The deepest community I’ve joined recently is one that is niche to the level of just some band kids, in one high school, in a corner of DeKalb county know about it. The closest thing I can relate it to is a miniature band fraternity. About a year ago some alumni that now attend FAMU and TSU came back to Southwest DeKalb for homecoming and I started hearing whispers about some “T Phi T” thing, and when I asked about it I always got nonsense answers back. 

Fast forward to the spring and one of my section mates and I are asked if we wanted to join. Of course we say yes, a process that lasts about two months commences and after some long hours scrolling through old Facebook pages and getting no responses from alumni that have joined this “T Phi T” group in the past, we finally got crossed. I realized after that the reason we had to do this research, find out nicknames, birthdays, and memorize poems was to build a sense of community. Once I got to meet some of these guys from 2012 or 2015, even though the only thing we share in common is playing the trumpet, we all had something that tied us together. There was a mutual respect, because they know what they had to do to become TPhi and they know that we were put through the same rigors to be welcomed into the group.

Now that I’m a proud member, I walk around with my T Phi T hat at every practice (I’m about to get another one embroidered for a trip we’re going on next week), I chant it whenever I get the chance, and you won’t catch me in a band picture without holding up our TPhi hand sign. 

While I do believe there are some negatives to this exclusivity, it comes from the standard that we wish to uphold. There is no trumpet player at SWD that is barred from joining, it’s just that you have to be a great player to be considered. It’s an honor to be in this group and I use it as motivation to continue my growth as a trumpet player.

I would like to start with the discussion on Ross Gay’s relationship with his football teammates and coaches. I had a childhood filled with sports and I enjoy the experiences I made, I decided to quit some sports early because even though I didn’t know it at the time, the practices to “build us up mentally” were doing more damage than good and I didn’t want to be in that setting. When I was 6 I played football and had a habit of running almost exclusively on the balls of my feet, (something I still do when I’m not wearing shoes), almost like a cat. My running style earned me the nickname “twinkle toes” that was thrown at me relentlessly. This caused me to cry almost every practice. And while I can laugh about it now, nothing about it was funny.

Two years later, when I told my dad I didn’t want to play football anymore he laughed in my face. Directly after a season where I was a starter for our 8u team that won two championships and made local television I could see why the laughter was most likely confusion, but I stood firm in my decision. The laughter turned into an argument when he realized I was serious. He thought it was because I was scared of the contact, I now realize that it was because they beat me down without the building back up part. I was put in a place of submission by my leaders and I knew that isn’t what I wanted to be apart of. 

I went through something similar in marching band, initially I was treated like any other member until they realized I had potential to be more than an above average player in the band, they realized that I could be the best. So spring last year, the guy that recruited me to the program and two others (all of them are in college), assigned me to do some of their rules and rituals, learn some history about the program, and contact others in this exclusive group of trumpet players to be added to the group and receive help that only these members get. Most of the help I got was being called “poo” and “trash”. I’m happy to be apart of this group because of the great people that I’ve met but I’m trying my best to keep the positives while taking away the negatives that tore me down, so I can lift up the next generation of trumpet players in our program.

I would like to start with pleasure. I think pleasure is the farthest off from the rest of the emotions I’m going to talk about. I think I find pleasure most often when its drug or sex related. Also when I get to lay in bed after a long day, I would describe that as a feeling of pleasure. I think that pleasure is easiest to come by because it’s just making an underwhelming situation better. When I sit down after standing for a long time I feel pleasure, if I get high because I’m bored I feel pleasure, there’s very low requirements to pleasure for me.

Joy on the other hand comes from small things I do. The times I think back on and really enjoy are long conversations with my friends where we can find fun in unconventional situations. For example, Friday, two of my friends and I got stood up at waffle house after a football game. Instead of being gloomy about it we got our food and had a great talk about life on the hood of my car. I didn’t end up going home till about 1am because we forgot how long we were out there. I also feel joy listening back to my performances and they actually sound good. I put a lot of work into the trumpet and for around the first five years of me playing I never liked how I sounded. Now during marching band I can consistently hear myself playing over 100 fellow band members and sounding good while doing it, it brings me deep joy because of how much time and work I put in. I feel like my years of effort are finally paying off.

Kindness has always been a conscience thing for me. I feel like I default to being kind towards others because that’s what I was taught so it doesn’t feel right to not be kind. I’ll always hold the door open for someone else or help them pick up papers if they dropped it or something like that. The only time my kindness has limits is when it comes at an extreme expense to me. 

I don’t have much to say about sorrow. I don’t think I’ve had enough experience with it yet. I’ve had a few deaths in my family and I’ve never cried at a funeral. The closest thing I can describe the feeling to is ending a TV show that I really enjoyed. I’ll be sad that its over but not heartbroken or anything like that. I’ve always just tried to think back on the positive memories that I’ve shared for that person. I do think that will change as I experience deaths with people closer to me though, I don’t know what I would do if one of my parents died. I’d like to not delve into that. 

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