Our office shares a lobby with the Illinois Institute of Art. Its students are always scattered around at small tables, meticulously going at a pad of onion paper with a straight edge and a drafting instrument.
I sometimes pause and take advantage of their being so focused to really look at them: all of 19 or 20, thin as pencils, dressed in the latest silly fashion and pouring their souls into a rendering of a costume or a house or a frog.
“If only,” I say silently to their future self, 20 years down the line, trapped in some accounting office or insurance firm, “you could see how you look at this moment. It would break your heart.”