I Love You, Tomorrow

I Love You, Tomorrow

Under the blue lights backstage, there’s not a lot to look at, it's all dark with a slight tint, besides the shadows of actors on stage through the thin curtain, ripped and repaired year after year by set pieces and hazardous costumes. Usually between scenes there is not much to do in a pit orchestra, unless Mr. Woefle is yelling. 

Mr. Woefle is a tall, skinny man with buggy eyes, thinning hair, and a chronic tan. He sits with a slouch, but conducts like a drum major in front of a marching band. Despite the busyness of our rehearsal space, filled with actors, musicians, and run crew, he was the main presence.

“Violins, if you can’t play these notes at this point, don’t even practice. You can’t do it! Just sit it out. Doing it wrong muddles the sound.”

He is definitely talking to me. I am one of only four freshmen playing this year out of a forty person orchestra, but I was also the only one of those forty who doesn’t practice. And besides that, I fell asleep in rehearsal twice this week alone. That’s the price of twelve hour school days, five days a week, one meal a day. 

“Sorry for the interruption. Let's all take it from bar 63. Jeremiah, that’s your line. ‘We shall be as besotted.’”

I would sit out this passage for the sake of the sound, but then everyone would know I was the one he was yelling at. But they probably already know. So I go on and play, as poorly as ever.

“Beverly,” I whisper, “no matter what I say, please don’t let me do pit again next year.”

Beverly is Mr. Woefle’s niece, and one of my closest friends since moving schools at the beginning of the semester. She’s thin and vaguely muscular from softball and marching band. Her hair is the same shade as her cello, and always worn in a single, long plait down her back every day. I’ve seen it down only once, when she took it out to rebraid it during rehearsal.

She considers me for a moment. “I don’t know, you can be pretty stubborn.”

Beverly doesn’t like to talk during rehearsal, she thrives in focused silence, so I don’t press on, but I want to argue. I always want to argue or cry. I cry a lot these days. People say the word is “hangry”, a mix of hungry and angry, but I prefer not to associate with hunger. 

Being hungry can be difficult for some people, but it’s easy for me. I enjoy it and what it does for me. It goes away, eventually, just to come back when you eat again. “I feel worse after I eat” is what I tell myself, but everyone has to eat eventually. I try to make that infrequent, but it always doesn’t work. Life is filled with food at every corner: vending machines, school lunch, friends sharing candy. Sometimes it’s easy to give in, and the easiest way to cope is to go cry in a practice room.

Despite the amount of crying that goes on, practice rooms are my favorite place in the school. Six-by-eight foot rooms, each painted beige and fitted with a piano, one chair, and one music stand. They’re soundproof in concept, but not in practice. They’re also the only place in a high school where you can be truly alone. So I do everything there: homework, crying, reading, eating, the occasional nap and practicing.

I said that I don’t practice but that’s not true, I practice more than I ever have in the past. I stopped going to some of my classes so that I can go to practice rooms and play instead. I play scales, then etudes, then classroom music, with pit orchestra music as my last priority. I can’t focus enough to enjoy learning anything too difficult nowadays, so I tend to avoid it.

“Do you enjoy being here?” Beverly asks. We are walking out of the band locker room, where we kept our instruments when we’re not rehearsing. It’s lined with beige instrument lockers on every wall, and a sink in the corner. The bland beigeness of the music wing can get to me when it’s empty, but when it’s bustling with musicians of every kind, it’s not so bleak.

What does “here” mean? Minnesota? No. School? No. This plane of existence? No. “Where?”

“At rehearsal,” she doesn’t look at me as she speaks, keeping her eyes ahead as we navigate the hall, careful not to pump her cello against any other instruments or people. “I like the music a lot more than anything, but it’s so hectic. And no one on stage knows their lines.”

I consider this for a moment. “I don’t know, I mean, I want to, but sometimes it’s difficult to like.” That applies to a lot of things, though. I want to love life, and music, and everything about everyone but it’s hard. It's hard to feel so angry all the time. It’s hard to enjoy anything when you don’t enjoy yourself. 

“I think you could like it.” We approach the door to the bus loop outside the school where Beverly's parents are waiting for her. The early February cold seeped through the metal and glass door, making me colder than I already was. The same sad beige paint that covers the rest of the building is peeling away from the door to reveal a navy blue. “Maybe if you just let yourself.”

Beverly bid me farewell while I sat on the scratchy carpet, designed to get mud and ice off your boots. I watch her walk away through the door, cello heavy on her back. Her instrument goes home with her every night to practice, because she loves her music more than anything.

Did I not love playing like that at one point? Why can’t I anymore? I know why.

I want to claim love for my lifestyle of hunger, but I can’t do that if I accept that I’m killing my passion. But if I can’t claim love for it, then I have to change, but I’m not ready for change. But maybe someday, maybe soon, maybe tomorrow, I can let myself live. If I get out of my own way, I can love my music again.