I have a recording of symphony no. 5 on my iPod. I don't ever intentionally listen to it. I never seek it out or anything. But when the thing's on shuffle, it comes on sometimes. It's a fairly good recording, and it's quite similar to the show we did. So when ever I it happens upon it....I stop and listen to it.

The whole idea of the piece was, as we were so often reminded, the feeling of an unstoppable force. It applied so well to my life at the moment. It's one of the things I think of the most when I think of marching. I found this a while ago. It was taped to my wall for a while:

"What exultation could there be? I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat... It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying ``Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,'' and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, ``Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.'' What kind of apotheosis is that? You have to be a complete oaf not to hear that.

Shostakovich wrote it.

At the time that we did this show, I had just had Nikki or rather I was about to have her and then I did. I in one of my worst lows, but not exactly the worst. I was cutting myself in excess, an excess that I did not participate in for another two years. The Jason thing was coming to a head. His mother had threatened to kidnap her. And the night before our first competing, I attempted suicide. Skip ahead endless rehearsals. PCI and FOB. They went by. What happened on the field, at PCI, is ours. I won't write it here.

During the night of our last performance, I was having an ok day. Not great but...it was ok. That was good at the time for me. I had gone on a cutting binge the night before. During warm up. The cuts got ripped open again. A little. I ripped them open more, before I went onto the field.

The show made sense the whole time. The whole goddam time. From beginning to end. It was the history, the war, the people, and the rejoicing. But it was also me. And the forced happiness, the unstoppable force. The Rejoicing under those goddam lights. The whole goddam time. Rejoicing.

But that night...I was bleading like crazy. my arm was dripping blood I felt it on my wrists..dripping in my glove. I know this sounds horribly disgusting. But we started playing. And I looked up. There were our instructors. The was the audience, horribly uninterested in the little bands. But there we were. Playing the heavy music the big boy bands wouldn't touch with a stick. The goddam rejoicing. All of it.

We got to the end. The last few seconds. The rejoicing, the beating, the forced happiness, and it overtaking it all. It's a moment I think about often. The blood, the music, the marching, the instructors, that godforsaken parachute. And it was all an unstoppable force. We would have to leave that field, and go and get out of uniform. The blood would stop flowing, we'd say our goodbyes and go to brightly lit places that weren't illuminated by stadium lights. Those same people would never be there. It would never be the same. And there was no way of saving it. But it's there. Hopefully inside of all of us. In different ways.

I want to go back. But I can't. All of our lives has it's own unstoppable force, something that consumes us and takes away the freedom that we seek. 

The rejoicing. It never ends.

"Our business is rejoicing"