Author: seaprepignite

Noah Kim ’25

            As I entered the house after football practice, I found my parents sitting in front of the television, their faces pale and solemn. Then I saw the breaking news. My thoughts went immediately to Taylor. I pulled up “Tay Tay” from my contacts and pressed call. The phone rang once with no response. As it rang again, I began to shake, and my throat became dry as six years of memories bolted through my mind. On the third ring, I heard a faint “What’s up?” Hearing his familiar voice brought a sense of relief like no other. It is a voice I have known since sixth grade. Yet this time hearing his voice meant he was safe.

            It was a dreary September afternoon. This dull vibe was not a product of the weather but rather a result of the haunting deadline that had been looming over my head for months. November first had consumed my mind every waking moment. You would think since this singular date had caused me so much distress I would be prepared, but I was the furthest thing from it. As I opened my laptop to begin my common app personal statement just a week before the deadline, I did not know what to think.

            I learned from Taylor that a 17-year-old student at Garfield High School named Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot and killed trying to break up a fight during lunch. My biggest dilemma at lunch is whether I have time to get seconds before the bell rings. How can three 17-year-olds experience life so differently within a few miles of one another? Why do I pull up each morning into a nurturing and safe oasis while Taylor enters a proverbial war zone and Amarr becomes a casualty? As I grappled with these questions, it dawned on me that my life of relative privilege has insulated me from the realities that Taylor and the other students at Garfield High School encounter daily. People say there are some things you can’t unsee. I can no longer unsee Amarr and the tragedy of his death.

            How could I convey who I am through a measly 650-word essay? I envisioned the admissions officer skimming through my work and getting a completely wrong idea of me as a person. I clearly remember sitting at my desk cursing the college application process. It does not make sense to me how a singular person can alter your future by assessing you through a jumble of meaningless numbers and confined essays. I knew the school you go to does not define you, but I was so caught up in getting a letter of acceptance that my judgment was clouded. Taking the plethora of emotions that I had built up, I attempted to channel this energy into executing the topic of my essay flawlessly.

            Living in the greater Seattle area, I was not ignorant of the many problems plaguing our city, like gun violence. However, I live in a bubble cushioned by private education, loving parents, and a community full of supportive teachers and coaches. Although Garfield High School is a mere seven minutes from my house, it seemed alien to me. Busy with school, sports, and friends, the issues confronting Garfield never penetrated my consciousness. This incident burst the bubble. Would it have been easier to continue with the comfort of my privileged life? Perhaps, but I see it as a watershed moment.

            Slowly drafting and sculpting the piece of writing that I thought would define me brought immense pressure. Often, I could not even focus on the substance of my words as thoughts of getting rejected from every college raced through my mind. I was so consumed by my negative thoughts that I completely disregarded the importance of my topic. Blinded by the stress about my future, I was deliberately sabotaging my ability to illustrate an important issue by prioritizing my own selfish intentions. I scrutinized every character on my Google doc, trying to imagine how the admissions officer reading it would react. Not once did the real reason I was writing about this topic cross my mind.

Seeing the days pass on and the deadline getting closer and closer, I threw away the passion I had towards creating change and instead substituted a rushed, closed mindset for it. After countless hours of work and miniscule hours of sleep, I finished. But something was off.

            A cocoon of safety has shielded me from the dangers of the outside world at large but also those close to home. My peers at Garfield have no choice but to return to the very building where Amarr was gunned down. How can they focus on academics when their sense of safety has been shattered? This immense disparity not only confuses but angers me. Safety in school should not be a privilege but a given, whether the institution is public or private.

Following the shooting, I have a newfound desire to challenge the status quo. The only thing a student should worry about when in a learning environment is expressing their intellectual ability without fear of violence and even death. I realize now that safety must seem a privilege to students at Garfield. This is unacceptable.

            As an eighteen-year-old looking at the complexities of this issue, I do not presume to have the answers, but I also can no longer say I am not aware. Amarr’s death has enlightened me to the frightening truths facing Taylor and others at Garfield. As I enter college and leave behind the insular world of Seattle Prep, I am ever firmer in my belief that safety in school must be a right, not a privilege. Amarr should have had the opportunity to write a college essay like I do now, anticipating stepping into adulthood.

It is too late for Amarr, but his death’s tragedy must matter. It would be hubris for me to put forth solutions. That said, I wish to be part of the solution so that schools can once again be where the future is open and available to each student.

