WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN [Excuses]

Oops, sorry readers. It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to write a post about what’s going on, but I have good reasoning. And I’ve got a million and seven ideas for blog posts, I just haven’t had time to write them down. Either that, or my creativity feels like it’s dwindling down from all of the other things I’ve been doing – no matter how I should try to spin it, what it really boils down to is excuses.

So I’m just going to give you a post about what I’ve actually been up to the past two weeks – trust me, it’s actually pretty cool. I went on a ten-day vacation, essentially. I’ve dubbed it as my ‘ten day midwestern tour’, because I kind of accidentally went everywhere in just a few days.

The tour started in the cities – as most of my adventures seem to this summer – with a Minnesota Brass rehearsal on a Wednesday evening. (Oh yeah, did I tell you I’m marching this summer?) I felt like the rehearsal was mostly frustrating for me, but the full run was much better for myself, and I reaffirmed some things that I had been a bit shaky on. I left the practice late that night with plans to work on the show Thursday, which I did with another member for a few hours, and then again by myself while waiting for my bus. The other interesting thing that Thursday was my run in Eagan, MN. If you’ve been following me for awhile, you know that I’ve been taken in with this running craze that is apparently sweeping the nation. My next half marathon is in less than a month from now, so of course, I spent the afternoon training for it. That meant a seven-ish mile run in hot, dry, suburbia. Not exactly ideal.

Around 10pm, it was finally time to start the real journey, the trip to Holland, MI via Chicago. The bus for Chicago left around midnight on Thursday, and I got into the city early on Friday morning. I grabbed breakfast at Target, changed into more ‘real people’ clothes, and got straight to work in the Radio Department at 9am. Reader, I can’t even begin to tell you how great it felt to be back at school. If I was excited to move back before, the desire to return to the city became unbearable after this weekend. I got to chat with people I hope to work with all school year on special projects, be back in the chairs I’ve accomplished things I never thought of before, and in the environment that’s already shaped me into the person I am today. That, coupled with spending the entire weekend with two of my best friends/roommates has made the wait almost impossible. Walking around the city on Monday afternoon with them just made the struggle that much more real; I was back in the area I live with two of the people I live with. How could I not have found myself wishing for September first to just be here already? After we parted our separate ways, I spent some more time with my friends in the Radio Department, then boarded the bus back to Minnesota at 9:45pm. It was an early morning wake, a drive back north that included lots of coffee, and frantically getting home, starting laundry, running, and packing for the next adventure: The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with three of my best friends from high school.

I’ve been the the BWCAW plenty of times growing up, but this time, it was completely different. I wasn’t going by what my parents did or relying on them for entertainment or a meal or even hanging the food pack in the tree. It was all up to us four teenagers. We were responsible for everything that happened in the woods over that week, and it was probably one of the highlights of my summer (wow, I’ve had a lot of highlights.) Not only did I get to spend it with three great people, but I got to leave everything that goes on in the real world behind for four days. It was different than leaving the real world for drum corps world, because in drum corps world, you still have the internet and answering emails and calls and texts and questions. In the BWCAW, there’s no electricity. There’s no cell service. The only thing you really have to worry about is where you’re going, the weather, and making sure you keep the critters and bears out of your campsite. And it’s fantastic.

Another trip home, and a quick turn around – this time, to get back to the cities for a show/rehearsal weekend with Minnesota Brass. Another highlight – I got to perform in my first show in what seems like forever on that Saturday night. I forgot how much adrenaline you get after a good show, but I’ve never experienced one after only going to four rehearsals. It was so satisfying to be able to keep up with most of the drill and work as everyone else, and although I still have a lot to fix and get better at, I know I’m at a good place to keep pushing through. After the show, around 10pm, I started the final trek home, and this one proved to be the longest. I finally pulled in to my driveway around 3:30am, and was asleep within an hour.

So, yeah. It’s been a bit busy. Between the “10-Day-Tour”, I’ve also been working with Greenway High School’s color guard this week, finishing up my internship, and continuing to make the Grand Rapids High School color guard better and better for their upcoming competition season – and it’s shaping up nicely. Teaching color guard is a joy all on its own, and I’ll definitely talk more about it later, but for now… I need to get to sleep. (And by sleep I mean keep binge watching really old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.) Until next time, readers. Stay with us.

Regaining that Love

I love a lot of things. I love running and biking and spending time exercising. I love color guard – twirling, writing, spinning, performing, teaching – everything about it. I love radio and talking about variety shows and the type of people who like the same medium. I love music; shopping for records, buying records, finding new artists, talking to artists, and enjoying quality jams.

Amidst all those things, sometimes I forget how much I love each and every one of them. I forget the joy and rush I get from every single one.

