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Flute for Thought

This is humiliating.

I started playing the flute in the first grade, when I was about 6 or so, and I actually picked it up pretty quickly.

So much so that I just as quickly became the first person in my entire (albeit, small,) family to ever learn an instrument, at least ever since I’d been born, which sounds pretty cool, but I was a shy kid, so I didn’t play in front of my family members for a while. They were so supportive of me, but the thought of disappointing just one of them scared me more than anything else, even if that was pretty hard to do, in retrospect.

Mom would try to overhear me play sometimes through our shared wall (her bedroom was right next to mine), but I didn’t really like that. And Lily would pretend like she wasn’t sitting right outside of my bedroom door as I opened it up after a long, couple hours practice, so I formed the habit of not playing at home at all unless I knew that I was absolutely, completely by myself.

But that was still pretty often; Mom worked both days and nights ever since Dad fell out of the picture (I don’t remember him), and Lily’s older than me and did lots of afterschool activities, like track and volleyball and cheer and basketball, so she would often just catch a ride with one of her friends and come home much later than everyone else. And Paul’s way older than me, so by the time I even started playing the flute, he had already moved out of the house and attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, leaving his room behind for us to use as yet another storage space for more junk (Mom was a hoarder in denial), and it became the True Gal Pal Nation: Mom, me, and Lily.

So, to my family, the flute really just became a thing that I did at school, and I’d probably quit it in a few years anyway, and I’d get busy with different things as I got older that I’d show off more often (sports, academics, friends).

But I knew that Mr. Kibble, the lead band director for my elementary school, saw something special in me, and after a year or two, I must’ve started seeing what he and all of his assistant directors saw too, because I never really did get busy with different things as I got older (sports, academics, friends).

All through elementary school I played the flute; Mr. Kibble put me in the honors band (finally), and I took lessons as part of the curriculum at my school. I practiced everyday during school for an hour, along with practicing even more at home, regardless of if I was alone in the house or not. I enjoyed it so much that I could finally show it off, and I felt like I was the best flute player in my school, by far.

And, maybe for a little, I was right.

The living room (or what we could see of it, anyway) became my stage, and all kinds of different people (Mom, her friends, Lily, and her friends, and sometimes even Paul, too, if he was around) became my audience. I was the star, and everyone loved it (they thought it was cute). This made me like playing the flute even more, naturally.

Early baroque music, specifically Monteverdi, is what I felt most drawn to when I played alone or during school practices, but when I played in the living room, I tended to keep it lighter with well-known, easier songs that, when a child played them, got everyone going, like Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” “Take On Me” by A-ha, and the spiciest rendition of “Hot Cross Buns” that you’d probably ever heard.

The crowd always went wild for it.

Eventually, in turn, I tried this newfound trick on my two newest (and only) friends, Anita and Mary, at the beginning of the fourth grade, on the playground during recess. We all became friends because our moms were PTA members. I played songs everyday that I thought were funny, like Offenbach’s “Can Can,” and the Star Wars Theme (I’ll admit, there wasn’t much variety,) to try and make them both laugh.

I thought it was fun for them at first, but they must’ve started getting bored, because they threatened to leave one day to go play foursquare instead.

In bed that night, I thought about what I could do to solve the problem.

The following day, I tried playing them the family approved classics (Beethoven, A-ha, spicy buns, the ones that were supposed to keep the crowd rolling!) but it didn’t work. Anita yawned once or twice, and Mary was nice enough to fake her laughter, but it wasn’t that convincing, not even to a fellow fourth grader.

It was official, they had gotten bored. And they both left soon after to go play foursquare instead. Mom didn’t sacrifice much time to being a PTA member and just sort of abandoned it for paid work, so we all fell out of touch.

Our moms stayed friends on Facebook, though.

The flute never stopped being fun for me.

Middle school I played the flute, high school I played the flute, flute, flute, flute….

I had band classes everyday. I was in the marching band, the concert band, the jazz band (and flutes are, like, never really in jazz bands, so they made a part just for me because I was so determined, and also still the director’s pet, too, thanks to all the good things Mr. Kibble had told the high school ones about me), basically, if it involved playing the flute, I was probably there. And we had a pretty decent music program, so I was especially able to become one with my instrument.

I truly grew to love it, and I didn’t want it any other way. I didn’t have many friends, but I didn’t really care. I just loved what I did, just as it was, and it was all whatever, right? Well.

Mom thought my hobby was cute as a kid, but she quickly turned me away from the idea of implementing the flute into my future. At least once she realized that I had gotten to the age where that’s what I thought about the most (What the hell am I going to do with my life?).

“There’s no money there, darlin’, unless you really strike it big somehow,” Mom said to me once in my junior year.

She’s from a small town on the border of Oklahoma and Texas, so she tends to speak like she still lives there.

