She is 15.
She will learn to drive a car and ride a bike during the same summer.
She will be a terrible waitress for about 3 months.
She will soon eat sushi for the first time.
She will have crush on about fifteen different boys at once, including, but not limited to: a British chemistry major (too old for her), a college debater (too old for her), a really short soccer player (not into her).
She will get the aforementioned British chemistry major to take ballroom dance classes with her through community ed. She will never figure out how she magicked that into happening.
She will be kissed by the aforementioned college debater on her 16th birthday. It will be awesome, and really confusing. He will keep reappearing in her life every 2 years or so, ad infinitum.
She will be allowed to pretend that she is an adult by many, many people.
She will learn about hip-hop, and punk rock, and Tom Robbins, and poetry, and counter-culture.
She will sleep on the couch of her college-aged best friend most weekends.
She will wake often to sunlight through an attic window and a black cat biting her toes.
She will feel free, but not realize it until many years later.
She will feel loneliness, and desire, and joy, and love.
She will continue to get taller, despite drinking obscene amounts of coffee at every opportunity.
She will learn to play spades.
She will learn to work hard at a job. It will serve her well later in life.
She will DJ a jazz show on an underground radio station, and read poetry on the air, and her dad will stay up late and tape her.
She will fall off a 12-foot high land bridge into a shallow creek in the pitch darkness. Her best friend will jump in to save her. Neither of them will have any idea how to climb out. She will hit someone in the face with her muddy shoe when she tries to throw them back out of the creek.
She will begin to have large non-intersecting groups of friends for the first time in her life.
She will feel okay about having multiple best friends.
She will learn about embodying paradoxes.
She will have so many adventures.
2 comments:
Oh, Blake! I remember those 15-year-old days of yours! They were golden, and you were such a wonderful person to get to have in my life. Sometimes I wish I could have been a better (oldish) mentor, but I'm in all I'm so glad to have been a friend. You're a great friend. Love.
Miss Emily! You were a wonderful mentor. You were (and are) smart and beautiful and complicated and you took incredible care of me while helping me to step out into the world. I can't thank you enough for what you've given me. Love to you.
Post a Comment