Non-Fiction

Whenever I say that I’ve been playing cello for twelve years, it feels like a lie. That’s well over half of my life that my fingers have been attached to this extra wooden appendage, that I have been breathing in the oaky smell of varnish and rosin, that I have been making noises; sometimes beautiful, gut-wrenching, soul-searing music, sometimes just an ugly, disappointing blip of unnatural sound.

Beauty has always been my specialty. I can never seem to play those loud, jumpy sections with as much accuracy as others, always hesitant to truly commit my body to the chaos, but sacrificing my body for beauty – I have never had trouble doing that. Long, languid, aching notes, filled with the swelling of the heart, exploring tenderly its cracks and hollows, its little broken bits. Cello is often sad, yes – mournful and wistful, reaching out and scooping up a bit of the past with gentle hands – but no one can argue that it is not beautiful.

I love this instrument. But it wasn’t always like that. I first picked up the cello because it was different, and because at the time, I was obsessed with being different. Little third grade Sarah was not like other girls with their teensy violins, scraping out meek squeaks and squawks – no, no, she lugged around cello, and adults said things like: “How can you play that? It’s twice your size!” This was an exaggeration of course, but it still made little Sarah puff up her chest with pride.

It wasn’t love at first sight that made me pick up the cello. In fact, when I first interacted with it – I wouldn’t be so generous as to call it playing – it felt unbelievably awkward. I was in second grade. I was small, and the cello was large. The strings instructor positioned me behind the cello, and I sat with my legs tucked behind its back since they weren’t quite long enough to reach around as they should. The bow was heavy and awkward, and my natural inclination was to clench it in my small fist. This, of course, was very wrong, but in the moment, no one really cared.

Naturally, when I managed to make a noise, it was not a very good one – a shaky, crunchy low groan on the C string. No one cringed, but at the same time no one threw their hands up in the air and declared, “she’s a natural!” In fact, my parents soon began to attempt to convince me that the cello was too big for me – why not pick up the viola? This argument only convinced me further that the cello was for me. I wanted to be the small girl that played the cello, an instrument usually thought of as only for boys, at least in my elementary school. I wanted to be defiant. I wanted to be different.

Well, I got what I wanted. I was one of two kids who played cello at my elementary school, and the other was a boy. We had lessons with the cello teacher Mr. Diehl in a room that was essentially a closet. It was not exactly how I’d dreamed it would be. We didn’t make a sound the first lesson – all we learned was how to care for our instruments, to lay them on their sides but never their backs, to always loosen our bows when we were finished, how to apply rosin, how to clean the strings, an endless barrage of lessons that did not include the one thing I wanted to learn. I wanted to play, with all the force of a petulant and overeager child.

But even when we did begin to play, plucking our way through short passages, placing our fingers on tape markers that showed us exactly where the notes were, I wasn’t satisfied. I was just making noises, not music. I was not a prodigy. I wasn’t even that good. One day, after a lesson went particularly badly for me, Mr. Diehl, who did not know how to be kind to children, told me that if I didn’t start practicing, he and the boy would leave me in the dust.

Even practicing, which had a certain glamour at first – I was playing the cello! – soon lost its luster with repetition. I became bored with rehearsing the same passage over and over. When would I get to use my bow? When would it sound beautiful? Why, why was I not as good at this as I expected to be?

After the first two months, I was ready to give up. It was hard, practicing was boring, it hurt my tiny fingers, which were completely free of the callouses that would later protect me from the hard, metallic strings, and had to stretch to reach the most of the notes. I would’ve stopped practicing altogether, had it not been for my strict parents. Every day, my mother would ask if I had practiced. Sometimes I would lie, but she would always know. Most of the time, I would sullenly, reluctantly, retrieve my cello from its case and practice through my passages, just once, studiously ignoring my fumbled fingerings, my scratchy bowings.

Eventually, this became habit – fifteen minutes every single day, no matter whether my parents coerced me or not. Fifteen, and then thirty, and eventually a whole hour, and I cared about my mistakes; I still made so many mistakes, but it was the caring that really mattered.

I am grateful that my first time playing cello was not my last time playing cello – not even close. I am grateful that I had supportive parents who provided an instrument, and also cracked the whip so that I would actually learn to play it. I am grateful that I am not a prodigy. Playing the cello is a physical, mental, and emotional struggle, constant and unceasing – even Yo-Yo Ma struggles. But it’s also a struggle that is fiercely rewarding, in the burning of muscles, in the quick movement of fingers, in the patient revision of noise into music. It wasn’t like that the first time, and even as I funneled endless hours into practice, I never knew that I would come to love it. But now I know – love is never effortless.

