Esther Ra
the best & the brightest
I listen to elite law firm attorneys speak of students from lesser schools or lower grades, and a look of disdain crosses their faces, like a cloud briefly obscuring the blinding blue sky. We hire only the best & the brightest… Presumably I am included in this category, because I am at Stanford, and I have been hired by an elite law firm, and invited to this party. But I swirl the wine in my glass, feeling flushed & self-conscious, like stepping into a suit the wrong size. I cannot shake off the feeling that I am speaking through a glazed mask that could crack at any moment, or treading lightly through fields of artificially pristine grass. If I close my eyes, I can still see the cheap signs blinking dimly in the red-light district, right by the small church where I lived. I can still smell the sharp stench of the gutters underneath our house, or my mother’s nightmares where she steps back into her childhood, pushing through bathroom stall after stall, each overflowing with shit. I was as shocked as anyone to find myself here; still feel my head swim in classes; still feel clammy and afraid every time I take an exam. I tell my best friend from Stanford, It worries me, because I don’t identify as the best or the brightest, and he bursts into laughter: I don’t think that’s something you can choose to identify with if you aren’t, Esther. It’s just something that you are!
But how can you measure worth by pedigree? I think of my friend back home who never went to college, her glowing beautiful eyes, her witty tongue, her strong hands so much faster and more efficient than mine. The way she was one of the few people in Korea who ever saw my sadness: It worries me when you say you love the ocean, Esther, she wrote to me once in a letter, because I do, too, and it’s the people who are loneliest who fall in love with the ocean. I think of the ocean of souls across every country and continent, each blazing with their own specific gift, their own beautiful usefulness to the world, despite the coin flip of country or family or circumstance. I think of the brothers sisters lovers fathers mothers who shape the world to become a kinder place, regardless of their place of origin or the level of their degree. I know I have been given much, and therefore I speak too much, but it is not those who narrate the loudest who have the most important stories to tell. This is what I believe: worth is not a price tag or a resume, not a voice we fashion out of a mask, but something we’ve been given—something that, as my friend said, we are. It is the invisible jewel pulsing inside of our chests. The good, quiet work of tongues singing, of bread rising, of children sleeping under a safe sky. It is the brightness that dwells—not in our hands, but in reflection. We turn our faces like sunflowers, towards the same light that shines down on us all.
Esther Ra is a bilingual writer who alternates between California and Seoul, South Korea. She is the author of A Glossary of Light and Shadow (Diode Editions, 2023) and book of untranslatable things (Grayson Books, 2018). Her work has been published in Boulevard, The Florida Review, Rattle, The Rumpus, PBQ, and Korea Times, among others. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Pushcart Prize, Indiana Review Creative Nonfiction Award, 49th Parallel Award for Poetry, and Sweet Lit Poetry Award. Esther is currently a J.D. candidate at Stanford Law School. (estherra.com)
