A very happy birthday.

Sorry I've been away, dears.

Franny, in transit, ignored the telephone in the hall.

She evidently preferred to take the longish walk 

down the hall to her parent's bedroom, 

where the more popular phone in the apartment was located.

Although there was nothing markedly peculiar about her gait

as she moved through the hall-

she neither dallied nor quite hurried-

she was nonetheless very peculiarly transformed as she moved.

She appeared, vividly, to grow younger with each step.

Possibly long halls,

plus the aftereffects of tears,

plus the ring of a telephone,

plus the smell of fresh paint,

plus newspapers underfoot-

possibly the sum of all these things was equal,

for her, to a new doll carriage.

In any case,

by the time she reached her parents' bedroom door

her handsome tailored tie-silk dressing gown-

the emblem, perhaps, of all that is dormitorially chic and fatale-

looked as if it had been changed

into a small child's woollen bathrobe.

excerpt from "Franny and Zooey" by J.D. Salinger

All photographs by Sannah Kvist

Hey darlings,

My birthday has officially come and gone

and I learned an important lesson from it.

Don't expect anything, because you never know 

which way life will turn.

It's weird, but a new chapter is starting 

and I'm not sure if I'm ready to jump into it with both feet.

But I suppose that's what the summer was made for.

Hope you're all doing well.

I'm going back to the never-ending party.