I try to sleep and find my legs wound and ready to spring. “Release” I tell them. One reminder doesn’t work anymore. Again and again I coax them to let go their useless grip, bit by bit. Since when do I collect anxiety in my thighs, my knees, my buttocks and calves?

I exhale aching sadness from the large muscular triangle of my upper back, both a storehouse and a fortress. My face contorts as if to cry, but the pain is too old and dry to make tears. My eye sockets fill with sand. My arms hang heavy at my sides.

Adrenaline has a harder grip as well. Caught on the edge of the meadow, my chest pounds, arms rattle against my rib cage.

“Still– be still” I repeat.

But long after the explanation, the precaution, the response, someone shakes me by the sternum and pounds me from the inside out.

I hear the stereo send blue ragtime piano keys to blunt the pounding in my temples and unwind my forehead. When the theme repeats it strokes my shoulders and reminds me:

“Exhale.”

Maybe it’s living alone, or feeling more vulnerable for any of the many reasons of this time in life. Maybe I just notice more, as I patrol against the wasted effort and the worthless stress. Remember when I used to cherish the illusion that stressful jolts and muscular efforts were exciting and powerful? They made me feel effective and alive. Now the throbbing in my chest, the knots in my stomach and shoulders, the pulse in my arms just make me feel old–older than any wrinkle or hotflash.

My skin and muscles miss a warm hand that would unlock them at the end of the day. Surely my nights are poorer without a body larger and warmer than mine to wrap around me as I sleep. I don’t yet crave love, but I do crave touch.

“Sax isn’t on the list. What? It’s not offered at my school?” The teacher tells me that students from my school can apply to go to Nichols Junior High for lessons on instruments we don’t offer here. But not girls; girls don’t play the saxophone.

“Oh.”

This is so unfair. I want to shout and tell them this is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of—just like my Father says about most things. My parents roll their eyes and tell me to choose another instrument.

“You can’t get to Nichols for lessons, anyway.”

OK. My second choice is bassoon. The Bassoon is also very beautiful and very exotic (“exotic” is big—I am not going to play the violin like everyone else.) Bassoon is so exotic that nobody else even knows what it is. Well not kids; not even my teacher. That’s what makes it so right. I know it’s the long, skinny wooden tube you blow through a reed.

There’s the fatal flaw of the bassoon. I’m not allowed to play anything that goes in my mouth, because of my teeth! Ethel next door—my favorite babysitter—has worn braces for four years apparently because she plays the clarinet. It pushes her teeth out while the dentist is trying to push them in. I’m not so sure I believe that’s why she’s had braces for so long. And my teeth need to be pushed out. But as usual, there’s no arguing with my Mother’s edict.

“How about flute? “

“No—nothing in the mouth.”

“But the flute doesn’t go in the mouth. It just leans against the lip.”

Facts are no match for my Mother’s pronouncements. I’ve run into this before. You can’t predict things with her and you can’t make sense of them. It drives my Dad crazy, too.

OK, I’m studying the list. I have to have an answer by next week. Exotic and beautiful.

“I’m thinking about the cello?”

They seem to like this. They discuss how expensive cellos are—in case they need to buy one in a couple of years. But we all agree the cello is very beautiful and doesn’t go in the mouth.

I’m barely taller than my half-sized cello. School lessons and orchestra begin in a week. It’s not so heavy, really, but it’s kind of hard to carry, especially since I live at the end of the school boundary. I walk it a mile to school and then back again. When the wind blows a lot I have to stop walking and throw my weight over the top to hold it down.

Mrs. G, our conductor and teacher, is supposed to be mean. She is very tall—I’ve never seen such a tall strong woman. She wears old lady shoes that tie and nylon dresses with belts and little prints. Her gray hair is swept around into swirls and held together with combs. She’s always nice to me; she laughs at my jokes.

Mrs. G’s main instrument is the trumpet. A woman who plays the trumpet! I announce this important information at dinner. I’m sure girls can play the saxophone! But it’s too late now. I need to reaffix my loyalties to the cello.

Mrs. G gets really angry during orchestra when the boys haven’t practiced and they won’t shut up. Our trumpet players are the wild boys. She waves her stick at them. When they jump up, she chases them around the section and out the door and down the hall.

Harold Hwang is our brilliant first violinist who shows off all the time because the rest of us bore him to death squeaking and blatting away. When he plays it really sounds like somthing, so he gets all the solos. All together, the orchestra has that slow sour school wheeze.

Getting the cello to school becomes harder when the snow starts. Robin’s mom drives her bass to school. A VW bug can’t hold a girl and a bass, so Robin still walks. My Mom doesn’t drive, though. I try to make it to the middle of each block before I set the cello down and change hands. As I get close to school though, I have to change hands a couple of times a block, so when I get to school the canvas case is soaking wet.

Of course, with the cello, I don’t walk on the snow piles that line Dodge. But it’s harder to avoid the ice balls that fly across the street. Once we cross Oakton, I can barely walk with the cello. It’s crowded and pushy and the top of the ice layer is wet and slick. It’s so crowded, I have to hug the cello to me, so I can’t keep kids from sliding into it. But it’s a good shield.

One day the cello takes a critical ice-ball hit to the bridge. I’m terrified during the wait for orchestra, but fortunately, Mrs. G can get the bridge back in. My parents don’t even have to know about this near disaster.

When I start sixth grade at the new junior high, even though my walk is two blocks shorter, it’s the new theatre that wins my heart. I drop orchestra and start learning about the apron and the battons.

As hard as it is to push my way through the wind and sludge on Sheridan Drive for piano lessons each week, I’m very relieved I’m not carrying a cello.

I know Jeff’s light goes on in the giant relay of life. A baby is born, a girl finds a butterfly and opens her heart to friends, students, and someday children of her own. A teacher opens the windows in so many minds to so many opportunities. The rich golden streak that used to pour from Jeff’s fingertips into drum sticks or baton or bic pen or up his throat into a peppery call-to-order streams out of many of us, each in our own way. That’s the energy that brings out our best.

But loss is here and now. It’s sudden and it’s shocking. Goodbye Jeff Cumpston. As much as I feel your loss I cannot imagine your family’s grief. I hope they continue to find the many stars you shared with us.