Before We Meant Something

Aaliyah Villagrana

Creighton Elementary stood with white brick walls that have since yellowed and cracked under the Phoenix sun. The red roof cut sharply against the sky, and the metal gates felt too tall for someone like me who still swung her feet from classroom chairs. From the outside, it looked severe, almost unwelcoming. It felt bigger than me. But once I stepped inside, it shifted. The hallways felt narrower, warmer. The classrooms echoed with pencil taps and quiet laughter. What looked so intimidating from the streets became familiar, even comforting. It became home in a way I could not explain. For years, that is how I understood the people inside it too. Anthon and Galilea were always there, moving through the same cracked hallways, blending into the same sea of maroon, white, and navy uniforms. Yet, I cannot remember a time when I did not know their names. They felt a part of the school itself: present, noticeable, but distant. Concrete in space, abstract in my life. They were fixed in the architecture of my childhood the way classroom doors and playground lines were always visible yet never something I thought to question.

I can still picture Anthon in his gray sweater with maroon clinging to the sleeves and hood. The sweater itself was so ordinary, the kind of thing you could forget by the next school year, yet somehow I never did. I saw him near lunch tables, saw him with his friends laughing at things I was never close enough to hear. His voice carried, but never toward me. He existed in fragments. The background of a Snapchat video, a flash of motion across the playground. Always within sight, but never within reach. Galilea was my partner once in the 4th grade. Our desks were pushed together, our worksheets nearly touching, our names written side by side at the top of the page as if the universe was testing the shape of us. But at the end of the day we separated ways so effortlessly, as if nothing had ever held us there. We simply became strangers. Still, I saw her everywhere: in hallways, in classrooms, in electives. Funny enough, I spoke to her friends effortlessly and laughed in the same circle. We were like lines that veered toward each other, close enough to be seen, never enough to connect. I knew the rhythm of her presence before I ever understood its meaning. 

By junior year at Camelback, when we were back in the halls, but still living through screens, the outlines sharpened. Her name appeared on Google Teams before her face ever did. “Galilea.” Plain black letters against a white screen, yet my stomach tightened as if the past had tapped me on the shoulder. I stared at it longer than I needed to. I had told myself I didn’t want to see anyone from Creighton. I had worked so hard to carefully grow away from that version of myself. Seeing her name felt like reopening a door I thought I had closed. Later that week, she transferred to my math class. During icebreakers, the classroom felt too bright. The desks scraped into awkward pairs. The teacher’s voice blurred into words I barely heard because I was busy calculating where I belonged. I remember a sharp, quiet panic, the fear of turning around and finding no one looking back. But when I turned, there she was. The past was staring directly at me. Yet instead of spiraling, my fear shrank. The panic stopped, and her welcoming smile brought relief. For the first time, the past felt like something I wanted to experience again. 

Anthon returned differently. Someone brought him over like an introduction was necessary. “This is Anthon.” I looked at him and almost rejected the image. The gray and red sweater that once defined him in my memory was gone. In its place was purple. His curls were longer now, brushing against glasses he hadn’t worn before. For a split second, I thought this wasn’t Anthon. But it was. Just no longer reduced to fragments. He stood now in full detail, outlined in clarity. Some day in December 2021, the three of us played Minecraft together. Voices overlapping through headphones, laughter sharper and closer than all the Snapchat clips I once ignored. The distance dissolved completely. The hallway figures had finally stepped out of the background. 

Looking back, Creighton Elementary no longer feels severe. The white bricks, the red roof, the metal gates that once seemed too tall for me were just a part of the building. They were the setting of something unfolding quietly in the background of my life. Anthon in his red-threaded sweater. Galilea sitting besides me in fourth grade. We were there long before we were ready for each other. There is a Korean word, In-yeon. It speaks of connections that begin long before we recognize them. Threads of another time, woven through small encounters. It suggests that nothing is as accidental as it feels. Maybe that is what Creighton truly was. Not just a childhood school in Phoenix, but the first brush of something that would return to me when I needed it most. When my world felt unfamiliar, the same names that echoed faintly through the hallways became voices steady beside me. Concrete in space, once abstract in meaning, finally revealed in shape.

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Jesus Rodriguez is a Phoenix photographer and multimedia storyteller whose work focuses on capturing the meaning in daily life. His photography specifically highlights real environments such as city streets and local events. His goal is to present honest moments with a cinematic perspective. He believes both the ordinary and non-ordinary should be seen in a more intentional and reflective way.

@feverfilms42