The Night I Learned to Look Closer by Ellarie

The Night I Learned to Look Closer by Ellarie - March 2026 Scholarship Essay

It was close to midnight when he approached me, and he swaggered close to me, so close even, that I could smell the smoke on his breath. His clothes reeked of something foul, and it overwhelmed the small public room we stood in. When he flashed me a toothy grin and stuck his tumbler into the hotel’s ice machine, hand, wrist, dirt and all, I was definitely a little scared.

I clutched my violin case in front of me, awkwardly bouncing the hard plastic against my knees, and I tried so desperately to not engage too much with the man. But he started asking me questions about my violin. He asked what it was. Either from fear or kindness I answered his questions. Each time I answered, I remember trying to flash my most polite smile, though I was fully plotting about the conversation I would have with my mom about this strange man. I simply planned this for later. Then he wouldn’t know how put off I was by him.

So I told him it was a violin, and that I had played for 12 years. I responded, when he asked, that I did enjoy playing, and that I hoped to use it for my future. This was how I learned that he loved the violin. He loved it so much, in fact, that he dreamed of hearing it live and thought it was the most beautiful of instruments.

Something overtook me, something subconscious, and I suddenly offered to play for a strange man, outside, in the dark. I did indeed play, after I pulled my instrument from its case, and the man, with his pack of cigars, sat down on a stained public bench. I played Mozart's concerto in G major for him. I remember distinctly the sharp, bitter smells that followed the gentle night breeze while I played, and the way the bench creaked as he shifted his weight. I played for him as long as I dared, hoping to not wake up the people sleeping inside. I felt sorry when it was all over. He smiled at me once more, a big, toothless, blackened smile, running his shaking hands through his greasy hair. He told me how I had just made him so truly happy. I remember the way his eyes sparkled in the dim light offered by the hotel entrance, and the way he sputtered about the joy I had brought him. How I had made his whole year.

It sounds made up, but it did happen, and I still think about it quite often six months later. It was a mere ten minutes, but its impact stretched far beyond that small window of time. Whenever I feel as though I have done something so horrible and unforgivable, it helps me to remember the joyful tears he held back. It’s a strange, beautiful thing to me, that I think fondly of this man and the joy he carried in his steps as he walked away from me and went to sleep in his car.

I got to place my instrument gently back in its case, and got to ride a cold elevator back to a clean room and white sheets, and he stayed outside, in a beat-up car, to sleep. He didn’t hurt me one bit, and I got to heal him a little. The interaction dumped a cold truth about myself down my back, and made me realize things about myself and my judgments and my presuppositions. I had feared this man immediately, for being a man, and for smelling. It moved me from the surface of things to the depths. It made me feel in one way like a terrible human being, and in another like someone who wasn’t too far gone. I had offered to play for him, outside, at night, after all.

I used to wear a magnifying glass around my neck every day, until it fell off somewhere and I couldn’t find it. I used it as a reminder to look beyond the surface for everything, but I still only did that when I wanted to. Only if the person fit my desired aesthetics would I then allow myself to feel compassion, or let myself have enough curiosity to dig deeper. It was unsettling to find out that my assumptions could be wrong, and that a homeless man whom I thought wanted to harm me, merely dreamed of hearing classical music. In less than ten minutes, a stranger taught me how to look closer. I may have lost the magnifying glass, but this memory floats in my head often, and so I don’t think I need the necklace now, anyway.