building and composing

the joy is in the work

My Friday nights revolve around marching band now, so I find myself doing something I’ve never done in my nearly two decades of teaching: attending high school football games. I’m the least-sports-interested person you will ever meet and genuinely forget to look at the scoreboard. But admittedly there is something exciting and oddly comforting about the beat of marching drums held against a breeze and a glowing sunset beyond the trees of a high school stadium. I get to watch my son, in the midst of a crowd of inclusive kids, building a life beyond me. And after a decade, we have been here long enough that every dozen people or so, I see a familiar face in the crowd and wave hello. Community is such a comfort.

Last Friday night, I was at the parent volunteer table that was assigned the task of feeding band and drill team kids when they got off the field. Over a hundred of them, all hungry, waiting patiently while a few of us moved them through an assembly line, crossing names off the li…