My Golden (band) Girl

This past Saturday night my daughter and her long time school and band friend participated in Alumni week at Tiger Stadium.  I've been asking her for some number of years when she was going to do it.  She never seemed to be to interested in participating so when she told me a couple of months back that her and her friend were going to do it I was so excited for them. 

I really wanted to go and see them but it just didn't work out.  The weather and having a way in and out for me just made it impossible.  I had hoped to at least go and watch them preform but if you've never been to an LSU tailgate a lot of walking is involved to get from one area to another.  I would have had a long walk from tailgate area to the place where they practice so it wasn't something I could do alone.  My friend Karen, she is B's friends mom, made it to game after weather was better so I did get to see some pictures. 

What I was most interested in was knowing what it was like for B to be in her glory again.  Watching Tiger Band in Tiger Stadium is amazing so I can't imagine what it must be like to be out on the field again with all those people and the noise.  I figured the best way to know is to ask B to write about her experience for me.  Yeah, she could have just told me but I thought how cool to have it documented for years down the road.  It seems like yesterday when she was in High School doing amazing things with music and determined to be in Tiger Band.  Now she is 6 months away from her 30th birthday.  I feel so old :-(  Enough babbling from me.  I could go on and on because I'm so proud of my baby girl.  Here is her own words of her Saturday night  experience in Tiger Stadium again.

I can remember pretty clearly the first time I mentioned to my parents "I want to be in band." I was in 6th grade and Mom asked me the typical parental questions, "Are you sure you want to do this? You can't quit in the middle of the year. If I buy you an instrument you'll have to practice...are you going to practice?" I also remember thinking in college, "I bet Mom never imagined we'd be three flutes, three schools, and 11 years down the road still playing..." One thing I don't remember is when I decided I wanted to play in Tiger Band. It just always was. I was going to LSU and I was marching in Tiger Band. The End. 

There are thousands of words, hundreds of paragraphs, countless stories I could tell you of my band years through middle school and high school. How the majority of the time it kept me out of trouble, with a great group of people, how important my music teachers were in my life, how those friends are still with me - some far and some near - but this is about Tiger Band so we'll skip ahead.

Trying out with 30 girls for 14 spots was one of the hardest weeks of my life. I tried out with my best friend who also played flute and piccolo. I would practice parts at home in the dark in my living room so I wouldn't wake up my Mom and brother at 1am. I would try not to tear up when my friend would cry on the way home, saying she wasn't sure she wanted to go back the next morning. It was outside, Louisiana August from 8am to 10pm for an entire week. Monday through Saturday. It was grueling and plain ole HARD. The day we drove 40 minutes up to LSU just to see if we'd made the cut, knowing if we hadn't we had a long ride home, knowing if one of us made it and the other didn't we weren't sure what we'd say, do, or think....we were beyond elated. You'd think we'd have gotten into HARVARD...jumping, screaming, calling our parents. Not sure what all the excitement was about looking back, we still had two more days of tryouts for our pregame spots....THEN we had practice Tuesdays through Fridays and every Saturday morning before a home game. Memorizing a new show, music and drills, each week while taking a full time load of classes. The work wasn't over, but the fun had just begun. To that point nothing was more work or more worth it. I loved every minute of it.

Those three years playing in that band, with those 325 people, those relationships, people I'll never forget that live across the country (some across the world) - I'll never forget those moments. I was lucky to have grown up with picture taking fanatics. Not only am I blessed with many pictures my Mom took of those days, I thought it was normal to have a camera every waking moment, so I have hundreds of my own to flip through. And of course my best friend and her Mom are still showing me pictures I've never seen! Those girls were hilarious, those boys stunk (literally, even before practice ever started they already smelled horrible - it was a phenomenon really), that football team was incredible, I loved Tiger Band. I couldn't imagine the college life any other way. 

My friend and I made a pact that we wouldn't go back for the Annual Alumni Band until we were sure we didn't know anyone still in the band. There is this apprehension there, this idea that it'll never be the same. A fear that if you go back you'll just be sad because it's not the real thing. I was actually nervous that I'd hate it...such a strange feeling. But the moment we walked into the practice arena, I knew it was going to be incredible. We walked right to the same spot we always sat on Saturday morning practices. We started playing through the songs. We weren't expecting to have to actually march and play at the same time, but some how that didn't seem challenging. Like riding a bike I suppose. Of course we weren't thrilled with our skills (a little rusty) but for 9 years out the box, I think we sounded beautiful. We've always been able to match each other within seconds, something that hadn't changed. We were in tune immediately with each other, our attitude toward the band was this "well, we sound ok, its them that needs work..." HAH. Some things never change. The funny thing was - when we played Pregame, I felt the exact same way I used to. This anxiety started to build in my chest, my brain started freaking out, trying to figure out when my instrument should pop up, when to take the first step, play the first note...worried I wouldn't be able to hear because the crowd was so loud. Then it hit me...it's ok...you just get to stand here! You don't have to move like you used to! I love that I'll never loose the excitement that song brings. I told my friend how strange it should've felt standing on the field looking up at a stadium that held 92,000 people. But to me, the field felt like home. Felt like a place I had missed so long. Looking down on it like an outsider for 9 years, it was like coming back to the house you lived in as a kid. Knowing you'd be able to visit every year if you wanted to. Have this memory for as long as you wanted. I'm hooked. I don't think I'll ever miss the Alumni Band Reunion ever again. 

