When I was seven. I remember it as a golden time, long gone.

My teenage years in the Runaways: I was still naive enough to think good things about the world and life and people, and I was having fun playing rock’n’roll around the world, living the dream.

But the years 1895 to 1900 which are the staple of this story exceed in vividness, variety and exertion anything I have known—except of course the opening months of the Great War. When I look back upon them I cannot but return my sincere thanks to the high gods for the gift of existence. All the days were good and each day better than the other. Ups and downs, risks and journeys, but always the sense of motion, and the illusion of hope.

On the island of Bequia—one summer, out of the blue, a benefactor (thank you, Charlene) flew our entire family there and put us up in a cliffside house that was a weird mixture of Gaudí and Fred Flintstone and where we went to sleep at eight and got up at five. In between we read, swam, hiked, and unknowingly enjoyed the last moment before the irrevocable shear of adolescence set in.

To follow your path and not worry about what to do too much; one thing leads to the next, and you wind up where you’re meant to be.

Being on the cover of a magazine at 18 with the slogan: “Did she ruin The Godfather?”

To a girl we were mean to in first grade.

A magazine editor like Diana Vreeland.

Making films exactly how I wanted.

An Elizabeth Peyton painting.