Essays

Essays that cross disciplines and forms, using creative writing to translate experience into reflection and emotion.

The Silence Between Us

Awards:

Roy Peter Clarke Narrative Contest Overall Winner

Walt Whitman Writing Contest Winner

Chaminade AP Literature and Composition Contest Overall Winner.

Published in Skylight Literary magazine

I do remember the night the power went out. It was toward the end of August, and the heat was trapped in the house, pressing up against the windows. It had rained very hard, and the roof cracked like it was going to split in two. Then, the lights went out.

We stayed in the living room—my father and I—in the quiet of the house as it shut down. The refrigerator no longer made its soft humming. The TV shut off mid-sentence. The only sound was the rain beating against the window, and for a long time, nobody said anything.

In those days, my dad and I lived in different worlds. He was working long hours, and I was busy living my life. Our conversations had become as brief as our exchanges—efficient, necessary, and both of us knew it.

"Do you need a ride?"

"I'm good."

"Dinner's in the fridge."

"Okay."

That night, the silence between us was different. I shifted in my chair, trying to see where the light ended and the shadow began. I wanted to talk about something—anything—but the words were stuck between my chest and my throat.

Then, without turning to me, he said, "Your grandfather enjoyed this kind of storm."

His voice was firm, but I heard the slight tenderness of something that was otherwise hidden. It was a small detail—a particular idea that opened a door to his memory.

"Really?"

He nodded and settled back into the couch. "He’d sit on the porch and watch the rain fall. He said it made him feel like a little man, in a good way."

I pictured it in my head: an elderly man on a veranda, the rain coming down in metallic streams, the world collapsing on him in every direction—a rung of a ladder stretching from the concrete to the infinite.

We stayed like that for a while—two shapes in the semidarkness, by the light of a candle—the space between us gradually growing smaller. He began telling stories I had never heard before, about his childhood in Queens and how he spent his summers fixing cars in his father’s garage. I listened, and each of those memories filled the gap where, earlier, there had been nothing but silence.

When the power was restored, something had shifted between us. The house still smelled like rain, and the fridge was back to making its usual, reassuring noise—a beat as reliable as a pulse.

"Want to play cards?" he asked, his voice in a better place.

I thought about saying no—the stubbornness of a teenager too absorbed in his own world. But instead, I shrugged. “Sure.”

That night, we played two games of gin rummy by candlelight, and I don’t even remember who won. What I do remember is how the silence between us had changed—not oppressive, but rich.

Looking back, I know those stories were his way of attempting to span the chasm, using random occurrences to create a link where things had begun to fracture. It was a kind of storytelling without ever asking people to pick up a pen. Every story is made of those moments. The name of the dog. The rain on the porch. The dealing of the cards in the dark. They are the details that make people lean forward, listen hard, and perhaps—if they are very fortunate—connect the spaces inside of us.

The Listening Rocks

The first night the fire came alive, I knew I was home.

The hiss of gas cut through the humid summer night as my dad slipped a small silver key into the socket. With one flick of his lighter, the patio was born in a bloom of orange light. The new stone glowed, still smelling faintly of wet concrete from the work we’d just finished. Earlier that day, my family moved into our new house. My relatives, classic Italians, arrived in a wave of noise, carrying baskets of bread and olive oil to bless the new house and chase away any lingering spirits. We ate, we laughed, and we learned to love in this new house. At the center of it all was the firepit. Standing by the flames, the heat flushing my face, I realized this was it—this was home.

That night I looked out of my bedroom window and noticed something: those black lava rocks would glow like embers long after the flames were extinguished, holding a secret warmth through the night.

I didn't know it then, but those stones, dark and silent, would become the still point of my turning world. They were about to witness the next ten years of my life: every season, every milestone, and every quiet moment that would shape me.

As kids, it was our anchor. After school, my neighbors and I would charge into the backyard ready to run. Football games against our older brothers left us bruised and tired. We’d collapse by the firepit afterward, grass-stained and breathless, melting s’mores and talking about everything and nothing. Fourth grade philosophers discussed all that we wanted to be, who we liked, or whether we could run faster tomorrow. We didn't know much, but the fire taught us to slow down. I learned, without knowing I was learning, that true connection is forged in listening.

As I grew, the fire shifted from a stage to a sanctuary. It became a place of refuge. I remember one specific afternoon, walking outside and loosening my school tie to find my mom waiting for me. Before she said a word, I knew. My uncle had died suddenly. My cousins had lost their father; my mom, her brother. That night, I sat by the fire alone. The flames danced, restless and fleeting, but the rocks held their steady, silent glow. When words were useless, their profound stillness offered a different kind of solace, an understanding that ran deeper than language.