 

Sarah is a turtleneck enthusiast, tea drinker, and cat lover currently studying English Writing and History at the University of Pittsburgh. She is also a copyeditor and writer for The Pitt News.

Hundreds of glowing paper lanterns, richly colored and adorned with handmade stars and animals, bejeweled the darkening evening. They bobbed on the ends of carrying-wands touted by children wandering down the streets in parade-like processions. I held my lantern, a crescent moon with a smiling face, and walked among winter-jacket bundled crowds, experiencing for the first time St. Martin, the lantern festival. This German holiday celebrates the venerated Holy Roman Empire soldier who cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm. Through his selfless deed, he saved the impoverished man from freezing.

I had spent two weeks learning traditional songs honoring the Saint so that I could sing from door to door and receive candy in return on this special November night.

For my eight-year-old self, this was the most wonderful and exciting holiday I had ever experienced. I traveled through the grand streets of Neuss singing my songs proudly and admiring the handcrafted sphere and prism-shaped lanterns that shone like planets. In that moment, I was proud to partake in such a beautiful celebration. For me, a celebration of being German. But that same year, someone tried to make me feel ashamed of it.

“You’re a Nazi,” the boy in my third-grade class accusingly spat at me as he pointed in a WWII book at a photograph of a devastated city. There were emaciated prisoners in the picture, being led by German soldiers. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as he said this. He was strangely enraptured by the war and spoke with bitter hatred woven into his words when addressing me. For several weeks I had been hearing these spiteful comments.

I let his invective roll off my back– it didn’t hurt me. But I was confused about why he would accost me; I had never imagined being associated with Nazism and the horrible events of WWII. How could I be assumed a Nazi when all of my grandparents, the most kind-hearted people I knew, had suffered so immensely?

My grandfather often told me stories about his experiences through the war. His family was ripped apart after losing their business and savings, and he and his siblings separated. He had to work as a young boy to help his family, yet he witnessed his mother crying when she had nothing to feed them but the starch-based adhesive scraped from wallpaper. He ran to escape bombings, and his promising education was cut short when his teacher starved to death.

He lost his childhood to the war.

I would listen with a heavy heart to his stories but smile at the end, when he expressed how grateful he was that I didn’t have to live through such times. I became imbued with a great sense of gratitude as well because, thanks to his stories, I deeply understood how fortunate I was. To have a childhood in peacetime, replete with opportunities and choices, was not something to take lightly. From knowing what my grandfather went through, I began to live with a more profound appreciation for what I had.

And so I looked at the lanterns and felt utterly blessed. I admired the colors, the lights, and cherished the beautiful voices dancing in the air. I love the many aspects of my German culture that I am able to enjoy, from celebrating Oktoberfest to watching soccer. Of course, I also share a deep repentance with each German in remembrance of the Holocaust and the role that the German people played in it. But with this shouldered sense of guilt, there comes modesty, the spirit of betterment, and a character of learned industriousness that I believe I inherited, too.

Each aspect of my German culture glimmers brightly in my vision, reminding me of who I am. The undeniable incandescence stays with me, and my path is lit. I am forever appreciative of this.

Lilian Wiegand is a twelfth-grader living in New Jersey. Originally she is from Germany and has spent time living in England as well. She is planning on studying neuroscience in college and going to medical school afterward. She loves writing and reading and hopes to one day write a novel. Other passions of hers include playing/instructing tennis and running cross country and track.

Throughout middle school I was a very anxious child, I got fidgety thinking about the small things and I had little to no friends as a result of being nervous to talk to anyone. I developed a habit of biting my nails, my stomach would always feel uneasy at the thought of presenting in front of the entire class, and I couldn’t bring myself to talk to others. There were specific moments where I couldn’t work up the nerve to ask questions during class, or walk across the lunchroom without thinking everyone was whispering about me.

Despite all of this, though, I somehow managed to make a couple of friends. I never quite got that close to any of them, which is why I barely talk to anyone who I used to know from that time, but they did help me through a lot of what I was experiencing throughout those years, letting me rant and making some of middle school fun for me. I also wasn’t that bad of a student. I was shy, but I wasn’t a slacker in my classes, I knew how important it was to my parents and I made sure I kept focus on my grades.

As I transitioned from seventh grade to eighth I reminded myself of how good of a student I was, encouraging me that I would be fine as I transitioned between these grades. For some reason, though, I failed to feel the same as I was finishing up the last few months of 8th grade and prepared myself for my first year of high school, now it felt more real. I felt as if this was the big moment, this was the decider of whether or not I make it in life, whether or not I’d get into a good college and make a future for myself.