            Following the messy process of writing my personal statement, I was honestly not satisfied. This lack of satisfaction was not due to the quality of my work, but rather the feeling that I frantically wrote a story about the tragedy of a boy I never knew. As I was relieved of the pressure of my deadlines, my consciousness returned, and I had a lot of self-reflection on the true importance of my topic.

I thought about the edits that I made to the essay, such as getting rid of context and trying to be as concise as possible. These may seem like perfectly normal things to do when editing a piece of writing, but these changes brought me immense guilt. Why must Amarr’s story be concise? I felt as if using the pain that Amarr and his loved ones experienced for my college applications was selfish. Despite my story being completely true I felt as if I was undermining his story by morphing it into a reason why someone should let me into college. I saw the essay as a way of adding on to the privilege that I was trying to move away from. What gives me the right to talk about an issue that I will never truly experience?

            While I repetitively thought about Amarr, Taylor, and the students at Garfield, I finally came to peace with the fact that I was not a bad person for using their stories. I concluded that I would not be jeopardizing the experiences of Garfield students if I simply gave all my effort into making others aware through my writing. My original purpose for choosing this topic was because I wanted to see development in school safety and spread awareness for kids like Amarr. Mass acts of violence within schools are often displayed on news sources across the country, but what about smaller, more local cases like Amarr’s? Using the blessed opportunities I have like going to college, I can help spread these stories and turn them into something positive. My guilt is only justified if I do not act with what I have learned through my experiences and strive to create change like I said I would. If I do not back up my statements with action, then I am truly ignoring the deaths of Amarr and every other victim of violence within education.

Nadia Schimmelman ’25

My eyes burn—

a single patch of snow travels,

chasing an orange ball.

I find my certainty to see the flash of snow running towards me is my dog, Sage—camouflaged, far away—she is as white as milk, proximally the shade of eggnog. Squinting, my dad tells me that blue eyes are more susceptible to being blinded by snow and everything white.

In all I am made up of, I am often consumed by this moment, inadequately grasping onto a reality of a blanket of snow covering everything for miles, and my childhood dog above ground.

Almost every day, I pass this park which I know Sage has imprinted her paws on—every square inch of snowy grass—now melted.

It was hard to distinguish her from the snow, inaccurate now—both because she is not green and not living.

“When is it going to snow in Seattle this year,” I type into my browser while sitting in AP Environmental Science class. Instantaneously yearning, eyes wide open and fingers hovering over the keypad in anticipation. My finger sets down and I am met with the weather forecast: rain. The weight of constant rain on the top of my head, seeping into my thoughts for the next ten days. Disappointment rests on my face as I just learned it is a La Nina year, a colder, wetter year, theoretically meaning more snow.

“Maybe around my birthday in February there will be a greater chance,” I say naively to my seat partner as the boys across from me are tossing M&Ms in each other’s mouths, their laughter breaking my silence.

Insensible to our new set existence.

I now see, when she died last February, we didn’t have a singular snow day that winter.

She was stripped of the chance to hobble to that park one last time, as I clutched my sled in one hand, her leash in the other.

Regardless of what some deem as “fake”, we all are—

repercussions of our own actions.

***

Ten calls to voicemail. I dial again—

My mom’s pacing shadows the carpet, footprints leaving indents back and forth each time she stretches the length of the room.

I switch screens—messages—find my friends. My sister’s location is stagnant at her office in West Hollywood. A red rectangle of inferno displayed ten feet from my face, a white message hovering below: “Southern California Fire, The Worst is Yet to Come.”

People cry.

Animals die.

Thousands of fire hydrants are sucked dry.

In the teeth of the parallel existence where tons of gallons of water flood into silence—where life prospers, despite tons of micro shards of murderous material—land is sweltering with rage.

Palm trees appear to be flame-throwing, one single ember ruining thousands of souls.

***

They are blind to the devastation of life we were given to for free—

like my blue-eyed 10-year-old self,

wanting to play in the snow.

Mackenzie Leith ’25

I remember my first concert without my parents. I went to see Carrie Underwood at Climate Pledge Arena with my best friend from middle school. I remember feeling nervous without my parents beside me. I felt so small in such a large place with thousands of people.

