Space to Breathe

Since my opening posts, there have been some important developments; first, my beloved family friend Kitty Gannon passed away and I attended her beautiful and heartbreaking funeral. Kitty was one of those exceptional people that had genuine kind words and a smile and a witty joke for literally everyone that she met. She was someone who told everyone around her just how beautiful and important they were to her. She had had a long life and had raised eight children and was still just full of joy and purpose. I was genuinely heartbroken at her funeral, but also greatly inspired. She is exactly the kind of woman I want to be: strong and smart and funny, with a strong faith and zeal for life. As one of her daughters said, she literally lived right until she died. I might not be able to adopt her lovely Irish accent, but I think "Live like Kitty" might be my new motto anyway.

The second development is that I flew out to northern California to visit my family last night. We come out here every year, and sometimes it has been a bit of a chore, leaving friends and boyfriends behind to come out for two weeks of "family time" (which, if you have a family, you know can be somewhat exhausting). This year, however, I could not have been more ready to get away, from pre-engagement madness and post-graduation madness and my neverending shuttling back and forth to the city. It's like a breath of fresh air to be out at my grandparents' ranch, where my grandfather is a Western artist (he's a cowboy, like for real) and my grandmother has a garden full of vegetables that I get to eat. It's the place where I used to make flower crowns for myself and gallop around pretending I was some kind of cowgirl princess. I feed carrots to Dolly and Molly (pictured above), I help my little cousins hunt for frogs and I sit on the porch watching hawks circle above the hilly country. I was so relaxed just knowing that I was here that I slept for something like ten or eleven hours last night...I just feel like I'm decompressing from life.

I went on a jog today around my grandpa's studio, and I was listening to Lady Antebellum on my iPod shuffle (being in the NoCal country makes me feel like I can shamelessly listen to my country music, whereas on the New York subway I feel like somehow everyone is judging me as I sheepishly turn down my Carrie Underwood). They have a song called American Honey that's about getting in touch with your childhood self (There's a wild wild whisper blowing in the wind/calling out my named like a long lost friend/Oh I miss those days as the years go by/Nothing sweeter than summertime and American honey). There's a line towards the end of the song that goes "Gone for so long now, I gotta get back to her somehow." I feel like in order to figure out the rest of my life, I need to really get in order who I am and where I've been. Joining Lady Antebellum in helping me out with this goal is Elizabeth Gilbert. Cue next post...