This past week or so, I’ve been extremely lucky that I’ve been able to remind myself of how much joy it brings me for all of them. I got to teach twirly twirly flag band to an awesome group of high schoolers, and I got to get better myself by spending the weekend with Minnesota Brass Drum & Bugle Corps. I’ve been able to spend my afternoons doing radio and learning just a little bit more about the medium I love. Jack White’s Lazaretto came in the mail on vinyl, and last night I got to spend some quality time learning about all of the tricks and treats on it. I’ve been on a run or a bike ride or some type of exercise every day, as per usual, but it’s been more pleasant this week than it has been recently (darn you, summer humidity.)

The two moments that I realized just how much I love the things are the Saturday evening after my first real rehearsal with Minnesota Brass. I climbed into my car, a bit more sore than when I started the day, and a lot more sun-kissed, and I almost started to cry. It felt so, so good to have a show that I knew I’d get to perform within the next couple weeks, and it was amazing to have the experience of learning a ton of things in such a short amount of time. Stressful, yeah, but it was still wonderful. The best feeling I’ve had all summer.

The second? Messing with Jack White’s Lazaretto last night. There’s just so many cool things about that record that just makes me want to listen to it and play with it forever and ever. Being able to listen to records is something I haven’t had near enough time to do this summer, but every opportunity I’ve had has been such a wonderful thing I’m so happy I’ve had the chance to do. And tomorrow, I host a three hour music show, and I’m planning on spinning a bunch of my favorite vinyl for the first time ever on the air.

Besides that, I’m just really excited about all the stuff coming up. I get to go back to Chicago in a week, I get to see my room mates soon, and I get to go to the Boundary Waters with three of my best friends from high school. Scattered around that, some Minnesota Brass rehearsals and a trip out to Rochester, NY, then it’s back to school! It’s going to be a great month… and it’s going to be fast. Here we go!

(Old) Assignment: New School, New Town… New Identity?

I’m going to be posting something later this week that references this briefly, so I thought I’d give you a little something to read tonight as you prepare for another week of life, blogging, and reading. So stay tuned. (PS – it has to do with a pretty big goal I accomplished this weekend. I bet you can guess what it is.)

 

“Who are you?” It’s a question you heard a lot when you move to a different place. Especially for college. One of the big transitions in starting college I hadn’t thought about has been leaving behind not only people and belongings, but memories and places, even old identities. Last year if you asked me what my favorite place was, my answer would have been Irondale High School in New Brighton, MN. But now that I am going to school here in Chicago, I want to focus on the present and the future. I mean, college is all about figuring out who you are and what you can do away from home, right? With that, my favorite place in Chicago is the Lakefront Trail. Choosing the trail as my favorite place, I can not help but wonder, have I changed as a person already?

Not only is the Lakefront Trail outdoors and immersed in the nature of Chicago, but it is a place for Chicago natives, tourists, and people who have just moved to the city to walk, bike, run, sit and enjoy the scenery – really, anything. It runs for eighteen miles along the shores of Lake Michigan, connecting the South side of Chicago with the North side.  

The Lakefront Trail is a place I try to get to every day, even if it is only for a little while. Being from northern Minnesota, during autumn I am used to driving up good ‘ol Highway 38 to see the brilliant reds, oranges, yellows, and spots of green on the trees. Since I am not in Northern Minnesota anymore and it is still clear over 50 degrees every day, I find myself running on that trail, hoping to find a hint of yellow or maybe a dash of orange.

I feel most at home when I am doing something that I can do back in Grand Rapids. If this was still last year, I would be working towards my goal of marching with Spirit of Atlanta. Now that I know what it takes, I know what I need to do in order to continue doing what I love with a group I adore. The Lakefront Trail helps me continue to work towards my goal to keep marching with them. It is almost like being at home – just to have those thoughts interrupted again by that gorgeous Chicago skyline.

The problem with constantly being reminded of where you came from is you keep wanting to travel back in time. In this moment, I want to be back in my high school band room spinning, or out on the field with my Spirit family, and in the CD Library at KAXE (local radio station in Grand Rapids) listening to the new music that just came in. But I know deep down that if I was there, I would not want to be anywhere but here in Chicago, learning and perfecting my art; my professional love, as I like to call it.

The Lakefront Trail gives me a little bit of all those things – I have the Chicago skyline to constantly remind me I am living in this city, the paved road to run on and prepare for another summer with Spirit, and I have the trees, grass, and lake to remind me of my Northern Minnesota roots. Add in the radio or a drum corps show playing on my phone, and it is the closest that I can get to home.

This makes me think, since I feel so at home on the trail, running, what does that make me, exactly? Since I have moved here, people have told me “Geez, Erika, you’re too athletic,” or “Man, why do you run so much?” and even “I could never run as much as you do.” All of these take my by so much surprise – nobody has ever called me “athletic” or defined me as “a runner” in my whole life. That is, until I moved here.