***

My mom still tells the story of her first concert without her parents. She saw Pearl Jam at the Gorge with her best friend from middle school. She felt confidently lost; she knew she wanted to be there, but didn’t know what to expect. The Gorge is a big place, and it’s easy to feel small in a crowd of thousands.

***

Since I was a little kid, my mom has fostered a love for music in me. She played a variety of songs for my brothers and I growing up, which ultimately led us to have a unique and balanced taste in music. From her, I learned the diversity of music and that each song has its own independent message or meaning. Her love for music mixed with her love for my brothers and I created fond memories associated with countless songs.

***

Her best friend, Mandy, and she began singing their hearts out. Together, they let the world melt away, taking it all in. The sounds, the scenery, the sensations. So much to see, so much to understand.

***

My mom has carried her love for Pearl Jam with her into adulthood, so when she found out they were playing in Seattle in May 2024, she knew she had to go. I was lucky enough for her to take me with her. When I asked my mom what songs I should listen to before the concert, she mentioned the song “Daughter.”

***

“Alone… listless… breakfast table in an otherwise empty room

Young girl… violence… center of her own attention

Mother reads aloud, child tries to understand it

Tries to make her proud”

***

I realized that my mom sharing this song with me was an extremely vulnerable moment for her. Although I initially fell in love with the rhythm of the song, I quickly understood the importance of the lyrics. By the time the concert came around, I could sing all the words. While they were playing it, I turned and looked at my mom who was singing along too. A sense of gratefulness washed over me. I looked at my mom and saw the person whose entire existence defines me as a daughter.

***

My mom and Mandy loved this song. Both daughters, young girls, trying to make their mothers proud as they prepared to graduate high school and move on with their lives. The truths that they could release into the open air along with a crowd of thousands. It’s comforting knowing that others feel the way you do.

***

Hearing about my mom’s first concert at the Gorge helped me see her in a different light. It reminded me that this is our parents’ first time living, too. My mom, like me, was once a 17-year-old girl who loved concerts, shopping, and spending time with her friends. From my mom, I learned the importance of listening to the lyrics of a song so that I could understand its message, rather than its rhythm. I will forever be grateful that my mom and I get to be daughters together.

Asa Desai ’25

The sustain pedal. Essentially, it elongates notes played on a piano. It can transform a happy piece into a melancholy one. It can cause authentic applause. It can make your grandmother cry. It brings humanity, soul, and softness into a piece. A piano is not complete without one, or so I thought.

I was fortunate enough to know my great-grandfather. He walked me to school when he came to visit. He loved old jazz standards, and his favorite was “Misty.” I played it for him at his nursing home when he could no longer remember anyone’s name, but he hummed along with every note, conducting from his wheelchair. That was the last time I saw him alive. His dementia worsened, and he died the next year, when I started high school.

I was asked to play at his memorial service one summer afternoon in West Virginia, the site of many happy family reunions. As I sat down and began to warm up, I came to the alarming discovery that the digital upright piano provided did not have a sustain pedal. What soulless keyboard programmer had overlooked this essential component? Fanning themselves with his memorial program, over a hundred attendees waited patiently in the sweltering heat while I struggled to navigate this foreign situation. After adjusting the controls as best I could, there was nothing left to do but start playing. As I progressed through the piece, I realized that without the predictable ease of the sustain pedal, the musician is forced to use inventive means if she is to achieve the effect it provides. I began to alter my technique by adding more force to my strokes and delaying the departure of my fingers from the keys. I had not yet learned that this experience would foreshadow another disorienting event in my life just one year later.

My hair started falling out when I was nine. I had just finished putting in pigtails for my birthday when my mom noticed a patch of hair missing from the nape of my neck. Over the next few years, despite undergoing various, sometimes painful treatments, my hair fell out, grew back, then finally fell out so much that I made the decision in the middle of my sophomore year of high school to shave my head.

Hair is expected. It frames the face. It provides an outlet for self-expression. Done well, it can make your grandmother cry and cause spontaneous applause. It’s fair to say that hair, much like a sustain pedal in a piano, seems essential in the life of a high school student.

At first I wasn’t bothered by my diagnosis of alopecia, an auto-immune condition that causes hair loss. Eventually, what did take a lot from me was the constant anxiety of never knowing whether the treatments would work. I couldn’t continue to watch strands of my hair collect at the base of the shower and on my brush. I wasn’t living as much as I was waiting. But what would happen when I showed up to school with a wig? How would my teammates and friends react when they inevitably saw my bald head? As hard as I tried to avoid the decision, in the end I knew it could only be mine to make. 

