teacher—

that we in the back of the band
making music by striking instruments
need to breathe with everyone else
so as to be on the same page,
even when a little lost,
trusting that, with practice,
I will catch up just fine.

•••

For Dr. Molly Redfield and the Folsom Lake College Symphonic Wind Ensemble
with my thanks for including me in the band,

to the music teachers who, among others, first shaped this girl drummer
a half century ago: Tom Blackburn, Tim Peterman and Stan Lunetta,

and to my cousin, Dee Dietz Hann, the first girl percussionist I knew, who
inspired me to pick up mallet instruments, as she did so very well.