How I got to be me

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How I got to be me

• family, art, books, influences

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my father and mother circa 1985
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father
He would take us camping in Minnesotas Boundary
Waters and read Tolkiens The Hobbit at night by
the campfire.
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mother
She was an artist and an avid reader. To Kill a
Mockingbird is the first real book I read it was
one of her favorites.
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sister
She always wished that she was French, had Monet
prints all over her bedroom, and is now
fluent just for fun.
Monets Girl with a Watering Can
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my first favorite story
Long, long ago,
in the winter-time, when the snowflakes were
falling like little white feathers from the sky,
a beautiful Queen sat beside her window, which
was framed in black ebony, and stitched. As she
worked, she looked sometimes at the falling snow,
and so it happened that she pricked her finger
with her needle, so that three drops of blood
fell upon the snow.
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my first favorite books
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me today
The books that gave me a love of old cities, a
thirst for exotic adventure, a change of heart,
and a ridiculous amount of confidence.