If Music be the Food of Love…

Weekly Writing Challenge:The Sound of Blogging

Today, as I sat outside the art gallery at school, I heard the most beautiful sound coming from the music department.

When I was in high school, I was in marching band through my junior year. I’d never been in marching band before and was really in it to skip dressing out for PE, which was horrendous enough in middle school. So I was put in the Pit/Percussion section, handed a pair of mallets and taught to bang out a scale or five on the bells.

I wasn’t very good at it.

Our section leader, by virtue of being the highest rank, played the Marimba. I’d never heard a Marimba before and thought it was lovely. It was like laying out in a jungle or a rainforest and hearing the rain drop down heavily on the tree trunks. It has an almost hollow sound, but rich and melodious at the same time.

My sophomore year, I fell in love with a boy in the percussion section with me. He was much more adept at the Marimba – or any other instrument handed to him – than our section leader. At rehearsal, when we had breaks, or when we were warming up before shows, he would steal over and play a little bit of something; sometimes he would play with two mallets in each hand. I listened quietly and mostly without comment, absorbing the sound in order to be able to replay it in my mind over and over.

I could distinguish his music from anyone else’s.

So today, as I sat outside the art gallery at school, and I heard the most beautiful sound coming from the music department. I knew it wasn’t him and was filled with the nostalgia of love.