Regardless of knowing that not only thousands of people succeed and graduate high school, but also how trustworthy I was with my classwork, I continued to feel anxious about the transition. I knew it was something very common, almost everyone goes through high school and it’s not like everyone’s life turns out awful, but there continued to be this pit of self-doubt and fear in my stomach. Throughout my last few weeks of 8th grade, there was a continuous loop of different scenarios for how I could mess up high school running through my head. They ranged from small little things like forgetting to study and failing a quiz, to being too shy to ask a question in class and ultimately falling behind and flunking.

A few weeks into the summer I found out that on top of all of this, I wasn’t going to be seeing my middle school friends in 9th grade. I wasn’t going to be attending the high school I’ve been looking forward to, the one I’ve been preparing for; I was switching schools. The scenarios got worse, not only was I know imagining myself losing myself on campus and being late to every one of my classes, but I also saw myself sitting at lunch alone, on my phone, unable to build up the courage to speak to anyone around me. My doubts got bigger. How was I going to survive without my friends by my side? How was I going to keep up with the pace of this new school? How was I ever going to fit in and figure all of this out?

It was hard and lonely for a while, but looking back, it could’ve been worse. My first day was the worst out of all of them, though. I spent the whole day alone, running those dumb scenarios through my head of how I would ultimately mess up my future during what seemed to be the most important years of my life. I walked the hallways on my first day, terrified of what people would think of me. Everyone here already knew each other, I would see people hugging and telling each other about their summers from the corner of my eye as I sat alone at lunch. I sat in class after class, surrounded by strangers and scary faces, being warned about how challenging it was going to be, how if I dared to slack off I’d fall completely behind. I was terrified.

Months went by during my first year before I finally started socializing with people and feeling comfortable around the school, but once I did, high school wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t like I instantly, out of anywhere, got the confidence to convince myself that I was going to end up ruining my life during these years, but over the months I felt comfortable enough to get the hang of everything.

I ended up memorizing where all the classrooms where, I no longer sat alone at lunch, I got used to the change of pace, and in the end, I turned out to not be that bad of a high school student. I was passing my classes, building connections with students and teachers, and overall getting comfortable in what used to be a new and scary environment. As of now, I do not only have a group of friends I can trust and spend time with, but my life is also not a complete train wreck. If my past self could see me as of now, she would be surprised to see that I didn’t completely mess up my life.

Looking back at this, if I’m being honest, I was completely exaggerating about this. At the time I thought it was the end of the world, that there was no possible way I could successfully complete high school without messing up my life. Despite my doubts, the opposite turned out to be true. I did not completely mess up my life, and I didn’t flunk out of high school! I got the hang of things and turned out all right.

Whenever I’m about to go through seemingly big life transitions, I look back at these moments that once seemed big and scary but ended up completely okay. When I went into junior year as everyone told me it was going to be the hardest, I looked back at these small moments. When I started dual credit online, confused about how blackboard worked and nervous about how I manage my time, I looked back at these small moments. What seemed like big scary moments turned out to be small milestones throughout my life, and as I continue to reach others that seem intimidating to me I look back at the ones I have accomplished to reassure me of everything.

 

 

Taysha  is a seventeen-year-old girl attending the International Leadership of Texas in Fort Worth, Texas as a senior. She was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Texas when she was very young. She typically likes writing about past feelings, emotions and overall mental battles she has gone through in the past.

 

My mom likes to think she was born from a star. When she fell to the earth, she likes to think she became a cocooned butterfly. She said it helps her explain why she feels so separate from a family her birth certificate says is hers. She spent her childhood and a good part of her young adulthood trapped in an iridescent chrysalis, terrified to come out, to speak, to have an opinion.

She loved books though, the way all kids do before they are told what to read. She was first told what to read when her mom and dad snatched her from the classroom and dropped her into a school of their own machinations. Attendance was optional, since they didn’t register with any official homeschooling organizations. Lunch was occasional. Sometimes it was just candy, which is why she never really rewarded my siblings and me with candy growing up.

Her dad taught from his own history books, twisting African traditions and civil rights activist doctrine to serve his own agenda; essentially, women were subservient, i.e. his wife and daughters. English was considered the language of the white devil, so she and her siblings were taught Swahili, at least whenever he was sober enough not to slur the words—so, not that often. They were not to argue that 2 + 2 was actually 4 and not 6. If they did not speak to agree, they did not speak at all.

My mom used to write, used to love writing, painting, creating. Now, she likes numbers. She likes the control, the linear problem solving. She played bank when she was a kid, not with manufactured toy money that came with the cheap plastic cash register; no, she drew and cut out her own bills. She doesn’t draw anymore. But she colors with her children, inside and outside the lines.

