By Karlston Jin

The Other Side: Third Place Winner

You started painting around the same time I began learning the violin. From the lessons you afforded me at the Brooklyn LX Music School, you listened to me grow as I moved from Bach to Vivaldi to Dvorjak. Our creativity bonded us when I was younger, but as time passed, you urged me to practice medicine, thus giving up my interest in the arts. Although I found more kinship with music, you remained concerned about my ability to survive in this world. Survival, which you taught me, hinges on financial success, though it relegates all of life’s wonders to a series of paychecks, all of which you were so familiar with. 

Do you remember when I was 10? I was practicing Bach’s Allemande when, for the first time, you threw my books to the floor, the tear indicating your frustration. As I tried to reorganize them, you scolded me about my lack of crescendo and left. You taught me music was subjective according to a person’s artistry, and medicine was objective, a universal truth that agreed with all forces of nature and our bodies. Music could not agree with all. You proved that. 

I learned in biochemistry that dyes are made of proteins that carry a certain function when arranged in a certain structure. In this case, color serves as the function of structural codes. Take away the structure, and the color is deformed. Rearrange it and another emerges. How do I tell you the art of creation and recreation is the definition of music? 

It wasn’t until I discovered your own violin, tucked at the back of your closet when I was searching for my passport, that I realized you already knew that. You also wanted to be a musician, but to want was not enough. No matter how much practice your hand allowed before fatigue, it was always secondary to the American dollar. Because, the hand, in its unyielding service, must find its way back to feeding our hungry mouths. 

What does it mean to dream? Perhaps it is the ocean that continues to kiss the shoreline no matter how many times it is sent away. To dream, then, is to dare, to learn the existence of the impossible, to have it weighted on your back like a corpse of an alternate self as it whispers false hope into your ears. 

Do you remember the summer of my 15th birthday? We strolled past Central Park where a violinist stood under the shade, his chin resting on his instrument, yet you made a snark comment on how much money was in his bucket? Yet, when I looked away, I felt your hands soften onto mine, your face relaxed. How you were so moved by the act of playing, the act of being freeform yet disciplined, passionate yet critical. Then to be a musician, is perhaps, to be human — to give credence to your art as an extension of yourself, to imagine a new color, one you’ve never seen before. 

Yet dreams, similar to the human body, die with enough time. What are dreams, if not a memory of what you could have accomplished? I close my eyes, and suddenly I am transported back to so many years ago, my fingers placed evenly apart on the neck of the violin, my fragile body forgetting to eat in substitution for practice. 

What do we mean when we say some art lacks depth? Even after all the countless experiences of our calloused hands giving way to skill — for me, a reminder that I am far from perfect and for you, a lingering thought of what you have long since given up for work — we are so similar like two planets in alignment despite the void of separation, a child learning to love an unfinished art as remnants of his mother’s passion so long ago. Perhaps it is the opposite, that depth requires art, the final paint stroke on a canvas that yearns to be finished but never touched. 

It was only when I threatened to pursue music in college, you receded your original stance. Was it that same hopelessness you felt when you chose not to pursue the arts so long ago? “It’s not too late for you,” you said, as we sat down on the couch and looked through your collection of Chinese folksong sheet music as if the lost time might reveal itself in your musician’s hands — those marked with practice from melodies you once loved. 

Let us preserve that magic. That by playing, I cherish all those years that passed between us, when I plucked the notes to Butterfly Lovers, your favorite piece, and you admired from afar, meeting my eyes as I caught your glimpse, and you, turning away as a smile blossoms on your face.