I won’t even try to calculate the number of weeks nor days….I’m a band director not a mathematician. Regardless, it is quite possible this year was one of the most challenging of all.
Returning after a second shoulder replacement which was being very uncooperative with regard to rehab/recovery added to the psychological stress of returning to full in person teaching. Nothing worse than conducting with one arm when on a podium on the 50 yard line.
Yet the 2021 UDMB was AMAZING! It was so good to be back in the field and so good to work with such magnificent students! Musically, visually, and all things in between in all sections of the band was a joy to be around each week. They lived for band more than ever before because they had lost it! Nothing screams success more than students who get a second chance at something they love.
Spring semester classes were also terrific. Symphonic Band grew exponentially and MBTECH was a boisterous group. Once again the students were thrilled to be back in action, and they were hungry to learn. We pushed each other and I’m honestly not sure who learned more: them or me.
As I sit on my couch enjoying an adult beverage while watching a few episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (of course that’s what I’m watching!), I can’t help but think about the seniors who are graduating this weekend. The seniors who I think of as sophomores because I never got to know them as juniors. The seniors who ATTACKED the field this past fall as if their lives depended upon it. The seniors who may have cried harder than any other senior class has at the end of their final pregame, halftime, and postgame show. The seniors who will forever have been robbed of a year of their college experience yet rose above the lose with more maturity than I did.
Dear senior class of 2022 (udmb class of 2021)—you are stronger than you know. You are wiser than you realize. You are more loving than you are aware. You will do great things even if you don’t know what they are yet. You lost a year of your life but you grew up faster than most because of that loss. You savored every moment of band this past fall because you had to make up for lost time. You raised the bar of leadership unlike any other group of students I have had the privilege of working with. You had to do that because the circumstances were unique to you!
For the rest of your lives you will bust out laughing anytime a bowl of hummus is placed upon the table before you and no one else present will understand why (Just gonna leave that there…).
I will miss you. I will miss your smiles. I will miss your presence. I hope you will visit. I hope you will say hello. I hope you will pull my ever distant self into a bear hug and not let go…or at the very least offer me a beer.
I move from one thing to the next because I do not do goodbyes. I suck at them. I’m an awkward turtle in every way when it comes to saying “goodbye.” It’s not because I don’t care. It is because I care too much. So while you’re decked out in your graduation garb and making memories with your family and friends, I will be thinking of you while working on various time sensitive items for DMA, organizing materials for next fall, and spending some much needed time with an old basset hound who wants her “mom” more than usual these days.
I move from one thing to the next because it is my defense mechanism. It is how I survive. It is not right nor is it wrong—it simply is. I recently rewatched “The West Wing” and recognized my own thoughts each time President Bartlett said “What’s next?”
So what IS next? In some ways it is the same old same old. I talk a good game about retirement yet that’s not happening…not yet at least. I have more to do at the helm of this machine called the UDMB. I have more dots to plot, more scores to learn, and more classes to teach. I have to get a new bbq so I can resume AD and Field staff bbqs because I must see the newest iteration of the Dad Squad. I have more administrators to educate…just gonna leave that there, too.
One day I will retire…but today is not that day.
Travel well my seniors. Travel well, enjoy your lives, and meet me in the parking lot for an adult beverage sometime next fall !
SARV BLOG 