Lessons learned from S., on the five-year anniversary of leaving the door open
I’m not just a girl with a camera. I’m the oldest of three girls, and my younger sister, Katharine, just had her first baby on Saturday, and my youngest sister, Cara, is getting married in July. And I’m turning 35 next month. I’m old enough to be Shane Lavalette’s mother. Okay, so I would’ve had to get pregnant in the ninth grade, and I wasn’t doing anything in the ninth grade that would’ve even come close to getting me knocked up, but still, it’s biologically possible.
It’s really easy, when you’re starting something in your 30s, to focus on the numbers. It’s really easy when “emerging photographers” are almost always defined as being under 30 (or under 31), to think you’ve missed the boat. It’s really easy to feel like you’re in a race against time. To feel like you have to shove your work out there in the world now, fast, hurry up!
When my mind starts going into that dark place, S. will say or do something that makes me realize that age makes no difference. He is decades older than I am, and he is always learning, always growing, always trying new things. He’s more adventurous than I am, by far. He faces challenges head-on, never shrinking from them or questioning why. He sees life as a grand comedy, and even in the most difficult times, he finds the humor in it all. He is confident beyond my comprehension, without being remotely arrogant. He has read more than I’ll ever read. He understands music in a way that blows my mind. He’s all curiosity and enthusiasm and energy.
I used to think it would’ve been cool to know him when he was a kid, but it occurred to me recently that I already do—that the person he was when he walked down the street, to the corner of Sixth and Cochran in Los Angeles, reading his Big Little Books and chewing on licorice, the remainders of which he would wrap in wax paper and bury, leaving them like a treasure to be discovered anew the next afternoon, is the same person I know now, except instead of Big Little Books it’s Richard Price and Junot Díaz and Jhumpa Lahiri, and instead of licorice it’s coffee from Peet’s.
It’s really easy, when you’re starting something in your 30s, to focus on the numbers. And it’s really easy, when you have S. in your life, to let that all go.
It’s really easy, when you’re starting something in your 30s, to focus on the numbers. It’s really easy when “emerging photographers” are almost always defined as being under 30 (or under 31), to think you’ve missed the boat. It’s really easy to feel like you’re in a race against time. To feel like you have to shove your work out there in the world now, fast, hurry up!
When my mind starts going into that dark place, S. will say or do something that makes me realize that age makes no difference. He is decades older than I am, and he is always learning, always growing, always trying new things. He’s more adventurous than I am, by far. He faces challenges head-on, never shrinking from them or questioning why. He sees life as a grand comedy, and even in the most difficult times, he finds the humor in it all. He is confident beyond my comprehension, without being remotely arrogant. He has read more than I’ll ever read. He understands music in a way that blows my mind. He’s all curiosity and enthusiasm and energy.
I used to think it would’ve been cool to know him when he was a kid, but it occurred to me recently that I already do—that the person he was when he walked down the street, to the corner of Sixth and Cochran in Los Angeles, reading his Big Little Books and chewing on licorice, the remainders of which he would wrap in wax paper and bury, leaving them like a treasure to be discovered anew the next afternoon, is the same person I know now, except instead of Big Little Books it’s Richard Price and Junot Díaz and Jhumpa Lahiri, and instead of licorice it’s coffee from Peet’s.
It’s really easy, when you’re starting something in your 30s, to focus on the numbers. And it’s really easy, when you have S. in your life, to let that all go.
Labels: age, books, family, Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Díaz, Los Angeles, photographers, Richard Price, S., Shane Lavalette, writers
posted by Liz at 1:33 PM
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