Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom

One of the pleasures of my life as I've grown up, I realize now, is watching my friends become more and more comfortable with their beauty. Photographs might be inherently misleading or illusory or incomplete-- but they are awfully handy. Looking back at old pictures, I see people of raw potential, a little washed out or blurry around the edges. As they've grown older, they come into focus better, look more like themselves. And the transformation in them is amazing to see. (Plus, now that we've moved out of the Scylla-and-Charybdis-like assaults of public schooling, I think we're all a little less on the defensive which allows us to melt and flow and open up, disclosing the distinctive lights and colors of our personalities [sound familiar, Ade?]). I've heard, on several different occasions, friends of mine remark that their groups of friends are really beautiful people. And I must now concur.