Mystic Hollow

Finals

            As we eagerly walked into the stadium, my heart began racing. We had to calmly wait for the previous band to finish so we stood, nervously, to the side and tried to focus on our show. For the past month we had been warned to not look at the jumbotron screens that showed our performance as it went on because we would have a difficult time looking away and staying focused, so I tried to focus on the size of the crowd. The best bands from all over Texas had come to San Antonio to compete for the same title; Best in State. So many anxious parents and impatient band members sitting in those stands watching us and hoping that we failed so their kid or band would have a better chance to win. However, the whole Spirit of Waxahachie Indian Band was ready for their State finals performance to disappoint and impress all of them. By the time the previous band had finished, I felt as though my heart had leaped out of my chest and was trying to run away from the stadium. I took a deep breath, raised my head high, gathered every last drop of my courage and marched on to the field with my band.

        I set my flags and rifle down where they were supposed to be, draped my black, stinky, gross shroud over my head, and jazz-ran to my spot for the first movement. As the announcer excitedly announced our show we slowly swayed in our spot to the flowing music. I meticulously thought through the counts for the dance and flag work that I would be doing in just a few agonizing seconds. As the music and our ripple-effect dance began I realized that it was just another boring run-through of our show that I had performed one hundred times and in order to do well I had to calm myself down. It was my turn to join the dance so I raised my arms as high as they could go and pointed my toes until I thought my ankles would break. As the dance ended we all gracefully ran to our flags at various spots on the sidelines just to run back out for the end of the first movement. I desperately prayed that the two flute players I had to run between were in the right spots because it would have been awful if all three of us collided. As I ran through the gap effortlessly I could not help but take a breath of relief. I gleefully spun around, carefully tossed my flag, danced with all of my heart and stayed in time with the music just like we had practiced earlier on that day. Before I knew it had began, the first part was over--time for act two.

          This was the movement I hated with a passion but loved with my whole heart at the same time. After the hit of the first piece we ran back to the sidelines and picked up our giant, hand made, hand painted flowers and our chain flags which we all hated the most because they were the most painful piece of equipment we had. The music bounced as I grabbed my yellow and purple flower and skipped out to my next dancing spot. We were nymphs in this movement so we played, danced and skipped around gleefully with the flutes. We dropped our flowers and pulled out our flower chain flags and jumped as high as rabbits to show just how playful nymphs are and at the end of the movement we threw our flags in the air triumphantly and they hit the ground with audible thuds. I quickly picked up my flag and flower and grabbed the soloists items from her and went to grab our rifles for my personal favorite movement; the ogres.

         I quickly and carefully tossed the rifle to my partner and got into my place for the rifle work. The music sounded like an ogre clomping stupidly through the forest. This was the part I practiced my heart out for because there was someone in the stands that told me I could never make it on rifle and I was going to show him I was more than he thought I was. I caught every toss as if my life depended on a solid catch every time, although it probably felt like it did in that moment. My rifle, which I named because of tradition, Alonso, did not betray me. Again, it was over before it started and I found myself behind a huge, paper mache tree being handed ten foot tall butterfly wings. I finally had a moment to take it all in so I sneakily peeked at the forbidden jumbotron and immediately saw why we were told not to look. It was like Adam and Eve with the Forbidden Fruit. When I saw how out of time the soloists were I began to panic so when it came time, I spun out from behind my tree and began my flag work trying desperately to forget what I had seen and hoping for a more flawless remainder of the show.

           We had one last act and it was, by far, the hardest one yet. Moving between the two acts was like cruising down an old country road and then, all of a sudden, finding yourself in a high speed chase in a big city. I had no time to breathe or think, there was only counting frantically, spinning quickly and moving to each spot as fast as humanly possible. As we marched confidently off the field we were panting like dogs on a normal Texas summer day and sweating like race horses. We went back to the busses to quickly load up, change into some normal clothes and watch a few more bands with the same attitude that the others had looked at us with just hoping we came out on top. None of us could pay attention to the performances because we were anxiously waiting for our scores so when the time finally came we held our breath, hoping we had moved up from fifth in state. The announcer, choosing to torture all of the bands, began with last place and with every band he called that was not Waxahachie we tightened up just a little bit more. He finally got to tenth place and we still had not been called so we loosened up for a few seconds with the realization we were in the top ten. We ended up in eighth place, which for some was perfectly fine and others were completely devastated about the news but we still felt elated to have performed at all. Nothing will ever quite match that feeling.