They were the silent audience to my becoming. Those stones absorbed the quiet scratching of my pen as I stayed up late, wrestling with the poems and stories that would later find their own audience. They watched as I rebuilt a two-stroke engine, grease staining my hands, sparks from the fire flickering in the corner of my eye. They were the backdrop for clumsy guitar chords played under the stars and the repetitive thwack of golf balls hit into the dark until my palms were raw. Through every obsessive project, every change of heart, the fire burned and faded, but the rocks remained.

My favorite nights, though, were the simplest. They were the ones spent with my dad and brother, sitting around the fire for hours, trading stories and laughing until we couldn’t breathe. The world felt manageable then—just three people, one flame, and the kind of uncomplicated warmth that doesn't fade when the fire does. Those nights taught me that family isn’t about grand gestures; it’s about the constancy of showing up, again and again, even when there’s nothing new to say.

If those rocks could speak, they’d tell the story of a boy growing up. They saw the impatient kid who wanted to understand everything all at once, and they see someone now who has learned to slow down—to listen, to absorb, to let things take shape in their own time. The fire is bright and consuming, but the rocks are what endure. They have become my reminder that strength isn't loud; it's steady.

Tonight, as I write this, the flames are low and calm. College feels much like that first night in this house—a new place, a little uncertain, full of promise. I know I cannot bring these stones with me, but I carry what they’ve given me: a sense of balance, the discipline of listening, and the quiet strength needed to build a home wherever I land.

When I finish this essay, I will turn the key, watch the fire fade, and leave the rocks to their enduring watch. Then I’ll step inside, ready for whatever comes next.

Four In Eight Out

A golf course spans an average of 7,000 yards or 252,000 inches, the most important of which are the six between your ears.

Golf taught me to measure progress in breaths, not birdies. At first, I chased distance, and perfection. But golf has a way of humbling you. One bad shot can unravel a round. My thoughts seemed to race faster than I could walk down the narrowing fairway. In the coming rounds, I realized something - the real contest wasn’t against par; it was a war against my own impatience.

So I rebuilt my game, from the inside out. I kept a pocket notebook containing every metric I needed to stay focused. Each round began with intention and commitment to a process. Slowly I discovered that focus is not the absence of failure, but the ability to let go of it.

I practiced every day, each time sticking to the same routine, honing in on the mental battle of each and every swing. Progress didn’t happen overnight, but slowly I saw how resilience turned setbacks into opportunities to grow. My scoring average plummeted. It had paid off. What changed wasn’t my swing; it was my ability to choose attention over anxiety.

But soon, these lessons stretched far beyond golf. In the classroom, I learned to treat a difficult problem like a trickery hole. Attack it one step, one calculation, or one word at a time. As the captain of my hockey team, I began leading not only by scoring more, but by being the first to go to a teammate after a turnover - “next shift”, because composure is contagious.

My talent isn’t golf, but the discipline of mastering my own mind. It’s the skill of finding composure during the most stressful moments, combating doubt with focus, coding clarity when chaos looms. And while golf gave me the arena to build it, this talent will guide me far beyond the course, wherever challenge and opportunity meet. I can’t control the wind or the bounce, but I can control my breath, my routine, and my belief that the next shot matters most.

Chasing Cheese

Each day the mice are slow to rise. The mice eat their bland breakfast and race out of the house in order to make it to their positions in time. Each mouse spends his entire day waiting for the end, hoping for a relief of their misery. After finishing their duties, the mice receive a piece of cheese. Through the slight joy obtained by having cheese, the mice become programmed to think that if they spend enough time in their positions, saving all of their cheese, they will have enough to be happy. Eventually, once daylight has passed, the mice are allowed to return to their sleeping quarters. Here they spend their time resting and attempting to forget their day's troubles. Somewhere in this process they fall asleep. Feeling even worse the next day, they rise, eat their breakfast and depart to start the cycle all over again. Eventually once the mice have saved enough cheese to be happy, they die.

Kitchen

The kitchen's soundtrack is the sizzle of oil as the garlic lands

It’s the first note of the evening, the one that means Dad is home. He’s at the stove, a silhouette against the rising steam, swirling a pan of what he calls "liquid gold." The smell blooms instantly, filling the room. Toasted garlic, nutty and sharp, mingles with the bright, fruity scent of “the good oil” — dad’s friend Andy brings it home from Greece. He’s lost in the motion, a conductor of flavor.

At the island, Mom is a world away. Her "work voice", clean and sharp, cuts through the warm kitchen air. "If we improve throughput by just 1 percent," she says, her gaze locked on the laptop's spreadsheets and zoom calls. The light reflects in her glasses, painting a tiny, digital world over her eyes. She tucks a stray hair behind her ear, completely absorbed, her focus holds her upright.

