Concrete Box

By Grace Tao

"Write about a place vital to your identity." That was an assignment from a creative writing course I was part of for only two days during seventh grade. I don't remember what I wrote-- likely something about gymnastics, but I hadn't touched the sport in nearly two years. But what I ended up turning in is insignificant.

What's peculiar is that I found myself revisiting this prompt three years later, in a hotel room, in Manhattan, with all the lights off and the blinds raised, in the black hours of the morning.

There’s a spot right beside my middle school band room that shelters the poor band students who wait in apprehension for the chance to retrieve forgotten instruments. Lonely, box-shaped, and carved into ice-cold concrete the color of a dull gray, I can confidently say that this place served as a foundation for much of my identity.

One October morning in sixth grade, I found myself in an uncomfortable position. I'd left my instrument in the band room overnight and thus found myself at school early, with forty minutes until either the custodian, bearing my deliverance in his jingling set of keys, or my band teacher, wielding her disappointment in the sharp arch of her brow, would come for me. As I stewed in my uneasiness, there seemed to be a clear path to quelling my qualms: the renowned school-issued Chromebook. I opened the glorious device, warred with the wifi, and turned to YouTube for comfort.

I stumbled across an old TV series called Liberty’s Kids, which detailed the events of America’s formative years through the lens of three aspiring journalists: James, Sarah, and Henri. Their adventures through revolution-ready Boston and smallpox-sickly Valley Forge intrigued me, and soon I too, sitting on the concrete outside my school’s band room, became an avid young writer. Across from me lay not the dullness of a concrete wall but rather the bustling streets of a wooden, three-story New York or the endless emerald rows of tobacco stretching across Virginian plantations. The silent calmness of the area would open my ears to the frustrations of British-occupied Bostonians or the lamentations of unjustly tarred-and-feathered Brits. This new influence led me to write like James, Sarah, and Henri. I recorded instances of tyranny and violations of John Locke's Enlightenment rights at my middle school: ranging from the utter oppression that was the legging ban in gym class to the corruption that was the contentious seventh-grade versus eighth-grade spirit-point competition. But even when the vivid scenes from Liberty’s Kids faded back into dull concrete, I had already ignited a passion for writing, spurring my exploration of other genres.

I tried crafting personal narratives. I would sit on the concrete, blue ink pen poised to strike upon milky white paper, and bleed, memories repainting themselves on the insides of my eyelids. Sometimes there would be sorrow, preteen turmoil budding in plump tears on the edge of my pen and bursting into poetic sentences. Sometimes there would be excitement, like a bolt of lightning or coffee jitters, my pen tip chasing words not yet reduced from images. And sometimes there would be joy or romance-- a feeling of elation like flying, or the smell of flowers, or the taste of chocolate.

I explored fiction, thinking in colors and rearranging characters. It was the lonely stillness of the place that brought out characters-- their murmurings that grew into dialogues, from which mannerisms sprung. I felt even greater the warmth of Christmas hearths, tropical forests, or wildfires-- whatever setting came to mind-- while shivering in the morning chill. Against the concrete emerged colors that trailed the setting sun: the vast fiery reds and sentimental blues that settled in bruised clouds, all waiting to be swallowed by the horizon or encased by black night. Once I dragged my sister along with me, and she began a conversation in which I only remember one sentence: “I think all art comes from a place of personal deprivation.” I leaned against her shoulder and wondered how, if what she said was true, anyone could possibly be brave enough to write. Then I looked up at the sky again, the same gray ceiling it was every day. A stream of puffy white jet fuel trailed a plane that pursued cotton candy clouds.

From losing my sport to living overseas, I believe there were several months during my sixth-grade year in which my identity existed solely of inauthentic qualities and fleeting hobbies. But in this cold concrete box, I found inspiration: dreams or scenes that could only be exploited through words. I found writing, which, as of right now, remains one of the few most solid pieces of my identity. It’s the lens through which I view life. It’s happiness, expression, and education to me. And I appreciate how much a plain and cold concrete box can do to bring vibrancy to one’s being and identity.

I finished the piece at sunrise (it was June) and hurried to feign a well-rested night as the early flashes of white sunlight began to creep through the glass skyscrapers. The piece was borne from some random introductory assignment in a class erased from my transcript. In a way, I am grateful. In a way, after waiting for the words and warring with them, I am eager.