North Star

09 | letterman

2008

Nobody ever warned me how turning a passion into a dedication could make it feel like a chore.

It wasn't like I suddenly didn't enjoy playing the oboe anymore. Music would always be my saving grace time and time again. What felt like a sudden and unwanted change was just how draining it was now.

My love for music started at home. Dad always played it while he cooked dinner, so every night was like a party, and I rarely went without dancing with him as the kitchen filled with the smell of his aromatic cooking. Even if we had no destination in mind, driving with him was fun because we would roll the windows down and blast the radio as if inviting the entire island to dance with us. Whether we were cruising down the highway or stopped at a red light, our moves couldn't be contained, even when strangers in cars next to us gave us funny looks.

This love only grew when I learned how to play music for the first time in middle school. My family tailgated at UH football games on the weekends, and I would always show off that I could read sheet music like some special gift. I felt special. I wasn't someone else's shadow yet.

In middle school, band was something I did during my final period of the day. Occasionally, we had a recital or end-of-the-year performance that required some after-school rehearsals, but they were few and far between. While music was my life, band was just part of it.

High school band was completely different.

After-school practices were a weekly occurrence, and often multiple times a week. And they weren't just an hour anymore but two, sometimes three. The love had been removed from the equation and replaced with a problem that needed to be solved, except the answer we were striving to arrive at was perfection, so it was doomed from the start.

It had become such a love/hate relationship that I almost requested to transfer to a fashion design class just to get out of it. The only reason I hadn't was because Kaipo convinced me that I would be even more miserable if I went down that route.

Band wasn't quite like a sport. Not that I would know, exactly, since I had never been part of an organized sport. Surfing was the closest thing, but that was wholly a hobby and nothing more, and I wouldn't say I was particularly good at it either. But I imagined most team sports relied on the same understanding of interpersonal relationships, including how to operate as one group while pulling your own weight.

For a long time, I never felt like I was part of a team, even though that was the impression I got as to how our class was meant to operate. The word "family" was thrown around a lot during practice, so much so that it lost its meaning. I was one face amongst a sea of people—assigned to play a part while contributing to the overall living, breathing outcome that was the band's sound—and yet, I had never felt more alone. I imagined my overall negative experiences with high school life had something to do with it, but I couldn't help but place all of the blame on the class itself for making me feel like the singular flat note in a pitch-perfect chorus.

It wasn't their fault. I knew it wasn't. The two chairs next to me always greeted me in the morning, shared their sheet music when I repeatedly forgot mine at home or in one of my earlier classes, and said goodbye after each practice.

"Hoku?"

I looked up, not realizing everyone else had already left for the day and I was now the only one in the band room, aside from our teacher, Mr. Murray.

He stared at me—brown skin with sun spots, crinkles around the eyes, the same wrinkled aloha shirt he wore every other Friday. Everyone made fun of his receding hairline behind his back as if they would never deal with the same symptoms of old age. Mr. Murray had a strange kindness to his eyes that made me feel bad whenever he scolded us for not playing a piece correctly. His voice seemed to carry so far in that big room it only aided in making it feel like he was more of a coach than a band instructor.