You Have To Have Goals
An attempt at non-fiction
I've spent my life moving from one dream or another. When I was ten, all I wanted to do is play the saxophone. Our middle school had a band that was infamous for several counties for being the best and I was obsessed with that shiny golden instrument. The horn was much bigger than my petite hands could manage, my fingers stretching to reach the farthest of the pearl keys. The shine was mesmerizing, I could stare at the strange vision of myself that reflected from the bell, imaging what it would be like to play in front of an auditorium of expectant faces. I had borrowed my neighbors sax many times when I was younger, she had taught me scales and exactly how to make the mouthpiece sound like a duck. The sound was one of the most wonderful I had ever heard, as I finally coaxed the strange squawk from the reed. My mother sent me outside to practice, and I couldn't imagine why she didn't enjoy listening to me.
I was sure I would be picked for sax instead of the ugly flute my sister had played. She still had the long, dull silver instrument that I found next to impossible to play. There was no life to the flute in my eyes, no joy to the sound it created. Beautiful ballads could be composed for the flute, but at the age of nine I was convinced that jazz was simply impossible. The only thing that stood in my path in a menacing manner was a test they gave every year to the fifth graders, trying to see if they had the musical knowledge one would need to join the band. I was so frightened of that test, but my music teacher assured me that people rarely failed, they'd have to be tone deaf.
I was still worried, I had never been in a church choir like many of the other kids. I cheated off of the boy next to me, knowing he already played piano. When we were to say which notes were higher pitched, I watched his hand as he mentally put them on a scale, not paying attention to his obvious gestures. I left that day feeling proud, knowing that I had mastered the test, I just knew that I had gotten many of them right. They called everyone's name the next day to let them try the mouthpieces and choose their instruments. Mr. Anderson used mouthpieces to decide what instrument each child would play. If you could make a noise with the flute, you were made to play it. That was how my sister had gotten appointed to the small woodwind, there were not enough children who could make their mouth to form the O that was needed and they took everyone they could. I was prepared, having practiced with my splintered reed the night before and having tested my faked failure on my sister's old flute. Of course they didn't call my name, my entire class stood up to leave and I ran to the bathroom, trying not to let them see how red my face had already become. There were two children in my entire grade that did not make their way to the auditorium that day. Eugene didn't want to be in band, and he was moving in a month. The next year I discovered his parents had changed their minds and he was attending the same school I was. He played saxophone in the band until he quit in Seventh grade.
I never joined the band, even when I got to high school and they told me I could have private lessons with the director for only $20 a piece, which was apparently quite cheap. I stayed behind and pursued my life as a member of the color guard, which I thought would help me join a professional guard and that I would finally satisfy my dream of performing. I spent my life with different dreams, moving from dancing to gymnastics to band. Every time I heard that lessons were too expensive, that there were no good schools in the area, that I wasn't quite good enough yet to participate but maybe later. I spent a brief stint as an actress until I realized I couldn't handle the favoritism. The third time that my "arch nemesis," the only other girl interested in drama, bragged about how the director asked her what role she would prefer was too much. I knew she would get the part, and I would be stuck playing the second largest female role. Again. I decided to pursue a career backstage, and asked to be student director for the upcoming production of Stuart Little. When the cast party of A Christmas Carol came to a close, he made the announcement that the crew for Stuart Little was assembled and he was proud that Katie would be his student director. I never came back after that, not even to the plays. When he was promoted to a job at my new school, I quit the drama program once again.
That's why I couldn't decide what to do with my life. You spend 16 years as a failure, and it starts to sink in. I spent hours thinking about the things I could "make a career of" and I kept going back to artistic pursuits. I adored film and wanted to do special effects, I wanted to be a photographer. When my tenth grade English teacher told me I was a natural writer, I wanted to write short stories and poetry for the rest of my life. But I kept telling myself, find something to fall back on, something to fall back on.
When I was sixteen, I was striving to discover my calling, desperate to find the perfect career before I finished high school. I had my wild dreams, my wants to become a photographer or a psychologist but I constantly returned to the practical. English teacher, journalist, computer programmer. I was taking a break from the all the solicitations from colleges, ignoring the mail that was filling up my desk drawer. I had gone to my parent’s room to read, enjoying a moment of peace and escape. I loved to read inside their room, with its dark wood panelling and rows of books. My father is always cold, and their bed is piled with blankets, quilts, and comforters. My mother constantly complains about it, and we’re forever helping her make the bed. Yet, I loved to curl up in a pile of those blankets, and pull out my latest distraction.
