When I walked into our school’s “petting zoo” in fifth grade, I wanted to play the viola or the trumpet. The petting zoo is the term we give to the process of choosing the instrument that you would play in middle and high school. I eventually put my bias aside, and went with the instrument that felt natural. At the time, I didn’t realize how much the decision to play standing bass would mean for my confidence, and how much of a passion it would become for me. I earned a spot for Junior Western Regional Orchestra both years that I auditioned. I went on to become one of the leaders in my section as a freshman in high school. It’s ironic that after this experience, my passion turned from the sound of beautiful melodies to the sound of silence.

After my freshman year of high school, I moved from North Carolina to St Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was a time of transition made more dramatic by Hurricanes Irma and Maria just a few months after I arrived. The new school that I attended lacked a strong music program, and it is hard to maintain the condition of instruments on an island. It was time for me to discover a new passion.

I had always thought that once on St Croix, I would do a lot of fishing. It turns out I have fished only once since moving to the Caribbean. Instead, I decided to try scuba diving. I enjoyed snorkeling with my family, but I had always yearned to be able to swim at depths with the amazing wildlife that this island offers. I believe that diving and orchestra are related to each other.

The feeling of Zen that I get when at depths of over 100 feet is comparable to only one feeling I’ve ever had. It reminds me of the feeling that I get when I used to play the standing bass. Maybe this is because both of these are my passions, or maybe it’s because the two are somehow related. I thought about the two for a while and came to the conclusion that it isn’t the sound of the bass that I loved so much, but rather the feeling of relaxation that i had when playing it. This is the same feeling that I get when scuba diving. Watching the fish move simultaneously is similar to the sight of the bows of violins moving simultaneously. I can see how it seems strange that I would compare these two but hearing is just one of our six senses and I believe that these two activities have more in common than meets the eye.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have enjoyed doing arts and crafts in my spare time. At a young age, my mom showed me how to make moko jumbies and weave baskets from palm leaves. By the age of ten, I was taking apart old beaded necklaces and making my own jewelry. Using the method I had learned from weaving baskets, I was even able to create earrings with materials such as electrical wire. As I began to perfect my skills, my mother realized that I was interested in and good at jewelry making, so we visited our local arts and crafts store to purchase a few supplies. I bought a variety of beads in different colors and sizes and began to create eye catching pieces of jewelry. Once my family noticed, they were all amazed by my creations and suggested that I make money off of it. So almost every week I’d go with my mother to her office to sell the jewelry. Her coworkers started to get really interested and I even had to take orders because requests kept coming in! They even requested for me to create the jewelry in other colors and styles so I was soon creating custom pieces. A lot of people really admired how I was so young yet so passionate. I felt proud of my skills and the creativity that went into making them.

In high school, I got an internship at a handmade jewelry store named Crucian Gold. Before I got the internship, I was a huge fan of their jewelry and wore at least ten of their silver bracelets on my wrist and one of their rings on my every finger every day. They noticed how dedicated I was to the store, from my everyday looks to how hard I worked during the internship, that they offered me a summer job. During my internship I mostly worked in the store, selling and showing off the jewelry, but once they saw me work on making jewelry in the studio, they were impressed by my skills and let me be more involved in making jewelry over the summer. When working in the studio you have to be very cautious. I remember using the hand drill and slicing my ring finger on my left hand open. It was very painful and took a while for the cut to close but now that it’s healed I look back and remember how far I’ve come. I worked Monday through Saturday from 9 am to 5 pm that summer and got better at jewelry making. From soldering, to rubber wheeling, to buffing, working in the studio has exposed me to the other side of jewelry making that I’ve never experienced. If it wasn’t for getting this job, my abilities wouldn’t have increased and formulated. I was excited about all aspects of the job and began to enjoy working to sell the jewelry in the store as it helped build my confidence and public speaking skills. After working for a month that summer, they offered me a permanent year-round job which I accepted. I believe that working at what you’re genuinely passionate for, results in your best work ethic.

Carolyn Grimm is currently a senior at Good Hope Country Day School. An avid writer, she often draws inspiration from the world around her, not only for her writing but also for her life. Her essay goes into detail about how she stays optimistic by appreciating the little things, even during tough times.

Life is defined mostly in big, momentous occasions - in sweet sixteens, in first kisses, in category five hurricanes. But in the space between the milestones are small, quiet moments - the nuances of color in someone’s eyes, the hastily scribbled skeletons of would-be poems in margins, the ringing out of a guitar long after the final chord has been strummed. These little wonders are the ones worth living for.

And that’s what I believe in - little wonders. I believe in hot tea on rainy evenings and in laughing so hard that your stomach hurts. I believe in magic, in the beauty of contours in shadows, in the joy of drinking a cup of coffee on Sunday morning. I believe in details and wide-eyed curiosity, and, most of all, I believe in never passing up the opportunity to dance in the rain.

There’s a lot that’s wrong with the world. If you don’t take the time to find beautiful things in dark places, you’ll spend your life thinking that the world is an ugly place.

Take, for example, Hurricane Maria - a storm that upended trees, powerlines, roofs, and, in a way, my life. Despite us being a thousand miles away after the storm, our neighbors tried to kick us out of our house and filed a lawsuit against my mom’s coworker. That month following Maria was spent in freefall, not sure whether or not I was moving back to the states, or if I still had a home waiting for me if I were to return to St. Croix. On top of that, my mom was struggling with some health problems. The whole situation was, in a word, awful.

Coming back was a tough transition. I didn’t sleep in my own bed for over a month after my return, instead living in hotel rooms that reeked of cigarettes and overpriced rentals that were 45 minutes away from school.

