Inspiration.

June Parry.

...my Grandmother is my ultimate inspirational figure.

Has literally traveled everywhere - India, Turkey, China, Russia, Nepal (climbed to a base camp of Mt. Everest no less), Western Europe, Egypt, rafting the Colorado River, Peru...

Owns a pair of Salvador Ferragamo heels in every color and is, even in her 70s, the best dressed, most stylish and elegant person in the room.

Quality Over Quantity. Her taste is impeccable.

Eats blueberries every day.

Cultured beyond belief, taking us to every museum opening, ballet and orchestral event that comes to Oklahoma.

Life-long learner. Currently taking classes on the weather and classical literature.

Loves books on history.

A professional at all of the following: piano, nursing, tennis, rock climbing, skiing and bridge.

A prolific listener of classical music, she also love, love, loves Patsy Cline.

Sends me letters.

The most generous of spirits.

Watching my Grandpa's old movies of when my mom was about 4 or 5 and they still lived in upstate New York, I got to glimpse a black and white moment that encapsulates her character:

They lived in snow-covered upstate New York at the time and the kids are sledding in the backyard. Then my Grandmother, in this gorgeous outfit with old Hollywood hair and makeup, gets down in the snow on her hands and knees to sled with her husband and three children.

Quote 2.

...not sufficiently conscience of being a "Future Wife and Mother" in perpetual capital letters. And girls who had never been kissed, with shocked expressions on their plain but not particularly wholesome faces...these girls had gone east or west or south, married and become "people," prophesying that she would come to a bad end - not knowing that no endings are bad, and that they, like her, were by no means the mistresses of their destinies.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned

Quote 1.

A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain while the clock ticked on the wash-stand and the moon soaked with wet light his tangled clothes upon the floor. Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Art, Life.

The moment I saw Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles on a projector slide in an Art History class my freshmen year - it's been my favorite work of art. I just sort of fell in love with the tilt of the wall, the tint of the floor and the domestic scene paired with Van Gogh's signature, psychological brushstrokes.

This past summer I got to see it in person when an Impressionism exhibit came to the Fort Worth Museum of Art.

And I don't think you can top that, seeing a work of art you really just love for no academic reason up close and in person.

One time in London's Tate Modern, Meg and I sat in a dimly-lit room full of Rothko paintings and I swear feelings pulsed out of the canvases.

And this summer, Caravaggio's frescoes in Rome's Contarelli Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi Church reawakened my dormant spirituality.

I've been brought up in a family that surrounded and encouraged me with art, making it alive - from my Grandmother's 100-pound coffee table book filled with gorgeous, gold Klimt to my mom's Frank Lloyd Wright architectural roadtrips and elementary school art lessons.

So I guess I've been raised to believe experiencing art is important and impactful.

And I just watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona (highly recommend it) and it's inspired my new life goal: see Gaudi's spectacularly surreal Sagrada Famalia Church in person. 

Keep dreaming.

Another Life Goal: Volunteer at 826 Valencia.

826 Valenica is Dave Eggers encapsulated in a community organization that stresses creativity, reading and writing.

Someday I'll live close to one and finally be the spectacularly kindhearted volunteer I've always felt guilty about not being.

And that being President could be fun!? Genius. 

Meggity Meg.

My sister Meg. She bedazzles guns in Providence, Rhode Island. Which is too far away from me.