I ran to the park this morning in a light rain that was perfect for April.
The new growth on the plants vibrated with color and life under the gray skies.
Not everyone made it through the winter, sadly, including this clump of heather.
I was a little bit hungover from a pre-reunion party I went to at my friend Jessica's house in Park Slope. It's been thirty years since we graduated from law school.
We talked about professors we liked and didn't like, as well as fellow classmates. Some of them are powerful Republicans now. I wondered if they were all convening at a different house in a different neighborhood. Maybe they were gloating about Trump.
Jessica and I talked about how relatively clueless we were in law school at NYU, specifically with regard to a kind of 'elite track' for certain students who are either very good at taking law-school exams or very good at networking with the right people to line them up for prestigious legal careers. We speculated that some of this knowledge comes from families. I described a law professor I know who told me that as a child, her parents -- both professors -- used to sit around the dinner table gossiping about who was going to get a job at which university. Neither Jessica nor I grew up in what would be considered an 'intellectual environment,' which we understood put us at a bit of a disadvantage with those who did. It's almost like growing up in a family that speaks a second language; you are going to be more fluent in that language than most other speakers.
Being closeted in my twenties added to my overall naivete about many things in the world.
It was good to see people from thirty years ago and to realize how much in some ways that I've changed. (And how much in other ways that I've not changed.)
Standing in the park and mulling over the passage of time, I realized, is a great pleasure of being old enough to stand in the park and mull over the passage of time.
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