I’m shaking. Oh my god, I’m shaking. I feel 75 pairs of eyes on me, like lasers, beginning to bore holes in my body. It burns. I can feel my heart beating out of my chest. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. My squad and I stare at each other, pure, unadulterated fear coursing through our veins. The music starts, I take a deep breath, and it hugs me around my neck like an old friend. 

“It” was born on July 9, 2022, in Charleston, Illinois on the campus of Eastern Illinois University. My drum major whistle was painstakingly braided one fateful, sleep-deprived morning in an air-conditioned dormitory lobby. The cool air expanded my lungs like balloons and then warm air caressed my top lip as I exhaled. Scents of different homes across the nation tickled my nose. Laundry detergent. Perfume. Spices. Old Spice deodorant. How does one feel at home in an unfamiliar place? Home and unfamiliarity are inherently opposites, however at this moment I felt as if they were synonymous. I could feel the smooth, cold wood of the bench underneath sticking to my thighs giving me goosebumps, but at the same time, this is the warmest I’ve ever felt. I sat on the bench with two of my soon-to-be best friends, and there we each held three lanyards, red, black, and white, a silver, shiny Acme Thunderer whistle, and a squishy red whistle cap. I watch the fresh drum majors walk around, surrounding me, buzzing with excitement. This hive’s objective is not to create honey, but it is to foster leadership, camaraderie, and community. The orchestration of the ordeal originating an organic symphony, everyone harmonious, free to move at the beat of their own drum. There we sat, me, Lorelei, and Mason, all shoulder-to-shoulder, giggling over the challenging nature of braiding three lanyards, each new inside joke being weaved tightly between the strings. There it was born, and it would be there to hug my neck whenever I needed it most.

Through the next year, my whistle held onto me through many firsts. Like a baby, I was taking my first steps and although they might’ve been wobbly and uncoordinated, my whistle always held my hand while my team was there to catch me in the end. It watched me mature, grow, and learn like a proud parent, and eventually grow enough to become a parent myself—or in actuality—head drum major. The following season at Smith Walbridge I became a squad leader, which is something I thought I’d never know how to be, but like any parent, my instincts awakened. I knew exactly what to do even though I had doubts every step of the way.

The second night of camp, we had our first thumbs-up competition of the season. I stood on the practice field, pop hits blaring on the speakers and the cicadas were screeching along to the music. The humidity clung to every inch of my body. It hung off of my eyelashes and it grasped onto my breath. Each inhale was like lifting weights, the air was so heavy that I became a bodybuilder that night. The competition starts, each one of us practicing and perfecting the night’s routine, particularly, 16 forward roll steps followed by a post and close. Nerve-wracking, but my whistle was there, sitting around my neck like always. A couple pop hits pass by and it is finally my squad’s turn. My instructor counts us off to the beat of the newest Dua Lipa song, which is strangely enough, the perfect tempo. One. Two. One. Two. Three. Four. Time slows as I carefully and methodically step and swing my arms. I plant my left heel in the thick grass and powerfully swing my right arm, with my hands in a fist, all of my energy moving forward. Then right foot, then left, then right. At count 16 I plant my right toe in the ground, raise up on the platforms of my feet, and my arms go out, fists on both hands, almost like a penguin that is trying to fly, but without the wing flapping. Post. Arms back into attention, and I drop back down on flat feet, this penguin gave up on flight and decided to be a drum major again. Close. I glance up at my instructor, a grin spreads across his face as he sticks his arms out and gives me a huge thumbs-up. I look down the line, every single member of my squad with the same giddy smiles. Never in my life did I think I would be thanking Dua Lipa and penguins in the same thought. We sprint out of the parade block past the instructors, and all of the squads in the band blow their whistles with support. We see you! They tweet. You have accomplished something great! I look at my squad, smile, pull my whistle up to my lips, and blow. They follow by doing the same. It may be the loudest gathering in all of Charleston, Illinois, but it also is the most supportive. My whistle watched me succeed, and sang for me and my squad in celebration. Its brothers, sisters, and cousins from across the nation also sang. One, big, happy, screaming cacophony.

The next few days were filled with laughs, learning, and chair-step marching, but most notably, and most unfortunately, sickness. I make the trek all the way out to the practice field, grass scratching at my ankles, the sun burning my skin, dust from the gravel road being inhaled into my lungs, I look around. Only two-thirds of my squad is there. My phone vibrates, it’s Quinn, one of my squad-mates texting in the group-chat. Hey guys, the text reads, I am feeling super sick, so I am leaving camp early. I’m so sorry. I glance up at the time on my phone screen, and realize that my co-drum major who had been feeling sick for the past few days also more than likely will not be making an appearance, starting a chain reaction by creating a pit in my own stomach. I look up from my phone at my squad, “aaaand,” I let my voice draw out in an effort to procrastinate what I need to say next, “it doesn’t look like Karis is going to show either, but I know she hasn’t been feeling well all week.”  If I learned anything about fractions in elementary, I know that 6/6 is equal to one whole. Conversely, I know that 4/6, or two-thirds, if you will, is not equal to one whole. I was missing one third of my squad. One third of my squad that made up one third of the custom drill we had spent hours during the week designing as a squad. The drill that we were to perform in the next 30 minutes. In a scramble, we immediately started redesigning the drill to fit four people, as opposed to six, which is just as tedious as it sounds. Count by count, movement by movement, step by step the drill was changed. No time for extra practice, no time for memorization runs. In the blink of an eye it was done, and my squad was up. I walked up to my starting position for the performance, that familiar humidity now suffocating, and not at all strengthening. I look back at my instructor for reassurance, suddenly feeling like a very threatened penguin, despite the fact I was in Illinois in the middle of summer and there was not a polar bear in the immediate vicinity. My eyes shift down at my hands and knees.

