Resume

“Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” -Miles Davis

A couple of weeks ago I got a unique opportunity to join my dad for a performance with his local Concert Band; a group he has been a member of for twenty-five years. Purely by happenstance I was in town and a percussion part was lacking a player. Percussion is something I did intensively in middle school and high school (I shared this in a post early last year), but something I haven’t done in fifteen years. Put another way, I have spent more time away from the instrument than I spent with the instrument in my youth.

So, there was a dash of trepidation as I entered the auditorium for the dress rehearsal the day before the concert. It was sort of the feeling I imagine one might have before a big reunion, or before seeing a childhood friend that they haven’t seen in many years. I meekly sorted through the music and cautiously set the necessary sticks and mallets on the table. But it wasn’t out of fear of making a mistake or feeling inadequate to play the part. No, it was more a reverence about who I am right now meeting who I was back then; especially since the former me had home court advantage.

What surprised me, though, was how quickly I felt comfortable. On that stage, in that setting, with those people. My body caught up a lot faster than my mind could as I resumed the standing posture I was once familiar with, diligently counting rests, preparing to execute a note (which in this piece was always a loud one). The next day when it was time to perform the concert I felt as if I’d been playing these past fifteen years without any time away.

I think it is a mistake to think we ever lose who we were. We grow up, we move, we change, we get new jobs, we enter new relationships and yes, a lot of our childhood self or our former self can become dormant and unfamiliar. Our tastes evolve, our worldviews hopefully become sharper and more informed, and of course some wrinkles or gray hairs join the fray. But these hidden, former selves are gleefully waiting in the wings to invite us to remember who we were and to resume some of those qualities or skills we’ve forgotten.

This is much more than nostalgia, which often is overly filled with sentiment and misremembers how things were in their wholeness. No, resuming means to “take back” or “take again” something that we paused a long time ago. And in asserting who we were with who we are now we can finally play out of our true fullness.

May you find new ways to resume old parts of yourself. May you never feel too old, too tired or too different to invite in the youthful vibrancy that has always belonged to you. May you never feel anxious about the collisions of all of your selves. But may you take the time to introduce them to one another again and be able to live with all of yourself.