The Boy Behind the Tree

In my apartment, there are three instruments which I play daily; two guitars - electric and acoustic - and a keyboard. As a pianist of four years, I love classical and general improvisation of modern pieces, though any bit suffices. As stated in the Realer Life, children of all ages run past my back door every day, causing my dog to go bonkers if I don't hold him myself. However, my dad was taking the dog for a drive and I got to stay inside and amuse myself. After a little Doctor Who, I decided to download sheet music for Clara's Theme and play it on my keyboard. I pulled up the sheets (which were fairly easy) and began working it out. I got through the entire piece a few times and started working on individual bits. I ran through the piece once more, trying to make out the struggle of the Doctor's attempt at understanding his Impossible Girl. I struck the final chords and raised my hands.
At this point, a ray of sunlight had made its way through the trees and above the building before us, landing right where my electric guitar had been stood up. I turned towards it in PNW-y fascination to catch the face of a boy around my age peeking out from behind one of the last natural cedars. He was wearing a red soccer jersey which stood out especially when I saw him in the parking lot hours later. From behind the tree, he laughed and ran away.
Thinking speculatively as a person pretending to be older, I was flattered to see someone - especially a boy, if I choose to revert to my own age for a moment - enjoying the art which was laughed upon at my school. I'm finding that this realer life, though it can be stereotyped, is sweeter than it has ever been. It's almost too picturesque. People enjoying their lives regardless of income and social standing. If one can ride a bike, scooter, or run, they are welcome. Even if they can sit and talk, they are included. Children - and I could have been one of them - roam the lots and yards, laughing and hanging out every day in the sun. I feel out of place, being that one girl who never speaks and tends to keep to herself, her dog, and her keyboard. Perhaps, with the help and support of Tree Boy, I'll find my way into the ray of light.

The Realer Life in Building B

I live nestled in downtown Woodinville, just a walk away from the movie theater and TCBY. Here in the apartment building, children run helter-skelter in the parking lot every afternoon, playing soccer or tag. They don't necessarily annoy me, but my dog ends up barking at them.

Sometimes, as a younger teen, I look to the children and see faces perhaps just one year younger than I, or the same age. I can see them from my window on the ground floor, and they can't see me. It's almost as if I am transparent or invisible behind the window, watching life unfold around me. In fact, I'm finding it sort of interesting to observe what the others are doing. Could it be just a writerly thing? Upstairs, much stomping, banging, screaming, and bass can be heard throughout the day and night. After a little observation, I found the apartment to house a family with small children, thus explaining much of the stomping and screaming.

After growing up in the suburbs for most of my life, being in the apartment on the weekends is invigorating. It wakes up a part of my awareness that wouldn't have been alive otherwise. All my life, I was taught that people were quiet and kept to themselves, that the kids playing with one another were only found in movies. On our culdesac, even though it was full of children, each family didn't interact much with the others, having their children do their own things. This, however, didn't lead to much bad - we all rode our bikes around the sewer cover, and I shot arrows and BB pellets in the backyard. However, knowing what "realer" life was through my time here shows what things truly are like.

A small dream of mine is to interact and play with the children myself. Inside of me, there is a small child who still wants to get out and play. I feel as if I'm still too soft for it, though. As a teenager, I'd call it "awkwarded-out". Simply, what do I do with a bunch of children? I don't know any of them or their families. Plus, I tend to keep to myself on the ground story, blogging and writing most of the day. That and the fact that my Spanish is new and very little. Many of this building's occupants are Hispanics and other Spanish-speaking cultures. My dad speaks Spanish, as he was once a professor of the language, but none of us are Hispanic. I aim to learn to speak Spanish and be able to interact with so much more of my world.

I know people - and I see these people every day, at times - who are scared or too proud to interact with the Hispanic population of our city. It sickens me, this pompous pride. Where I go to school, racial variety is very little, and I have been discriminated against for looking Hispanic. I'm Asian, which leads to more. Every day, I hear jokes tossed around degrading Hispanics, and I've seen them to be genuine, nice people through my screen door. I hear people around me say that Hispanic children are stupid when they live in such a beautiful city that houses much of the wealthier population of the east side. These children are just being who they are, and my peers would shut them out of their streams of consciousness in an instant. Why teenagers and children will turn their backs to what's only real is the part that sickens me. I can't say, "Please change!" as much as I'm apt to punch someone in the face one of these days.

Then, there's the fact that I'm young. My peers are young. Their peers are young, and they all think the same of other races. They think less of city children, of country children, of anybody but themselves, and they'll deny it every day. Frankly, I don't know what I'm thinking. By paying attention to this issue, am I denying mental separation? It's a problem that simply will not subside, no matter what we do about it. There will be no change. Since people have categorized each other, they have started a problem that cannot be stopped.

Whether it's for the greater ("They are pointing guns at people, thus, they are dangerous."), mere observation (This little girl has very small clothes, looks malnourished, and lives in a poor place where education is limited. She may not know how to read."), or for the worse ("He is wearing a hood and hasn't talked to anybody. He will kill someone in the next ten minutes if I don't intervene.), this problem won't subside. Ever.

The lack of having a grip on "realer" life is going to be tough. In none of these ten months of living here on the weekends, I have found no neighborly connections, and for that I feel some shame. If the children play with one another like they do in the movies, then shouldn't the neighbors know one another?

What defines this realer life, anyways?