Trying to answer the question of my “athleticism” makes me think back to two or so years ago, when I first started becoming a regular at the YMCA. I remember I had chicken Alfred pasta, (I want to say it was early January) and decided “I’m going to the gym tomorrow because Alfred sauce is not the best thing to be eating.” I did my first triathlon the following February – The Couch Potato. Basically, you had to swim a mile, bike twenty miles, and run a 10k within the span of twenty-eight days. I completed it with four days to spare. I ran my first 5k with my mom in March, and by the end of the normal people outdoor running season in 2012, I completed six 5ks, with my time below a half hour by the time the last one rolled around (something I had never thought I would actually acheive.) By April 2012, I decided that all this ‘getting in shape’ business was not going to be for just the sake of getting in shape – I decided to start training to march DCI

But when did I become defined as an “athlete” exactly? When I finished my first 5k? After the Couch Potato Triathlon? Or was it once I had been working out for a year? Maybe after DCI? I still do not think of myself as an athlete – I think of myself as a person who likes to listen to music and public radio. I also happen to spin flags and rifles and sabres, and downhill ski. And I guess I get out on a running trail or into a gym on an almost daily basis.

I guess when you think of college, you think more of the emotional and physical transitions. One thing I did not expect when moving to Chicago was that my identity might be altered. Now that I am here, figuring out  what I can bring to the world exactly, I embrace everything I can. I guess I still am not very sure who I am quite yet, let it be a public radio fanatic or a person who trains for half-marathons. Maybe I can be both – but I feel like maybe I could even be so much more. The only thing I can think of to end this essay would be what I have been telling people who ask me about the future: “I guess we’ll just have to see.”

Assignment: Ticket To A New Life

Trying to pinpoint a specific time that something blew your mind is tricky. Picking an event or activity or simply just a thing that blew your mind is easier. Figuring out the specificities – that’s where it gets tricky. Recently, my Writing and Rhetoric II class had a workshop on brainstorming topics to write about. We all learned that we may have more stories to share than we think we do, and for me, it was no different. The first question we had to answer was ‘Think of a time where your mind was blown. A time your whole world changed.’ The first instance that came to my mind was November 30^th, 2012. My first real drum corps experience.

I was seventeen years old. A Senior in high school. I was also working both a part-time job and an internship. Based out of small-town-Nothern Minnesota. Not too many life experiences under my belt. But all of that was about to change. I had been dreaming of that weekend for almost two years, in fact, I still dream of it to this day. That weekend was my audition to march with Spirit of Atlanta’s color guard – a World Class Drum and Bugle Corps. I drove myself down to Eagan, Minnesota (a four hour trip.) Duffel bag and rifle in the trunk, backpack by my side, and a fully charged iPod. The alarm went off on Friday, November 30^th, 2012 at 3:30am. I landed in Atlanta, Georgia around 10:30 that morning. After getting lost in the outskirts of the city with a friend that goes to school there for the majority of the day, I got back to the airport and boarded the shuttle to camp.

That weekend flew by – full of the spinning of flags, throwing of guns, and my best attempts at dancing gracefully. I got back to my small town on a Tuesday night with my mind anywhere but the math test I had to make up that week. All I could think about was the people I met; how driven and focused they are. How passionate they are about something that they realize they’re probably never going to be able to do once the drum corps experience is over.

Drum corps is like the olympics of marching band, except it happens every year for most people. You go through an audition process throughout the winter, and then, if the corps likes what they see, you get a contract. Then you fundraise to pay tour fees, and move in usually around mid-late May. Spring training lasts for about four weeks, and then you tour around the country for about two months. During Spring Training (commonly known as “all-days”,) you learn the show. This is a time that people learn a lot about themselves and their limits, being outside and physically active for sixteen-plus hours a day does that. Tour is like all days, just the scenery is different, and sometimes the days a little bit shorter.

The whole drum corps experience has been a mind-blowing and life-changing experience for me. Not only have I learned about myself and one of my favorite art forms, but I’ve learned a lot about people. Living with about 175 other people for three months in strange conditions really helps you appreciate the small things – like a sunset on the way to a show, or a gym that doesn’t smell like dirty feet.

Drum corps has taught me more than I can even put into words. One of the things I’ve learned is how important it is to keep in touch with those that you’re not sure if you’ll see again, and seizing the opportunities you do get to catch up. I got to spend the turn from 2013 to 2014 with my “drum corps family.” It was kind of crazy to think about how much had changed in just over a year. Not only had I pursued both of my dreams, but I was spending New Years in a house full of people who support me, no matter if it has to do with this weird activity we all love, or my professional goals. What’s still mind-blowing is that it only took one plane ticket to change my life.