“Like, lucky lucky, like some talent agent was out at one of your concerts, lookin’ for a hot young flutist or somethin’, but no talent agent out here lookin’ for a hot young flutist or nothin’, ‘cuz that just don’t happen.”

I looked at her, a little puzzled, then chuckled, “Oh, so you don’t think I’m hot enough Ma?”

“You know that ain’t what I’m sayin’,” Mom didn’t think this was funny.

“I know,” I said, confused. “Where’s this ‘money,’ then, to you?”

“I dunno, like, business,” Mom had her own little Eureka moment. “You should major in business!”

Mom and I got along on most occasions, but we had very different ideas of what ‘money’ meant.

To me, the flute was the money, even if that meant I’d actually never make that much. Not physically, anyway. It’s what I enjoyed, and if that’s what it took to make me happy, then that’s what I felt like made the most sense for me to pursue as a career. Afterall, everyone’s always told me while growing up that it’s the things that make you happy in life that really matter the most.

So why not make a little money from it too, right?

Mom didn’t think like that. She did what she could to make ends meet, but she loved her material possessions. So much so that she stopped caring about how it affected the entire family’s environment and just kept buying. Buying, buying.

To her, it’s her possessions that matter the most in life, and what better way to get more possessions than to save and earn as much money as possible? That’s why she always worked both days and nights.

And somebody still had to fuel that desire to buy every single little tangible thing in the world when she was no longer able to work both days and nights. All so she could continue filling to the brim our already very average-sized house with it all; Like she’d done the whole time, which was why we needed to be concerned about money in the first place!

I ended up thinking about what Mom said, and absorbing it, and I found myself in my senior year taking more business classes instead of music classes: calculus instead of jazz, statistics instead of concert, marketing instead of marching, the like. I tried to rack up my AP credits. I applied to colleges that were further away than what I had initially anticipated wanting to do.

I had less time for the flute.

One day, right after I had finally turned 18, I got my acceptance letter from Rutgers, and with all of the credits I had planned to transfer in, it was actually affordable enough! I celebrated all my hard work paying off with Mom and even Lily (who had already moved out and attended Creighton University at that point, partly on a basketball scholarship) and Paul too, because they were all so excited to see me move somewhere bigger than Nebraska, since none of them ever did it, and I actually began preparing for my future. I’d gotten quite business savvy, told myself and others that it felt like a new beginning, but Mom still didn’t seem all that impressed.

“Look at what Anita and Mary’s moms are postin’ on Facebook, oh, they look like they got some shiny sports scholarships or somethin’,” Mom said once. “That’s how you make the real dough! Do you still talk to ‘em anymore?”

“It’s been years, Ma.”

“Why ain’t you get any scholarships?”

(Maybe because I quit what I was best at to try and support you, and you still don’t act like it’s enough) I never told her how I really felt, at least not effectively, anyway.

I finally graduated high school, spent my summer days saying goodbye to Mom, whose hoarding problem had already started spilling into my emptying room, and Lily and Paul, and I began thinking about where the flute would fall into it all, if at all.

But it wouldn’t (and it didn’t).

And the worst part of it all? I never once stopped thinking about the flute even though I’ve been tricking myself into thinking I had all these years.

I graduated from Rutgers last spring with a business degree, and I’m currently planted in the East Coast, alone.

It’s humiliating.

I listen to early baroque music through my bulky headphones.

