Going downhill

"okay stop" He declares, I rest my clarinet, " I see this all the time and I wonder if it's only a U.S thing but all my students never have a hard time going up the scale, but it's always difficult going down the scale. Like you can see the top, but something about the fear of going down..."


I'm more of a leisurely person really. Severe sporting activities really isn't my thing so you understand my surprise of trying to climb what seems like the tallest hill in all of Minnesota, with no tow rope and cross country skis. While thinking too much about my hate for the hill I begin to slide backwards and tumble down yelling at Dave to help me.

So as I walk to the top I realize that there are a series of down hills after. I, for one, hate skiing downhill. It's one of my biggest fears really...who wants to barrel down a hill with two tiny poles on their feet? I guess I was always a snowboarder by heart.

Dave was in front of me and being his second time skiing in his whole entire life he just slide of he edge and went full fledged down the mountain as though to seem he wasn't even thinking about it. Although he wiped out sometimes I envied him. He reminded me of my friend Jina, really adventurous. I on the other hand, either took off my skis and walked down the hill or slide side ways until I reached the bottom.

It wasn't until the last hill we came too that I decided to just go for it. Tackle this bunny sized hill with all the adventurous bone in my body. Soon I made it down to the bottom, exhilarated.

"So have you had a chance to look over this exercise in the back" he sets down his clarinet and pushes the pages.
The back of the book..the most neglected. I arrived at lessons today with only one hour of practice time during the week trying to seem like I never once set down my book and my clarinet was glued to my fingers.

When I was younger, I had decided to join band.
All the coolest girls were playing flute. That's the instrument I wanted to play. It was so sleek and graceful and you could prance around and play it at the same time. When my neighbor and I first met our band instructor we told him we both wanted to play the flute and he handed us two flutes and asked us to blow a note into it and if we would succeed we could play the flute. We both tried and neither of us could.
"You two don't have the lips for flute....so if you want to be in band you can play the clarinet."
We both look at each other...She being black, had full lips and me, being Indian had skinny lips. Neither of us has ever seen a person with medium size lips.
"The clarinet.....is that?" my neighbor trails off as he holds what seems to our sixth grade selves as the biggest, dorkiest instruments of them all. It was dull and boring and stupid...well at least in our heads anyways.
"I'm not playing that!" she exclaims and I join her.
We leave and eventually end up getting clarinets after weighing our option of being in choir. I was in band for years, and eventually found a love/hate relationship with my clarinet after while. After high school I sold it so I could have money for a noise piercing.

"Did you even look at this at all?" he asks getting ready to play and I nod,
"No, sorry ..."
"Well, Lets play and see what happens." he says and we start a short very simple duet. Now that I'm older its really strange to play the clarinet again. I still think it's dorky but the amazing thing is that when I play, it's like there is this strange connection between my brain and fingers that talk so fast my mind doesn't even have time to analyze it. The notes and finger positions come to me without even thinking as if they have just been there all the time. It was then when it occurred to me that things you once had, you will always have it and if you have lost it you just need something to help you find it. It was a really great thought to think about. That we all still have those pure and wonderful parts of us that we think we have lost.