Teens. Suddenly, they are everywhere, like flowers or possibly more like dandelions, since they spring up without warning, and they dominate the eye. They grow very fast. They seem to be always turning themselves toward the sun. And they cluster.
Of course, dandelions aren’t noisy and don’t move around. Beware metaphor breakdown.
Maybe what I mean is birds, since they stand out particularly well against the sky just before nightfall. They flock and swoop, seeming to move in a mysteriously motivated connection, always in relation to each other, like a murmuration. And they chatter. They are always aware of other flocks, even when they seem disinterested.
And they go in affinity groups. Birds of a feather, and all that. I went to the Guthrie Theater last week to see Little Women and ended up sitting in the balcony. It was a steep drop to the stage, although it provided the best possible view of the beautiful costume skirts displayed as each of the “women” found occasion to twirl in the opening scenes.
Little Women is a formative story for generations of American females, with its plucky heroine, loving mother, close cadre of sisters, and yearning-but-chaste love affairs. My own copy is nearly worn through; on the way to the theater, I tried to recite the opening lines of the novel. I know the story well.
In the first act, I noticed audience noise from the next section over. Really, I thought? Rude. Then I noticed that the murmuring and small sounds were in response to the unfolding story. At the act break, I looked over. It was a high school drama club, maybe twenty-five of them, wild-haired, pierced, creatively garbed, fluidly gendered, leaning forward in their seats, clinging to each other’s arms, their avid faces turned toward the stage light, catching and reflecting the story’s high emotions. They were making little supportive teenaged gasps. That character is a rebellious girl who speaks up against authority…yes! That character is mischievous…hah! That character is wooed by a handsome but poor tutor…oooh! That character is very sick and will die…sob!
At the bows, the teens were enthralled, and weeping, and leaping to their feet, mascara running down their young cheeks, one heroic chaperone hurrying to keep up as they rushed out to meet the actors. Why, we’re actors, too! We’re just like them!
They were adorable.
And two nights later, on the way to the opera at the Ordway, it was prom night in Rice Park. Packs of young people roamed and posed with the architecture. They seemed held together with some kind of invisible adhesive, which may also be what was holding up those dresses. It appears that this year, in addition to exposure, it’s about shine. Satins, corsets, metallics. (I didn’t know there was such a thing as glitter tulle. And what is nostalgic retro-futurism anyway?) Sparkly fabrics, heavy sequins, jeweled harem slippers, even sequined veils falling from the brow over the (naked) shoulders. Trains dragging, and snagging, on the sidewalks. Such eyelashes! Impossible nails on the girls, sharply cut clothes on the boys.
They are also adorable.
And why not strut? They are lovely as they flaunt and sashay. More power to them.
They do not know, nor should they, that this is a brief season. From a famous Romeo and Juliet film of many years ago (imagine the sound of a lute), “A rose will bloom, it then must fade, so does a youth, so does the fairest maid.” They bloom!
These young people, in their flowering, also don’t know that there are fine seasons still coming. Take it from the, uh, mature, who watch you now with admiration and pleasure and memory. We’re smiling at you from passing cars and park benches as you prance and flutter by, living in the herculean present, the absorbing present, the evergreen present, the moment, this moment. Shine on, beauties, shine on. Long life to you, and a good one. The vast buffet of the world is ahead of you. There is so much yet to come.
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Digital collage by Wylde Hare, LLC
Source photos: Tim Mossholder | Unsplash, Cara Denison | Pexels
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