This is a jacket.
This is a varsity jacket.
This is the University Band Varsity Jacket.
It was one of our secondary skins that we sought refuge in,
during civic military festival parades.
It was the skin we wore proudly playing fanfare during
varsity matches.
It was a skin of shining hope donned when playing Christmas carols
to bedridden elderly and wide eyed kids.
It was a skin of armor, shielding from ridicule and ignorant
calls who never understood why would play around to lighted tree without any audience,
or why we are a band but don't play the radio hits.
It was a skin of comfort for the long early morning travels
and late night arrivals, as the nagging truth gnaws that while most of our schoolmates
are fast asleep, we are still pushing musical instruments and scores in utility
carts on ghostly halls.
It was a skin of accountability that kept us on call for four years and more to skip weekends and holidays in almost military fashion and discipline.
It was a skin of resilience, enduring late night rehearsals, and no-apologies mentoring from the band professor, fueling the drive to nail a musical phrase right.
It was a skin of sigh embracing us until we heard our names called onstage to receive the college diploma.
Unknown to most, for most of us it was our real skin. The
skin that cannot betray the soul, a soul that was hungry for Miles, Bartok, San
Pedro, Sousa, Bird, Trane, and more.
This is a University Band Varsity Jacket, now tattooed in my soul.
2.19.20 BMT
