She wiped the sweat from her forehead with her towel. She had only meant to work out for thirty minutes, but she had spent too long on the treadmill. She would have to leave now if she didn’t want to be late for class. She walked over to the mirrors to stretch and cool down. As she sat down, she noticed a familiar elderly manumitting several feet away from her stretching.
They made eye contact. “Oh, you’re here early today, eh?” he called over to her, smiling.
“Yeah, I have an early class,” she said, stretching her shoulders.
He nodded. “Science? Literature?” They had always passed each other in the the large gym on campus, but never actually had a conversation.
She had always made a point to keep to herself when she exercised. She didn’t come to the gym to socialize. “It’s a music theory class. I’m a music major.”
“Oh okay! I’m one of the molecular biology professors here.”
“Oh okay,” she said. She didn’t know what else to say to add to the conversation. She shifted her legs to get ready to stand and leave.
“So, music, yeah? Do you play an instrument?”
“Yeah, I sing. I’m a vocalist.”
“Oh, singing! How fun! It’s always nice to work on your hobbies.”
She was getting up from the mat, when his statement registered in her brain. She paused and gave him a dirty look. Hobby? she thought to herself. “Have a good day,” she said, forcing a smile.
Did that guy know how much time and effort she had put into learning how to sing? Trying to master all the different aspects of vocal technique–breath control, support, posture, vowel shape–just to avoid damaging her vocal chords while trying to sound decent when she performed? Practicing songs and scales over and over until her voice gave out? She wouldn’t do that, go through all of that, if it was just a “hobby.” It stopped being a hobby more than fifteen years ago.
She wanted to blame the man’s ignorance on his age or his profession, but really, it was because of the way society viewed music, musicians, and the arts in general. It wasn’t something that was considered just for fun in other countries. Saying that it was just for fun, though, negated all the work that she had put in over the years; all the progress she made and personal goals she had attained. She realized in that moment that she would have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously as a musician and artist, no matter the number of years of training, hard work, or the talent she had.