I had found the small red book by accident, while looking for a biography to read for a tenth grade English assignment. I had decided against it, but when I had been desperate for new reading material in the small "materials center" I had picked it up again. It was a former paperback, bound by a printer with bright red and stamped letters on the spine, the previous dog-eared cover glued to the front. I had been amused by the bumper and license place which stretched across the cover, and the title was so trite I assumed the book would be an entertainment biography of the most stereotypical value.
But when I opened it, I discovered hundreds of pages of small print and picture inserts that I had never seen before. So I boldly walked up to the checkout desk and asked to borrow their copy of Skywalking. The library didn’t give me a second glance, she never did. I suppose the woman had seen much stranger things than a sixteen-year-old with a biography of George Lucas. It took me over a month to make it through the book, I reread passages five, sometimes six times. I was fascinated with the inside story of the production of Star Wars. I loved the tales of how Lucas went about his writing process, and bored my friends reciting all the little known facts that the story contained.
I was reading about Lucas’ retirement from directing when Star Wars was completed when I sat up suddenly, sending my mother’s favorite pillow to the floor. Suddenly I remember what I had been telling my friends for months, and heard my own voice telling me that I loved movies, and I wanted to have something to do with their creation. But it was too hard to make it in Hollywood, I’d have to have something to fall back on. I realized, after reading Lucas’ story that I didn’t care if I might not make it, I wanted to try. I knew that all I wanted in life was to make films, to sit in a dark theater full of burgundy chairs and see my creations on the screen.
So I work towards that, finally trying my damnedest to keep others from convincing me that I'm not going to make it. I continually surprise people when they ask what I want to do with my life, I usually reply that I want to win an Oscar. The way I see it, determination is half the battle to Hollywood. It is strange to go back to your small town when your mind is on the West Coast. My family supports me, but they aren't the same anymore. It seems like they view me as an outsider, they know I'm going to leave.
The worst is seeing my cousin Megan again. She is much younger than me, but I've always felt connected to her somehow, seen identical situations play out in our childhood. I've seen her fall victim to the same naysayers and problems that I always have. She has quit gymnastics lessons, taken up softball and soccer. She has been on basketball teams and wants me to teach her to draw. I consider her to be my namesake. No, my name isn’t Megan, but it is a nickname that my family has used for years. I’ve tried to watch out for her the best that I can, but I know that I am not the type to be a mother to child not her own. Her mother bought her a saxophone a month ago, and she gets weekly lessons at the local music store. She has latched on to the lessons like nothing she's ever tried. Before, she half-heartedly attended practices and I would hear few stories of how much she enjoyed what she was doing. Now, she has fallen in love with something that I can remember clearly. I envy her the opportunity she has, the chance that I wasn’t allowed. Yet, I can’t bring myself to actually be jealous, it’s a phase in my life I have moved on from, a goal I’ve tucked away for later.
When I was nine, my mother had a suncatcher with a unicorn that hung in her bedroom window. I loved the piece of painted glass, I spun it around and tilted it to make rainbows all over the room. I don’t remember if I am the one that dropped it or if the chain broke. I just remember my mothers watering eyes as she picked up the pieces and set them in the dustpan. I offered to carry the dustpan to the trash can, but instead I slipped the pieces into a box and kept them. I cleaned them up and bought a picture frame that matched the colors, and some super glue. For Christmas I gave my mother the resurrected suncatcher in its beautiful frame. The pink wood made the blue glass shine, and I was so proud of my gift. When I was fifteen, she had to put it away because she was running out of room on her dresser. She smiled and apologized, I looked one last time at my handiwork. The glue came out of the cracks in places, and the glass could no longer make rainbows on the bedspread. I couldn’t imagine what I had been thinking, why I had thought it would be the same with a little bit of glue.
I’ve tossed every dream I’ve had in our ugly yellow trashcan, only saving one. Slowly, I’m working towards that brass horn again. I ask my cousin if I can play her sax, startled at how small it has become. The weight has not changed, it is still painful to hold the horn with my thumb, the neck strap still cutting into my skin. The polished bell still holds the same warped reflection, just of a larger face this time. I can’t find the breath to play the notes correctly, but I for once I’m not stopping at the setbacks.
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