  As I played the last notes of my great-grandfather’s favorite song, I was startled by the roar of applause that followed. I turned around to see a “Misty”-eyed audience, captivated by my performance. In that moment and countless others, I have come to understand that sometimes the struggle created by the absence of something seemingly essential allows for more self-expression and human connection. I know what it’s like to go through an experience that completely disorients you and forces you to start from scratch.

Everyone has their sustain pedal. It’s how they move forward without it that matters.

Reese Pedersen ‘25

1. On a random Thursday, when the sky was mostly clear with a red sunset peeking through the clouds, I felt an urge to swim, to heck with homework. The thought of ice water against my skin was my top focus. I crossed the street, up the driveway to my cousin’s house, and down the road that winded to my grandma’s house. Her door was cracked as it always is, the aroma of freshly cooked soup seeping into the air. Stepping down her wide staircase, I heard her call, asking who it was, and I responded, “Hi, Mamie.” I was offered some soup, accepted, and sat down staring out at the Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains, waiting for her hot tub to heat up. The mountains stood like sentinels, watching the water continuously wave hello.
2. In a rebellious tone, she said to me, “I was never good at school like my siblings.” On her 11th birthday, mid-school year, her parents had enough of her perennial pleas for a horse. They gave her an option: stay at Forest Ridge Academy, a school she vocally loathed, or transfer to Denny public school and receive the horse of her dreams. Of course, she chose the horse. “Big, red, handsome, and bull-headed as could be,” she called him Copper. She rode him down the streets of Seattle, listening to the clip-clop of the hooves mixed with the melody of 1950s Elvis Presley buzzing through the radio. Copper finally learned an escape route out of his hay-strewn stable, mastering the way to wander solo through the city. Calls to retrieve him from miles away replaced the homework accumulating on her desk. After Seattle Fire Department returned the horse for the third time, her parents had had enough. She said goodbye to that mahogany-colored beast and returned to Forest Ridge.
3. “Do you have any homework?” she asked, somewhat teasing me. I told her I had some, but would finish it up later. She laughed and said that’s exactly what she used to say. One of her three dogs came up to me and pressed a paw against my leg, signaling for me to pet her. My fingers grazed her rough fur while her comforting old dog breath released into the kitchen. The oily residue clung to my hands. Emily in Paris played in the background and blended into the rhythm of our conversation. Our soup turned into fragments of mixed spices. “Are you going to plunge in the Puget Sound?” she wondered. Responding with “Duh,” I briskly changed into my red bikini. Following her three dogs, we walked onto the beach while she told me of the exotic waters she’d once submerged in, the cold sand seeping between and chilling our toes. “Three, two, one,” and I descended into the frigid Puget Sound.
4. “I wanted to travel the world,” she told me in a nostalgic voice. As soon as she turned 20, she became a flight attendant for United Airlines. “The stewardess of the sky,” she called herself. Over the years, she toured 55 countries and all seven continents. But in the 1960s United Airlines asserted married women couldn’t fly anymore. She had two options: her career or her love for my grandpa. Betrayed by a job she adored, she left United Airlines. Together, she and my grandpa made life an adventure. Working as a travel agent and in my grandpa’s lumber company, she set foot in Bangkok, went to Tonga, Paris, and Japan. They saw it all. Then one day, 17 years later, United Airlines rang her line. She said yes.
5. After my plunge, I sank into the hot tub, feeling that tingle underneath my skin. “Mamie,” I asked, “where are we exploring next?” When I was a bright-eyed toddler, my grandma took my family and me to Africa. The herbaceous grass never stopped stinging my nose, the scream of the hyenas still rings in my ears, and the curiosity about the earth has lasted a lifetime. After taking me on expeditions to 35 countries, she said with a smile that it was my decision this time. Sitting there, I reflected on where my spirit for adventure and zest for life sparked from. But the answer wasn’t far away. It was from the woman reading in the kitchen—her stories, her choices, her never-ending spirit. Next time you wonder how you came to be, where you came from, or who you are, just take a look at the people around you. For me, I stemmed from her. She was the origin of my own wanderlust and vitality.

Jules Conklin ’25