Big Girls Don't Cry: Exploring Sexist Themes in a Woman's Life

    Merriam-Webster defines sexism as prejudice or discrimination based on sex, especially against women. I define it as the reason why I am the way that I am today.
    I sat in the front row of my 6th grade health class.
    One day, Mr. Michaels* gave us a short lesson on marriage, as if a bunch of 11 and 12-year-old kids didn’t already know what that was. He provided for everybody in class an example of what marriage looked like.
    He used me for half of it.
    While he doodled on the whiteboard a picture of us holding hands, I felt like I couldn’t sink any further down into my seat. Did Mr. Michaels, a middle aged man, really just pretend he married his 11-year-old female student? In front of her peers, nevertheless?
    It mortified me. And he made matters even worse by pointing out the fact that my cheeks turned bright red.
    “Don’t act like you wouldn’t like it,” he said with the nastiest half-smirk on his face. Like he thought he was cool for picking on me, one of his students, a literal child, like that.
    Hannah Strong, a doctoral student in musicology at Pitt, also plans on getting a certificate in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies. I recently contacted her for any valuable insight she might have regarding these topics of sexism. She shared willingly.
    “I’ve had professors hit on me during class, single me out, or even just stare at my body instead of my face while I talk,” Strong said. “It can be challenging to suss out what is a compliment and what is unusual because of gender biases.”
    Mr. Michaels had no problem singling me out. I couldn’t stand him for the rest of middle school.
    “Honestly, it’s rare not to experience sexism or unconscious gender bias,” Strong said. “I feel it in every aspect of my life.”
    As do I.
    2017 study done by the National Education Union (NEU) and UK Feminista revealed that 66 percent of female students in mixed sex lower secondary schools have experienced or witnessed the use of sexist language in school. 36 percent of those females, compared to only 15 percent of male students, say they personally have been treated differently on account of their gender.
    Mr. Michaels never embarrassed the boys in my class like that. He only embarrassed me like that because I’m a woman.
    We sat in groups of three desks for my 6th grade English class with Mrs. Johnson*.
    One day, we got different seating arrangements, so Jasper McKinley* became a part of my new group.
    I didn’t mind Jasper at first. He seemed friendly enough.
    Until he started testing his luck by touching my knees under my desk pushed right next to his against my will. This went on for multiple days, even after I told him I thought it was weird.
    “Don’t act like you don’t like it,” he said with the nastiest half-smirk on his face.
    I wonder if he learned that one from Mr. Michaels.
    The third kid in our desk triangle didn’t notice the whole time. Or maybe he just didn’t feel like saying anything about it.
    After all, Jasper McKinley never touched any of the boys in my class like that. He only touched me like that because I’m a woman.
    Another study done by NEU and UK Feminista showed that 24 percent of female students at mixed sex lower secondary schools have been subjected to unwanted physical touching of a sexual nature while at school, yet only 14 percent of students who have experienced sexual harrassment reported it to a teacher.
    As insecure as I was in the 6th grade, I worked up the courage and talked with Mrs. Johnson about how Jasper acted toward me. She switched him to a different cluster of desks.
    The NEU and UK Feminista said in their report that 27 percent of mixed sex lower secondary school teachers say they would not feel confident tackling a sexist incident if they experienced or witnessed it in school.
    I thank Mrs. Johnson now for defying that statistic and changing the seating arrangement all those years ago, but that was that.
    Jasper never got in any trouble for it.
    Although I knew in middle school what sexism meant, I overlooked it during interactions that I thought were normal at the time. I didn’t even know about all the different forms it can take.
    I started recognizing sexism on the spot when I got to high school, including all of the subtypes. I became aware of the frequent unconscious bias against my womanhood from other people in my day-to-day life.
    The Utah Woman and Leadership Project (UWLP) defines unconscious biases as stereotypes and beliefs regarding certain groups of people that individuals hold without being consciously aware.
    Nearing my 15th birthday, I wore an olive green off-shoulder top with ruffles around the edges, blue skinny jeans and brown combat boots to the annual family Christmas party.
    I did not realize I left the house that night wearing such a provocative outfit.
    No more than a second after I walked into the party, Aunt Beatrice* came up to me and asked me a question I still haven’t forgotten about.
    “Wow, you look sexy,” she said. “Do you have a hot date waiting for you outside or something?”
    No, Aunt Beatrice, I didn’t. Not at 14 years old.
    The whole rest of the family overheard Beatrice’s comment and started discussing why my adolescent body looked more feminine compared to all of the actual adults in the room.
    Except I don’t wonder why my adolescent body looked more feminine compared to all of the actual adults in the room that night anymore. I only wonder how the sexualization of a young girl could ever become one of the main topics of conversation at her own family dinner.
    The UWLP released a study in 2021 showing a super majority (over 77 percent) of the women participants strongly agreeing with the statement that people can behave in sexist ways without realizing it. Over 70 percent of women participants also strongly agreed that they had personally experienced bias because of their gender.
    My family never talked about the boys at the Christmas party like that. They only talked about me like that because I’m a woman.
    I can’t change that I’m a woman. I mean I can, technically, but I don’t.
    I like that I’m a woman.
    So how do I deal with it? How do I control it without having any control over it? How do I handle a personal issue that is simultaneously sociocultural?
    I asked Hannah Strong.
    “Awareness is key, because we can’t choose what culture we grow up in, and unconscious biases are everywhere,” Strong said. “I also have gender biases that arise from growing up in a patriarchal society.”
    I let what Strong said sit with me. I have internalized sexist biases of my own, for sure.
    So how do I better hold myself accountable?
    “I try to be firm in my presence, without overdoing it,” Strong said. “I know what I know, and I don’t need to prove it to anyone, unless I need to prove it to myself.”
    So I need more confidence.
    Not an easy solution, or a solution at all. But a solution to sexism doesn’t exist, let alone an easy one, anyway.
    “Just feeling solid and confident in my stance is the first step to handling it,” Strong said.
    I just need more confidence!
    One day I’ll be there. And one day I’ll truly be a confident woman. Until then, though, I know that I’m truly a woman nonetheless. And sometimes it does feel lonely.
    But if writing this paper and finding the right statistics and interviewing the right person taught me anything, it’s that I’m truly a woman.
    And I’m truly never alone.

Summer Time