Bright Futures...

I was going through a box of papers when I came across this photo.  A Pittsburgh-based artist and poet named Sarah Williams-Devereux took it in New York a little over ten years ago.  I was in a summer residency program and was making big, abstract paintings.  (You can see one of them behind me in the photograph.)

Had you asked me then where I'd be in ten years, I imagine my answer would be very different from the reality of today.  I saw my fate intrinsically connected to the City and it was hard for me to imagine ever leaving it.  But eventually I did.  Things change in the most unexpected ways.

While I sometimes miss that dreamy ambition and the fearlessness of young adulthood, what I have now is so much... more.  I was unprepared to discover happiness then and I wasn't open to fulfillment.  What I remember most of those years was an ever-present hunger.  I wanted it all and more and was never satisfied.  Part of me was empty and I tried desperately to fill that vacancy.  At the time, only a city of millions of nameless strangers could come close to filling in that hollowed out space.

Now I look at this picture and I see someone dreaming of unknown bright futures.  I see a person clearly, that cannot see me.  He looks past me, because he cannot imagine who I am, the person he'll grow to be.  I'm excited for him.  For there is a rich road ahead, filled with more than he could dare to dream.