Its official. I'm still a BAND NERD. I love it, and I always will!!

02 in Arkansas day after Thanksgiving

Sept 29, 2012

Our girls <3

The Golden Band from Tiger Land!!

I could post a million pictures I love of them from the past in their uniforms looking so sharp.  I am not home posting this so this kept me in control!!  

Peace and Prayers for pain free days to all....Theresa

Just Breathe....

Just Breathe.......
Of all the chemical elements, oxygen is the most vital to the human body. We would survive for only minutes without oxygen. Oxygen is the life-giving, life-sustaining element. Approximately 90% of the body's energy is created by oxygen. Nearly all of the body's activities, from brain function to elimination, are regulated by oxygen. The ability to think, feel and act is derived from the energy supplied by oxygen.

I went for a massage a few days ago. My first in a long time. It wasn't for pure pleasure. I was in intense pain. Desperate for some relief, I scheduled the massage. Arriving at a new place I was shown around and treated like a Queen...all the things a woman loves. I am a terrible claustrophobic and HATE that I have to lay my face in this hole. But here we go. From the moment Megan touched me, I knew relief would come. Magic hands is what the girl has. So gifted was she that I almost fell asleep, in the beginning. Just as I was about to fall into the land of abyss she touched the area of my shoulder that was in so much pain and it literally took my breath away, LITERALLY!  So great was the pain that I couldn't breathe. I finally drew in a deep breath , it was that or pass out, and held my breath again. This was not my plan, it was almost in defense. Thinking that holding my breath would somehow ease the pain.....

And so as I lay in bed that night I begin to reflect on the massage and I begin to think about why I held my breath when she touched the painful area of my back? I also reflected on some of the more painful areas of my life and realized that I do this in my everyday life.....maybe not physically, but I do. There is a song by Mercy Me that says so beautifully how I feel sometimes, sadly most of the time.  " Breathe! Sometimes I feel it’s all that I can do. Pain so deep that I can hardly move. Just keep my eyes completely fixed on you.
Lord take hold and pull me through......so here i am, or whats left of me. Where glory meets my suffering. I'm alive. Even though a part of me has died. Please take my heart and bring it back to life. I'll fall into your arms open wide.....when the hurt and the healer collide. " I have no research to back me up here but I truly think, for many anyway, that it's just a natural instinct to hold your breath when something painful happens. When pain is inflicted I want to crawl in a hole and bury myself worlds away from the  world and the pain. Mental pain and anguish can literally make it impossible to breathe, move, let alone carry on with normal life. When one becomes consumed with emotional pain the will to go on, to breathe sometimes leaves. Where putting one foot in front of the other is next to impossible. When you go through your days in a daze...seeing but not existing. Not moving with life. I've been there, in great despair, not wanting to face another moment. Hoping for an end, "holding my breath" hoping the pain would go away.

My therapist, who has become the knot at the end of my rope has stopped me mid sentence on several occasions to say Karen, stop and take a deep breath. You're not breathing.....why? PAIN! One of my earliest childhood memories is of something so painful it can still move me to tears to this very day. There was a time in my life that I thought my pain was greater then anything anyone had ever experienced, when in fact the harsh reality is that I'm always able to look around and see others who have suffered as much or more then I. Is this a comforting fact? Not at all....but in truth I'm not the Lone Ranger of suffering. Over the years of my life I've experienced different levels of pain and thankfully the will to live has always been more powerful then the pain.

As I struggle through the current pains of life and how can I possible make it through I go back to the massage table. You see in the beginning of the massage when the pain was so great it took my breath away I asked myself, how will I make it through one hour of this? The answer? Just breathe....and that's exactly what I did. As Megan touched the tender area of my shoulder I took deep cleansing breathes until it passed, almost like labor! Hmmmm LABOR. That means perhaps that it takes effort on our part to push through the pain and eventually get past it. That's the will to live screaming out....I need air, BREATHE!! So what's my point in all this mumbo jumbo? Only the strong survive. Anybody can quite but a fighter never quits, even getting back up after being beat to the ground. I'm not a quitter....I never have been. From the moment I drew my first breath to this very day I've always been a fighter. So at moments when I feel I can't go on, I stop whatever I'm doing and I "Just Breathe"




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