I still enjoy remembering how it happened. One afternoon last January, my mom asked me to return some books to the library. The drop-off box outside was frozen shut, so I had to go inside. Otherwise I’d never have seen the exhibit—prize-winning photographs by Montreal high school students. I was in a rush, but one photo—mounted between two sheets of glass and suspended from the ceiling—made me stop. Four brightly colored balloons trapped between two telephone wires, a perfectly blue summer sky in the background. I paused to admire the photo’s colors and composition—the intersection of ovals and horizontal lines. But what I liked even more was that whoever had taken this photo had noticed those balloons caught between the wires in the first place. I knew that person had to be special. “Love.” I didn’t realize I’d said the word out loud. Not until a lanky guy with a camera hanging around his neck touched my elbow.
