Memory

The human brain is amazing. It accesses memories from the deepest areas of your past and brings it right back up when you need them. For instance, I thought I had seen Jurassic Park before, but was unsure as to which one I had seen. Turns out, I had not only seen the first one before, as the movie progressed I found myself predicting the progression of the movie... and this is a film I hadn't seen in over 12 years.

Another memory that recently surfaced was my first year in college... I was taking both University Choir and Concert Choir (the original conductor was on sabbatical so his replacement combined Madrigals and Chamber)... and one day she didn't show up. She had left instructions... for a friend and me to lead and conduct for the day. At the time, I considered it a tremendous honor; after all, I was the youngest member of a group that not only included my peers, but people I thought to be on a completely different (superior) level. Now that I think about it, I imagined some of these people were pissed. Who the heck put this little girl in charge of us, what the hell can she do? We are prideful creatures.

If that teacher put me up to help lead a group of people with significantly more experience than myself, I haven't lived to my potential. If she thought I was good enough to conduct a choir at that time, then golly, what have I been doing with my life? I remember nervousness, I remember it going better than I expected, but not much else. But now that I think about it, this may have been one of the incidences that fueled enough discontent to end up with that wonderful teacher not receiving tenure.