My father-in-law is an artist. He's 85 and has been painting or drawing seriously for at least 70 years. He loves to talk about painting and what he likes to talk about most is the models he's painted. Some were naked and some were clothed but they all had personalities that he wanted to discover.

He talks about the conversations he had with them, the way they held themselves when they stood smoking cigarettes after the modeling, the lives they lived outside the studio, their children, their lovers, their favorite books and music. Don't get him started!

All of this was amazing to me when I first heard him talk about models. I always thought that they just come in and the artist draws or paints and the work appears on the paper or canvas.

I also want to say that I am in total agreement with Kathleen Rooney about coming of age. It's a myth!

Here's a poem I wrote about it 6 years ago.

Coming of Age?

I'm 54 and next year will be 55
(on June 22 if you want to send flowers
or candy), and what I’ve learned about
coming of age is that we come of age

the way the great glaciers come of age.
Slowly. One year we melt a little.
The next we freeze a little. A wind
comes from no place and shines up

our northern walls. The next year
the wind is a little stronger or weaker.
We don’t change the way people in books
change. Today’s hero, tomorrow’s fool.

Our future—a patient grandmother
with a toddler in hand—comes slowly.