My brother, conversely, is an anchor of stillness at the table. He is a study in apathy, bathed in the blue, artificial glow of his phone. His existence has shrunk to the small screen in his hands, his thumbs a rapid blur. A tiny, tinny clang of a digital sword escapes his earbuds, the only proof he’s even awake.

I’m on trash duty. The bag groans as I hoist it, a heavy, crinkling cloud of the day's discards. I have to execute the familiar ballet: a wide arc around Mom's invisible "pacing zone," a careful step over my brother's sprawled legs, and a quick pass behind Dad. As I go by the stove, a wave of fragrant heat washes over me, reassuring me dinner will be ready soon.

I push open the back door, and the cool, damp night air rushes in, a sudden shock to the senses. For a moment, the world is quiet and clean. “From threeeeee” I hollow as I hurl the trash into the bin.

From here, the kitchen is just a warm, yellow square of light. I can see all of them inside: Dad swirling the pasta, Mom nodding at her screen, my brother’s head bent in blue light. We are four planets in a tiny solar system, each spinning in our own orbit, busy with our own gravity. But we're all tethered, all held together by the hiss of the pan and the undeniable, beautiful insistence of that garlic, pulling us home.

Stadium Arcadium Deep Dive

Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers Album Review.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers shocked the world with their 2006 release Stadium Arcadium. The 28-track double album demonstrates the band's artistic growth as it extends beyond two hours of content. The group comprising Anthony Kiedis (vocals), Flea (bass), Chad Smith (drums), and John Frusciante (guitar) combines funk with punk and alternative rock to create Stadium Arcadium. The album demonstrates diverse musical horizons through introspective and joyful tracks and experimental sounds.

Themes, Lyrics, and Musical Composition

The album presents a theme that combines elements of love alongside nostalgic and spiritual elements with personal development. Through “Snow (Hey Oh)” and “Desecration Smile” Kiedis expresses redemption and vulnerability through lyrics that combine imagery with sentiment. Specifically, the song “Snow” stands out with its poetic lyrics that express introspective thoughts such as “The more I see, the less I know / The more I like to let it go.” The band tells stories through their musical narratives on “Dani California” alongside other tracks while maintaining their signature California cultural themes throughout their music.

The album extends musical exploration across the entire range of the band's artistic influences. The audio features dominant funk bass lines and melodic guitar riffs together with tight drumming and layered harmonies. John Frusciante's guitar performances stand out throughout the album through both his Hendrix-inspired solo work on “Wet Sand” and his atmospheric soundscapes in “Stadium Arcadium.” The band demonstrates their genre-hopping ability across the album but achieves this versatility at the cost of album length.

Performance and Production Quality

All band members deliver emotional performances throughout the album with precise execution. The return of John Frusciante to the band in the early 2000s brought their sound back to life as he presents his most expressive guitar work to date. Flea maintains his signature funky and creative bass playing throughout the album to energize every song including the more relaxed tracks. Chad demonstrates his ability to adapt to any musical style as he plays drums solidly throughout the album.

Longtime collaborator Rick Rubin handled the production which achieved a polished yet expansive sound. Through his work Rick Rubin enables the band members to maintain their musical connection by providing ample space for instruments to express themselves. The double-album format creates both advantages and disadvantages since it permits experimental freedom but also includes unneeded material. The album would have benefited from a shorter tracklist which would have produced a tighter and more powerful final product.

Comparison with Previous Works

The experimental nature of Stadium Arcadium surpasses the earlier works Californication (1999) and By the Way (2002). The band used Californication to return to fame through their introspective music and developed sound. The band took their musical approach to new heights by focusing on melody and emotional depth in By the Way. Stadium Arcadium blends these two musical directions while revitalizing some of the funk elements present in their previous albums such as Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The band achieved maturity in their sound through this hybrid which kept their foundation intact.

Personal Reflection and Impact

Listening to Stadium Arcadium provides an experience which allows fans to follow the musical thoughts of the band through their nostalgic and unpredictable nature. The extensive length of this album makes it challenging to listen to but it contains some of the band's most outstanding work. The band showcases their songwriting mastery through “Snow (Hey Oh)” and “Dani California” which also became popular radio hits.

Stadium Arcadium remains a landmark recording that highlights the Red Hot Chili Peppers' greatest achievement in their discography. This album displays the band in their peak form because they expanded their musical boundaries without losing the authentic emotional essence that characterizes their most important work. The album offers valuable musical experiences to fans and new listeners who will encounter its combination of strengths and imperfections.