Youth

I took Sophie to our Landlord's cocktail party last night, and then to a special Valentine's Day medley of songs in the Providence Opera House, an old theatre out on Broadway Street designated as a historic landmark. The evening was fun weighing the sum of the parts. The fact that it was something special to do on a special day in the calendar, the fact that our Landlord keeps extending his welcome to us and we have met neighbors and friends through him, the fun of doing something modest and different, and the universal appreciation that the guests seem to have for Sophie all make for a good experience. She attracts positive attention everywhere she goes. Youth is appealing to middle-aged people, it is abundantly evident. Someone asked whether Sophie and I were brother and sister. I laughed, noting that I am 54 and she is 13, a mere 41 years between us, and how although I appreciated the comment. Sophie could not possibly have welcomed it, or maybe, she might like it when someone mistakes her old father for someone far, impossibly more youthful. Youth is wasted on the young.