Same Four Walls. Same Nasty Carpet

The hallway leading to the Parkview band room is the kind of construction that doesn't apologize for itself. Half-polished concrete floors. Unpainted cinderblock walls. No windows. An unfinished poured concrete ceiling. Everything is the same utilitarian gray, except for the blue lockers lining the walls and the red-painted pillars flanking every door. Form follows function. It always has in this place.
I pulled open the heavy steel door, and the smell hit me before I could see that unmistakable blue industrial carpet. Instrument cases and valve oil. That particular combination that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world except inside a band room.

The room was empty and completely full at the same time. No students, but stacked chairs. Music stands. Band trophies and awards were practically stacked on top of themselves, crowding the tops of lockers, filling the walls.

I stood there alone for almost fifteen minutes, scanning the band photos lining the walls. I walked slowly through the years until I found what I was looking for. My 18-year-old self looked proud.
He had no idea what was coming.

I was here to work with the Parkview jazz band for the final time this school year. What I hadn't planned on was realizing, standing in that room alone, that it had been exactly 25 years to the day since I played my last high school jazz band rehearsal in this same room.

Same four walls. Same nasty carpet.

The director addressed the band before class started and reminded them of the serenity prayer they talked about earlier in the year. That's when it all clicked for me.

I told them, “Be okay with the things you know you can't change. But be mindful of the things you can.” I asked the lead alto, a kid who had been in that room for four years, what he noticed that was different from his first day of jazz band. He thought about it and said, "Talent level."

I told them, “I played my last high school jazz band rehearsal in this very room 25 years ago today. A lot has changed. The same four walls. The same nasty carpet. Those are things I couldn't change. New faces. More awards on the walls. Those things I can help make a change in.”

"You showing up every day and putting effort into becoming a better player makes a change not only in yourself, but in so much you didn't even realize you were having an impact on."

I thought about my band director standing at the front of a room not so different from this one, playing until he turned red in the face, giving everything he had to a bunch of kids who didn't yet understand what they were witnessing. “It doesn't matter what the performance is. You give it 100%.”
I made that alto player promise me he would come back next year after he had a year of college under his belt and work with the sax section. He agreed.

I told him, “It will still be here…Same four walls. Same nasty carpet.”