All the colors in the spectrum.

My homework sounds simple: Listen to lots of music. Feel the beat.

It sounds simple but I've been having trouble feeling the beat.  I get tripped up by a comment made to me when I was fifteen.  I played tenor sax in the jazz band and I had to improvise for a tiny 4-measure-long part.  It was minute compared to what others were doing, but I was totally lost.  My lack of confidence as a fifteen-year-old was epic.  In addition, I was in this band with 20 men and one other girl.  My teacher had a known tendency toward playing favorites and I wasn't even close to being one of them.  I was skittish and one day he stopped the band right after my 'solo' and said I was too white, I had no rhythm.

I certainly don't want to get into race relations in this blog, but I do seriously want to bring this up because it was delivered as snidely as possible, and from a man who is also white.  He could have yelled gibberish in another language with his tone and it would have been just as big of an insult.  I am still very much haunted by those moments.

Sure I may be haunted, but I'm also almost twice the age of the girl in our story.  I can get past it.  With every song I listen to and every drum beat deciphered, I will molt into someone who can feel the beat.  Being white will no longer be an insult, especially if I think of it scientifically.  I will be all colors from the spectrum.  I can be green and blue and gray and brown.  I'll be scarlet and yellow and everything in between.  I believe the drums to be the most expressive of instruments, and now I'm realizing I can express all colors, all emotions, all beats.