My grandparents played a pivotal role in my education. My best memories of starting out reading was with the classics that my grandmother would introduced me to. Titles like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Wizard of Oz there was an extra level of fun we had when we could discuss these stories together. Then they took me to Disneyland so I could experience the plot settings of these books firsthand. This zest for story telling kept me intrigued as I entered middle school and explored even more classics.
Their involvement extended further by giving me so much encouragement at my concerts. They did not receive much morale-boosting performing music growing up so they passed it on to my brother and I every chance they could. I go back to Eckstein Middle School’s hallways frequently to reflect on these memories and how they enfold me.
These
words I recall
still echoing this hall.
Dreaming of what I could be.
As I start branching out from my tree.
Though my performance at times was fair
to cheer a developing mind the reason is laid bare.
The majesty of The Olympic Mountains tower over the Seattle cityscapes,
alongside the diverse architecture it juxtaposes
what an awe-inspiring view that is my middle school's backdrop!
Eckstein is beautiful too in front nature's grander
but in a more humble way.
The structure always seems in a state of repair
requiring so much care since its initial construction back in the baby boom 1950s.
Very often modest buildings in the city get bulldozed to make way for sky-rise marvels
of splendor with unique slants, angles, spheres, and lighting displays at night
for which architect's have won major awards,
yet there is something lacking,
a character, a heart are absent their substrate. There is something about the way
former students come back to visit their teachers during musicals and I come by again
curious to discover all the ways I've heard the environment has evolved.
As I sit in the auditorium I listen to a boy's solo as the spotlight narrows
on his commendable job singing but then his voice just completely cracks.
There is an open space as people process what just happened,
right before they laugh or murmur to each other at what they just heard.
After a while I wondered why this space kept taking longer and longer
are they just very polite compared to most audiences?
Maybe everyone in the crowd just got it,
you know,
what it is like at this stage,
how your voice changes
and than everything changes.
It was a familiar foible that did something to my mind
causing a crack in the dam of my memory, each fracture splitting
one to the other until it couldn't hold back and than burst out into a flood.
Back when I walked into the show school looked so different
it was a half past six, a time I'd rarely had been there,
the way the orange bricks and the yellow doors looked
golden hour of day, I never saw it glow in this light before.
the ambient ablaze in that beautiful amber that made me think
maybe my school isn't lowly as I had initially considered it to be
as it brought back to mind what I've heard of the streets of gold
Over the past several years it has been very hard for me to understand
what people mean when they talk about Heaven
but I can tell you
that I did experience paradise right here,
right inside these walls of gold
on some school days.
