November 9, 2010

  • There are, at this moment, three interns and a photographer in my living room.


    detail from a Kestos ad, c. 1930s

    They're shooting some promos for the magazine. They've only been here for 20 minutes but the room, when I walked in, was already a disaster. There are magazines and clothes and bottles of nail polish everywhere.

    You'd think it would be a chaos of chattering, but the girls are as quiet as mice. All I can hear from my office is a murmur or the creak of the wood floors, the soft clicking of a camera shutter. I'm steering well clear. I am a senior editor and fifteen years older (at least) and I think I intimidate them. Too much scrutiny, whether actual or perceived, makes for bad pictures.

    Now I can hear them. They are getting comfortable in this new space. When the cat is being adorable they coo in unison. I think these girls must be the loveliest, cleverest, silliest, most promising creatures I've ever seen. I remember someone saying of 20 year olds once, that at that age even if you're not beautiful, you're beautiful. It couldn't be more true. I remember being 20, but only from the inside. It was lonelier there, much more insecure than these hipster elves make it look.

    If they weren't so respectful of me, they'd have me completely fooled.

    g. 

     

Comments (2)

  • Thanks for your note today. You explained it exactly. I feel the need to be consistent with whatever I was doing at the start - but in so many ways I think I'm a much different girl now. You've got me thinking about starting fresh, though. I've missed this.

    Two of my roommates this year are eighteen. And I know 21 isn't much older than that, but I feel like it's hard to start university and come out of it without doing some serious figuring-yourself-out... and that isn't easy. I find myself watching them and both marveling at how cool they are and sort of wondering what's going on underneath all of that. (And I feel pretty protective of them sometimes, too.)

    I'll be seeing you very soon... have a lovely, lovely day.

    h.

  • the life of a 20 year old is rife with insecurity. and consequently, facades. there's more than a little truth in the saying "youth is wasted on the young." well, maybe that's not exactly the right...adage...but that age is certainly one of unlikely juxtapositions.

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