1981

This photo relic came from my niece. It is a photo taken by her mother on my twentieth birthday. The John Lennon T-shirt was a gift for the occasion - it had been less than a year since the icon of Rock music perished in New York City.

Though I didn't realize it then, my days in the Empire State would soon be drawing to close. I left only a bit more than two years later, never to return. But for that fleeting moment, I reveled in an uninhibited season of creative exploration and self-expression.

Reality...? Never heard of it... not then, anyway...