I have a thing for lines - long and curvy and graceful, lines.  Their beauty is foundational in my art and in many everyday choices I make.  I first fell in love with sinuous lines in my mother's garden.  I have vivid memories of tall stems of Tiger Lillies arching as they climbed higher and delicate Ferns slowly unfurling from tightly woven spirals in early Spring.   I learned to love the the wild chaos of clematis vines all twisted together and going every which way, as I played beside them.  I learned the beauty of the graceful line of a woman, watching my mother bent over, caring for the garden she created. And every time I see a Magnolia, with their soft lines, curving downward, I think of her there, in the garden, the picture of feminine grace.  
     We often, truly are formed into the people we become, by small, sometimes unnoticed lessons learned in childhood, no matter how brief those examples are.