Saturday, April 20, 2013

Women Who Have Inspired Me

Isadora Duncan

If you don't know who this is, I'm not surprised.  If you are a dancer and you don't know who this is, I'm completely shocked!  Isadora Duncan was an amazing woman... totally crazy, but amazing!!  Many would argue that she changed the art of dance forever, and I would agree with them.  She was raised in California in the 1800s and brought up by a very artistic family.  She started ballet, but didn't like It.  She didn't like the "stiffness" of it all.  She was the first in her time to dance in bare feet and nothing but a tunic.  She moved around a lot, mostly in Europe.  She was homeless a few times.  She talks about practically living on the steps of the Louvre with her brother.  She would go from rich to poor in a matter of months.  She was very extravagant and didn't believe in marriage.  She was a serious hippy and there are a lot of her philosophies that I don't agree with. (Although her autobiography is a very interesting read)  But, her dancing was something to be admired and respected.  She had the courage to do something that a lot of people very much looked down on.  But it was like she was being willed by this pioneer soul and she just couldn't contain it.  She had so much spirit and personality, it burst from her in her movement and her speech.  She would never allow her dancing to be filmed, but it is described as hypnotic.  After a lot of hard years, she became very famous, especially in Europe, because of how entrancing her movements were.  She opened a few different schools, in Paris and Russia, and taught her little dancers in bare feet and tunics.  There is still an Isadora Duncan School, taught by people who were taught by people who were taught by Isadora.. or something like that.  Anyway, its a direct line and I think that's awesome!!  A life long dream of mine is to go see one of their performances.  They even have choreography that she herself danced.  She left a legacy to be proud of.  She had a sad life though.  She lost her children in a devastating accident when they were very young.  And she herself died in 1927 in a car accident.  She was wearing a silk scarf that got caught in the wheel of the car and it killed her.  She is one that I will love to meet some day in the next life :)    
"You were wild once.  Don't let them tame you."
-Isadora Duncan
Kate Bush

Yet another one no one has heard of.  And she as well, is totally crazy.  But I love her.  She is a musician and was popular (I use the word popular loosely) in the 70's/80's.  She wrote a lot of music and some of it is super weird and abstract, but most of it is amazing!  The first song I ever heard of hers was "This Woman's Work" and I was blown away.  It still to this day is my all time favorite song!  Look it up.  But make sure its Kate Bush, cuz there have been a lot of covers.  Another favorite, "Hounds of Love".  Wow!  And her song, "Wuthering Heights" is what made me want to read the book "Wuthering Heights" and I fell inlove with it and read it far too much.  She didn't really have a crazy life.  Raised in England by a good family.  Loved piano and dance.  Slowly made her way into music.  Married and has children and settled back in England.  She didn't write any music for a long time, but in like 2005 she came out with her last album and it was like the best day of my life!!  Really more than anything, its her lyrics.  They just speak to me.  And yes, she has got some crazy ideas.  She is a practicing wicken... weird.  But I still love her.
 
"There is thunder in our hearts"
-Kate Bush
"I know you have a little life in you yet.  I know you have a lot of strength left"
-Kate Bush
Audrey Hepburn

How do I even begin to describe how much I admire this woman?!  She is absolutely fabulous.  I have been a little bit obsessed with her since I was very young.  I grew up watching her movies and have been inspired by here for years.  I vowed as a 12 year old that if I ever had a daughter, her name would be, Audrey.  Don't steal it from me!  I will hurt you!  I know that everyone loves her for her classic movies and the fact that she is gorgeous, but have you ever read about her life?  Wow!  Its seriously inspiring!!  Her life in Europe during WWII, her dreams of being a dancer, crushed, her difficulties in becoming a mother, her humanitarian work, cancer.  She is amazing!  Read about her!  I'll never forget reading about her life as a child.  She use to sneak secret messages for the underground rebellion, in her shoes passed Nazi soldiers when she was just a little girl.  She talks about taking ballet classes in freezing cold studios in the middle of winter and secretly performing recitals for the rebellion.  She said that they had to be so quiet that no one could clap at the end of each dance and that those were her favorite performances in her life.. the ones with a silent audience.  She talks about starving and her father leaving to join the Nazi movement.  She went through a lot in her life and it made her so wise and so compassionate.  I feel like she is such a good role model for young girls, and that's so very rare these days.  I could go on about her forever.  She was so wise and so kind.  Another one I'd love to meet and talk with in the next life.   
"I believe in pink.  I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner.  I believe in kissing.  Kissing a lot.  I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong.  I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls.  I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
-Audrey Hepburn

"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other"
-Audrey Hepburn

"Elegance is the only beauty that never fades"
-Audrey Hepburn
"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others.  For beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness.  And for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone"
-Audrey Hepburn

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow"
-Audrey Hepburn

"You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him."
-Audrey Hepburn

"Paris is always a good idea"
-Audrey Hepburn
Marjorie Hinkley

I know, I know.  How can I just lump her in with these others, right?  I swear, this woman is the wisest woman that ever lived!!  Every time I read anything she has ever written or said, I feel like she is speaking directly to me.  She was so smart and so strong.  And she and I share a birthday :)  November 23rd.  Also, she has a son named, Clark.  I swear I did not copy her, just a happy accident.  Those are the only two ways in which we are alike, I think.  Unless you count me trying everyday to be even a 10th as good a person as she was.  She grew up in Salt Lake and graduated from East High School.  Yes yes, the same school "High School Musical" was filmed at.  (I know that's embarrassing, but I don't care)  She and Gordon B Hinkley lived right across the street from each other.  How cute is that?  What has always amazed me most about her is how much she loved her life!!  She was so proud of being a wife and a mother and a grandmother.  She did a lot, but that was who she was and what she wanted to be doing.  I think its pretty easy these days to feel like we have to be doing so much else to make up for the fact that we are "just  a wife".  "just a mom".  Just a grandmother".  Its the age of the "pinterest mom" as I call it.  Its time we take a lesson from Marjorie Hinkley and remember just how impotant our role as wife, mother and grandmother is and stop making excuses.  Focus on that part of being a woman more than any other and be proud of it.  Being a woman does not mean you have a clean house all the time.  It does not mean that you are an expert chef and have a super-model figure.  It doesn't mean that you can make Christmas ornaments our of recycled paper and flowers arrangements from wood shavings and homemade soap that matches the interior of each bathroom and chore charts that would make Martha Stewart choke on her craft supplies.  Marjorie Hinkley knew that being a woman was about kindness and service and compassion and healing and nurturing and patience.  She is who we should be trying to be like.. not Angelina Jolie and Jessica Alba or that supermom in your ward.  She knew what it was all about.  And I guarantee that she is just as much a teacher in heaven as she was here on earth! 

"The trick is to enjoy life.  Don't wish away your days waiting for better ones ahead."
-Marjorie Hinkley

"The grand and the simple.  They are equally wonderful"
-Marjorie Hinkley

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.  I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking the kids to scout camp.  I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.  I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping weed someones garden.  I want to be there with childrens sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friends on my shoulder.  I want the lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."
-Marjorie Hinkley

"Everything you are learning is preparing you for something else."
-Marjorie Hinkley

"People are wonderful.  Each one has a story.  Each something to give.  Each knows something interesting.  Something that can make your life richer."
-Marjorie Hinkley

"Be kind.  Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"
-Marjorie Hinkley

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up and totally worn out and loudly proclaiming, 'Wow what a ride'."
-Marjorie Hinkley   

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