Dreaming Differently

I started playing the trumpet when I was in fifth grade. My dad was an incredible musician, my sister an amazing flautist and singer, and it was expected that I pick up an instrument. I was excited to be able to play the trumpet well—although I was less excited about the journey and work it would take to get there. Still, I persisted. I practiced almost daily for years, took lessons, and became quite proficient. 

Performing a solo at Winona Cotter High School in the late 1980s.

My tone was what people always complimented. Judges at solo and ensemble contests would compliment the purity of it, folks at church would tell me after I performed there how much they appreciated the sweetness of the sound, and when I practiced with my dad, he always told me my tone was good, even if other elements weren’t yet.  

Like most kids, I started to dream. I would listen to recordings of Wynton Marsalis, the best trumpet player I had ever heard. I would imagine what it would be like to be as good as he was, as famous as he was—to make a living by playing trumpet. 

I had incredible opportunities with my trumpet throughout high school. I performed in honor bands, for major church events and regular Sunday masses, and in a weekly summer city band that was made up of accomplished and proficient musicians. I was paid to play trumpet in a variety of situations. I also had opportunities to solo with my high school jazz, marching, and concert bands. Although I was always hypercritical of my playing, I was also consistently confident that this was something I did well. This skill was something I could be proud of. 

Then I got braces for my high school graduation—much-needed braces—and I had to audition for a college band having had about two weeks to learn to play with them in. Braces and brass instruments are not great friends. There are ways to adapt, but it takes time. With no time to do so, I was placed last chair in the lowest band.  

I asked for a re-audition and was told that wasn’t possible. I went to the first band rehearsal, went back to my dorm crying, talked to my dad, and quit the next day. I had dreamed of a college band where I would be surrounded by people who deeply cared about music, only to be placed in the band where everyone was there to earn a credit and the director wasn’t overly concerned about people paying attention to him, just about getting through the class. 

I was devastated.  

Thankfully, I had also started to learn to play pipe organ. My dad was a church organist and I had learned the foundations from him my last two years of high school. The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire had an organ professor, and I was able to switch to taking weekly lessons with him. My love of music could continue in some form while in college. 

I didn’t switch my dreams from trumpet to organ. I became engrossed in other dreams, of doing well in my English and Spanish classes, of earning a doctorate in English.  

Still, I set goals for myself with organ and learned to play pieces I never imagined I’d be able to play when I first started. It’s amazing what practicing an hour a day does for your ability to do something! 

And I guess you could say I eventually became a professional organist in that I have been paid to play at church services since I was about 20. When I was in graduate school in Duluth, MN, I sometimes played four or five services in a weekend, earning extra money that helped pay the rent.  

I enjoy playing organ, but I never dreamed about it in the way I did about trumpet when I was young. Eventually, I learned to adapt to playing trumpet with braces and continued to play a bit for church at home during breaks. But it would be over 20 years before I truly pulled my trumpet back out again and played a bit for fun.  

Unfortunately, during those years when I didn’t play trumpet, my dreams of becoming someone like Wynton Marsalis weren’t just gone. They turned into a weapon I used against myself.  

As a part of the depression with which I struggled, I began to say really mean things to myself about those dreams. I began to mock myself in my own mind for having dreamed them: “How stupid to think I could ever be anything great as a musician?!” “What a waste of time it was to practice and dream for so long!” “Who did you think you are to have such dreams?” 

For over a decade, I couldn’t even listen to the recordings of Marsalis. I felt stupid, like somehow he knew and was joining in my self-criticism, as if every note of the recordings was a taunt of my one-time ambitions. I couldn’t enjoy listening to concerts because I was always haunted by the trumpets playing. And for some strange reason, I didn’t feel a sadness that I had stopped or a jealousy that they had continued. I felt instead this deep belief that I had been wrong to believe I was worthy of even trying. 

I don’t know if other people feel this way. I don’t know if other people use their dreams as weapons against themselves, even later in life. I’m guessing I’m not alone in this struggle. I’ve heard other people laugh about their own childhood dreams and I get it. I’ve laughed about my very early dream of being a jockey, but I had never even been on a horse. That childhood dream was different. It was just a thing I saw and then imagined. It was, for me, akin to dreaming of being a queen. That dream wasn’t rooted in something possible for me. 

For others, maybe it looks different. I think sometimes I’ve seen people use their dreams as weapons against their children, pushing and prodding them to achieve what they could not. I’ve seen a dream become a disease that eats away at contentment.  

I’m pretty sure, after reading all the journals he left behind, that my dad had some dreams about his life as a musician that ate away at him. Based on some comments he made to me over the years, I’m fairly certain he also beat himself up over having even had the dreams.  

I wonder about my own two children. I want them to dream and enjoy it, always. I want them to look back on earlier dreams and be happy about them, remember them with fondness. I want them to embrace how having that dream helped them grow.  

I think back to all the hours I spent practicing trumpet and all the good it did me. The self-confidence it gave me helped me stave off deeper depression that might have had more devastating consequences for me. All I learned about music bolstered my work on organ. And the fact that I can pick up my trumpet now and still play is because of the thousands of hours of practicing during my youth. 

Now, thankfully, I can listen to Marsalis recordings and marvel at him. I can listen to the few recordings I have of myself from when I was a teenager and marvel at me too. I was good. For my age, I was amazing. Now I can say to myself, “That’s so cool! I worked hard and achieved something great. I dreamed big dreams and those dreams pushed me to achieve great things.”  

I love the life I am living, and I don’t wish I had found a way to be second chair at some wonderful symphony orchestra. But the lesson I try to take from those young dreams is to dream differently. I practice this now.  

I try to dream about something and just enjoy thinking about it. I don’t judge my worthiness or unworthiness for any possibility. The dream is just the dream. I have every right to have dreams. I had every right as a child and teenager to have dreams.   

Ultimately, I have no regrets about my childhood dreams or about pursuing them through practice. My only regret is that I felt unworthy of my own dreams. I want better for my kids, for all kids. I want better for everyone. I want us to dream differently.