 I’m shaking. Oh my god, I’m shaking. I feel 75 pairs of eyes on me, like lasers, beginning to bore holes in my body. It burns. I can feel my heart beating out of my chest. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. My squad and I stare at each other, pure, unadulterated fear coursing through our veins. The music starts, I take a deep breath, and my whistle hugs me around my neck like an old friend. “Forward harch!” I command the squad. And we’re off. I plant my left heel into the grass. “Right flank!” I ordered. My squad and I expertly go through every motion of the drill, despite the fact that I am so nervous that my mind feels totally and completely blank, just like when you try to turn the channels on a TV, but you switch onto the wrong station so there’s nothing but static. My ears rang with fear and also with the ever familiar sound of the Illinois March. Each step, each arm swing, each flank, every beat conducted was done with poise. Imaginary poise. Nonexistent poise. It is like pretending to be a ballerina on a stage that is on fire. After 64 painful counts, we finally came to the squad salute. I turn to the audience and the speakers blast in my face, ears no longer ringing, but happiness was. Like church bells chiming in Christmastime.  I march out to face my squad for dismissal. Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe. My eyes travel right to left across my squad’s faces, searching for any possible emotion in their statue-like demeanor. First Taylor, then Isaac, then Isa. “Squad dismissed!” I finally command. My squad breaks attention, smiles plastered on their faces, and we run into each other's arms for one big, admittedly sweaty, group hug. We start to walk back to the sidelines, but my senior instructor pulls me aside. Uh oh. Maybe it wasn’t as good as I thought. He stared into my eyes as if he was looking into every inch and crevice of my soul, my vulnerability coming straight back to me. I am jolted back to the penguin mentality. My heart starts racing again. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. “Good leaders succeed when things are going well,” he says slowly, methodically, calculated, his sage-like wisdom aging him 100 years like some wizard in a movie, “but great leaders succeed when nothing is going well,” he finishes, and then smiles at me, eyes crinkled at the corners. “Thank you. Thank you so much,” I somehow composed myself enough to say. I smile so big my face hurts, each muscle in my lips and cheeks spread as much as it has the ability to, like a rubber band stretched to its max. Little bits of tears creep up and sting my eyes, but they don’t make their way out. I take one last look around, and I’m no longer fearful. While I don’t know what’s ahead of me when I go back home to my band camp, I know that I could face it. My whistle will hold on through the uncertainty. It has seen my highs, it has seen my lows. It has felt the fast beating of my heart, not only from fear, but from excitement. It knows me.

A week later it was time for my home band camp. After a long, sweaty marching rehearsal on the football field, it was time to dismiss the band to go on their break, so they could find an oasis from the overwhelming, sauna-like heat created from the turf field. My whistle contentedly sits around my neck. It has been through this with me before, but now it’s different. “Band ten hut!” I command. All 100 members snap to attention, looking up at me. Faces red, sweaty, and breathing heavily. “Band, are you proud to be members of the Bedford High School Marching Band?” “Yes ma’am!” They energetically respond in unison, excited for the break. “How proud are you?” I crow, “Very proud ma’am!” I look down at all of the marchers and make eye contact just for a moment, and time slows down. There are hundreds of thousands of words in the English language, I think to myself, and there is not one word that can fully express how proud I am to lead all of you. My eyes snap back up, “How proud?!” I continued, “very proud ma’am!” they respond. “Band, dismissed!” “BHS go mules!” The band does an about face and walks off to take their break, sluggish and tired, but ever resilient. I grab my whistle that is draped across my chest, and stare down at it. I feel the intertwined fibers of the three lanyards on my fingers, red, black, and white, now stained with sweat and dirt, the silver, shiny Acme Thunderer whistle, now scratched, but still able to reflect the sun into my eyes, and the squishy red whistle cap, now faded and closer to a pink hue. My whistle has grown and matured with me, the aging of us both is evident. My whistle is a symbol of every drum major to come before me, and reminds me of who I am and who I need to be. It reminds me of my failures and my accomplishments. It proves to me that I have grown. So when I am screaming “how proud are you?!?” at the top of my lungs to my band, it is because I truly am “very proud, ma’am”.