Will Play for Food

Every musician is familiar with this phrase. At this new stage in my life, not only am I playing for food, but I am also worth a lot of money in tuition for food, such as:

melons and muffins

pita chips, bagels with cream cheese AND humus

and several different kinds of sandwiches,

and a few other selections that I stopped taking cell phone pictures of because I was starting to look creepy.

Too bad this is the one rare time in my life I am way too nervous to eat.

I walk into the lounge of my New England Conservatory, holding a little paper plate and a cup of seltzer water. Yes that's right, SELTZER water.

I look around the room full of new students who actually get my little quarky artist existence, and then I see the exit door. That's the door that during one night in those times ages ago (okay, like six months ago) when I was here daily in an attempt to become a future student, I opened it and set off the fire alarm during intermission of a concert. Now, the door is posted copiously with signs “Fire exit only, alarm WILL sound.”

And I smile secretly, because I feel that I have begun to make a difference.

Then later I am sitting in Jordan Hall

with other students who are chatting happily, but I am not chatting because I'm too busy trying to keep my jaw shut, and thus save the plush cushioned seats from my drool.

“You are all very talented,” the New England Conservatory president tells us. “You will be asked to prove yourselves many times, but you don’t have to prove that you are very talented because you’ve already proven that.”

Before exiting Jordan Hall, I kneel to the ground to open my backpack, feeling around frantically for the metronome that has turned itself on, but cannot find it before spilling out half the contents onto the floor, including my new student ID in which I look sort of like I got punched in my left eye.













Finally, after getting a hold of my belongings (not to mention myself), I pass by the security guard who has seen me progress from aspiring student to actual student, and give him what will become a ritual daily high five.

I go the library to listen to a recording of a piece I will play for my placement audition. When the guy (who is apparently a virtuoso classical guitarist) helps me look up the piece on the computer, I see 99 matches.

"You have 99 recordings of this one piece?"

"No, those are just the first 99."

"Duh."

Of the things I am discovering about Boston as a student shed light on it very differently than when I was just a free spirit trying to make my way in the world. Mostly just a feeling of belonging now, not just wishing I belonged.

As the days go by and I gradually begin to eat more, I feel more at peace with how flabergastingly insanely freaking awesome it is that this place is, well, MINE.

Just like that, the train is moving again, but with that comes the realization that even during the most doubtful of moments leading up to now, it never actually stopped.