after school. (after juilliard).

i remember at the age of nineteen sitting on the weathered red chairs in the lobby of juilliard when a dear friend in his fourth and final year took a breath, appraised the chair, appraised me and said: it's going to be strange not coming here every day. i'm not sure how i'll do it.


no one tells you how hard the time just after college is. no one prepares you for it.

for the countless hours you traverse the city taking more classes, meeting more people, working never-ending jobs to pay the never-ending bills, all the while wondering what possessed you to get a bachelor of fine arts in the first place? for those nights you find yourself on the bathroom floor because really that red wine did not go down well or really that guy was so-not-the-one, but this feeling, well--goodness, it sure does feel like a broken heart.

(or the nights, like tonight, you find yourself sitting propped against the toilet because the bathroom is the only place you can connect to the internet).

but then again, no one prepares you for how it's better than all that's come before. how it's richer and fuller.

for that first phone call from a girlfriend to tell you she's pregnant--for how much fun it is to watch these people you love marry and grow families. and how you get to choose--yes, choose!--who you surround yourself with. who you love. who you laugh with. who you call in the middle of the night--from the bathroom floor--when that old sadness creeps in.

and no one says how there's nothing so much like love in this life. love of a child. of a friend. love of all those small things that amount to a life.

and lord help me, if there's anything i've learned from naomi over the years, it's how to love the small things.

the thing is, watching as she and josh parent eleanor--as they give selflessly of themselves, i have a feeling that in the coming years i'm going to get a good schooling on the big things, as well.



dear naomi, josh, and little miss e: thank you for a wonderful weekend, your wonderful friendship, and the love you so freely give.




(plus, it's so fun to hang out with people that lug their camera everywhere and take just as many photos as i do {most people don't get it}).