Glittery Gold

My grandmother was the source of my affection for the arts. As I was growing up we went to local art galleries, ate at tea houses that used to be funeral homes, roamed cemeteries to look at the beautiful mausoleums. She dubbed them Wacky Wednesdays. She took me to Chicago quite often. We would hop onto the Amtrak train in town with my cousins and head to the glitzy city to the north. We would stay at the Palmer House Hotel, with it's glittery gold lobby ceiling and a pool on the 7th floor INSIDE the building! We would go to the Art Institute and wander around looking at Degas, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso. We saw theatre openings. I vividly remember seeing Shelly Winters playing an alcoholic mother (in a now forgotten named play) when I was 14 or so years old. It was heaven! I knew that one day I would live in NYC or Chicago. I HAD to. It had gotten into my blood...

Fast Forward to the present and I am a mother of two gals, living on the farm that my grandmother used to live on. The farm where guinea hens roamed the yard (and the trees!) and corn grew in the backyard. My grandmother, who could wear a blue pantsuit like nobody's business and watched "Sid and Nancy" with me on VHS. She wouldn't go out into the woods for fear of ticks, but loved to pick the flowers that grew around the property. She knew exactly how to mix the rural life with the urban world and to love them both. She would have adored my girls and they would have worshipped her.

I hope to keep the arts forever alive in my country girls, just like my grandmother did with me. We are going to see live theatre, eat in tea houses and wander the halls of the Art Institute...all when they are a bit older and can really appreciate it, even though now would be the perfect time to wow them with a glittery gold ceiling.