But despite the ugly facts of my reality, I felt lucky - being in a less-than-ideal situation pulled into focus all of these incredible moments of beauty that I hadn’t noticed before.

I watched sunrises from our condo out east - took pictures of rainbows and the day’s first rays of light, sat out on the porch and listened to the distant sounds of the ocean. I soaked in the music playing in town as we walked back to our tiny hotel room - watched as people laughed and danced and found a sense of normalcy in the wake of the storm. I took a moment to stop and stare at the things I found beautiful - blue-tarped roofs were a bitter reminder of what was lost, but the people who came together to fix the wreckage were a quiet reminder of what was found.

Hurricane Maria made me a believer in the power of noticing and appreciating little wonders. Now I know that there is beauty in all the places that light touches, and even in those where there is only darkness.

My mother always said “Cherish your love ones and try and spend as much time with them as possible because they are not always gonna be there.” One time I was complaining about going to my grandparents’ house every weekend but then my dad said, “Enjoy the time you have with them because they will not always be alive.” He was kind of angry when he said this and it kind of made me think that he is right, but I still didn’t really understand. It wasn’t until I was older did I realize that death is a hard thing to deal with. In 7th grade we had gone down to Trinidad for my grandfather's funeral, we called him ‘dads’. I always complained about staying at his house in Diego Martin Trinidad because is was so hot and it had no AC. On top of that I was very far away from my cousins. When I went down for his funeral I really didn’t have any feelings about what had happened, I was sad but it didn’t really affect me. I had gone to the funeral and I had seen family that I had never seen before, most wearing sunglasses to hide crying because it was a really sad time. Towards the end of the funeral all immediate family was asked to hold hands in a circle around the coffin and as I was holding hands with my relatives, the lyrics of the song ‘All I Ask of You’ started playing, the song got me at the part where it went, “All I ask of you is for ever to remember as loving you”, and it made me remind myself of all the great times I had had with dads, like when we were down on the land planting trees, I had to use the bathroom really bad and so I did and then he said to use a leaf to wipe up, it was funny but it also taught me a lesson of survival. Things of that sort but I also remember being eager to leave his house and I hated being there. I realized I never cherished and never was grateful for the times we had and thinking about that just made me burst into tears at the funeral it was just so sad, they just wouldn't stop running down my face, I was so mad at myself for not being grateful for the times I had with him.

I believe that we should cherish the moments we have with people while they are still alive and remember the good memories because those will never go away and they will be with you forever. Even though death is sad doing this will bring joy to you in a way. Never take anyone for granted because sometimes you will be mad at yourself and you will miss them more.

It was last year when I was going to go to a big concert called rolling loud. I was pretty excited about it and even my friends were going to the big event. This concert was gonna be the biggest and most exciting thing that I would do this year. The reason why I knew about this concert was because It was my friends birthday on that day. He then thought of a really fun idea, this idea was to take some people to the concert for his birthday. He then went to each of his closest friends and promised them that he would take all of us. When we got the news we were all very excited. I then decided to buy the $500 ticket online as soon as they came out because those tickets would have been sold out in one day. When I asked my mom If I could buy the ticket she went crazy and just said, that is a funny joke. She then realized I wasn’t joking. But I convinced her into giving me an early Christmas present. When I purchased the ticket I went straight to my friends and told them that I have a ticket and it’s on its way. Apparently they all had the same idea to buy the ticket earlier. There was a week left until the concert and everyone has gotten there ticket and a flight to Florida. All of a sudden my friend came up to me and said that he had some bad news saying that there was not enough space for me to come and stay with them when we go to rolling loud. At first I thought he was joking but the look on his face was just as serious as a drill sergeant. The news was a shock to me, it was just a numb feeling. The things going through my head like what am I going to tell my parents about this news. The date was here to fly out and I didn’t have a place to stay so I had to cancel my flight and waste $500 on a ticket. All my other friends that were going to the concert were confused why I wasn’t going. They asked the birthday boy and he said that there wasn’t enough room. When they were at the concert I was busy doing work with my dad. I believe that friends shouldn’t break promises.

The date was June 13, 2002 and the time was 6:30 a.m. It was an extremely significant moment for me. For a brief three minutes, I was an only child and I got to enjoy the spotlight all to myself in front of sixteen pediatricians and pediatric nurses. Before I knew it, my three womb mates joined me in the center stage.

Being a quadruplet has its advantages. It gave me an instant identity as one of the “Quads.” It provided me with built-in best friends. It also made me a sharing expert. From sharing birthdays, to rooms, to a 2006 Toyota Corolla. However, there is one distinct disadvantage—I am constantly being compared to my siblings, by others and by myself. As the oldest of the Quads, I put a lot of pressure on myself to get better grades, or at least the same grades, as my siblings. This was tough for me because academic ability is one thing my siblings and I do not share.  I came to this realization in fifth grade when I watched my siblings get called up one by one to get their award for Honor Roll while I never heard my name called.  I was devastated. This experience made me realize that I needed to approach school differently. I began to study twice as hard as I did before, going to my teachers after school for extra help, and I participated in study groups.  When needed, my parents hired a private tutor to help me overcome my Dysgraphia. At my teacher’s suggestion, I also adjusted how I took notes in class.  Instead of taking handwritten notes, I started typing notes on my phone and taking photos of lecture notes on the board.   Because I genuinely believe if you work hard you can overcome anything

I have come to accept that my siblings and I are identical in many ways, but that we are also unique in our own ways.  Thus, while we will always share the stage with each other, we will each enjoy our own success and be in our own limelight..  After all, I am the big brother.