She had me, the first of five, when she was nineteen. My dad tried to propose. Her dad forbade the marriage, feeling his position of control was being threatened. It’s amazing how much control her father held, despite his being blind.

Still, she was a kid with a kid, living with her parents, a cocooned butterfly in a nest full of agoraphobic birds. Once the birds tired of doling out their false doctrine, they made her go to school for art, a harmless degree that wouldn’t take her away from them, wouldn’t give her power, autonomy. Then she went to school for hair; she had a little more say in this decision, since we had moved out by then. Finally, she went to college for herself.

She told me she started wanting better because of me. She said after coming home from a late night out clubbing, I, three years old at the time, was still awake. I apparently asked her why she was never there when I needed her. I don’t believe her. I think she’s strong enough to have wanted to change all on her own.

My mom and I kind of attended school together. We compared our math classes, even though her math dealt with money, side by side, struggling together. She let me do all the things she couldn’t do: band, volleyball, chess competitions, debutante programs, and plays. Whenever things would get too hard, whenever I thought I couldn’t balance it all, she’d say, “Always finish what you started.” It made me think longer before I started anything after that. So abundant and free was her support, I actually cried before telling her I didn’t want to play the flute anymore.

The presentations were the worst. For her, not me. I was never afraid to speak in front of people. I never will be. My mom made sure of that. Although my young tongue was too small for my big thoughts, my misspoken musings were never brushed off as childish babbling. Sentences were like nonsensical alphabet blocks stacked by eager hands. Knock them down and build again. She never lashed out at me for the mess.

Her parents weren’t so patient. Her thoughts were treated as nothing more than refuse, washed up on a shore of paternalistic dismissal. She chose not to waste her breath, until she eventually forgot how to breathe. Her lungs felt too large, her tongue too foreign. College asked her what she thought and waited for her to answer; the silence, too great to fill, swallowed her whole. The stones of her youth, tied to her ankles, dragged her down down down back to childhood habits, where she didn’t have to speak, didn’t have to risk being wrong.

But she always finished what she started, so, like everything else in her life, she pushed through it. We later discovered “it” was actually anxiety. We only found out because my own diagnosis reminded her of her own experiences.

Slowly, so slowly, she peeked out of her cocoon, whispering thoughts that used to live and die in her head. Quick little deaths with no eulogies, buried in unmarked graves. These thoughts were different—solid, tangible, loud. She was living her own life now in the big wide world that didn’t fit in the box her dad built. She was learning more than could be held in her head, excess spilling past her nervous lips.

My mom knows what she’s talking about. No one can tell her otherwise now. They can try. I dare them. When I graduated high school, she graduated college, for the fourth time, this time with her masters. She’s put in her 10,000 hours. No one can tell her otherwise now.

I am the product of her labor, her lifelong thesis. I am the river formed from her demolition of mental dams. We are not without flaws. We struggle to rely on others because others have been unreliable. We are strong, black women in the most destructive way possible. But we are not without a drive to be better, she better than her parents, me better than mine. I stand on her shoulders, supported. She’s since laid her burden by my river. I hope I’m enough for her.

Without it, her wings flutter and flex and gain their own strength. It’s a wonder to see. Most grow up thinking their parents are fully formed human beings, incapable of changing, growing, learning, because they’ve already done so. They’ve completed their adult training and reached the plateau, upon which they will spend the rest of their lives. I have the privilege of giving her what she’s given me: comfort, support, and self-confidence.

My mom, my dad, my younger brother, my three younger sisters, we’re all we got. We’re learning together, jumping the hurdles, evolving, defining and redefining who we want to be, what we want to do, together.

There was a particularly stressful time, when mom and dad were both attending school at night and the four of us kids had to be everywhere all at once and extended family reared their ugly heads as they do during times like these just to make things worse. We all came down for breakfast one morning and Mom slapped a printed piece of paper on the fridge, tacked it up with a magnet. It read: “I will give no negativity any energy. —Dhatnubia Family Motto.” I live by that motto to this day. Mom’s got a thing for mottos and so do I.

If my mom likes to think she was born from a star, I like to think she didn’t fall from the sky. I like to think she’s a supernova. What once was a quiet twinkle is now too bright to ignore, too colorful to comprehend, too powerful to control.

While all of this is true, inside, she is still that same shy, curious butterfly that’s learned to color outside the lines, create her own money, and read her own books again. And all this talk of butterflies and stars helps define how much of a process it is to become who we are.

 

Having won scholarships based on academic merit, Ka’Dia Dhatnubia completes a BFA in writing at the Savannah College of Art and Design. She also writes regularly for the school’s online fashion publication, Manor, and serves as Manor’s head copy editor and associate editor, advancing her expertise in professional editing and project management.