Where it All Began
Before this chapter of my life, before The Shuck Edit, before returning to modeling at 70, there was a very young girl trying to make sense of herself in a body that felt different from everyone around her.
I was tall and thin very early, around 11 or 12 years old, and at that age, those things did not always feel like gifts. Around my peers, I often felt awkward and out of place, as if I had arrived in my body before I had learned how to feel comfortable in it. I stood out, but I was not yet confident enough to know what to do with that.
But my grandmother saw me…
She was someone I was very close to, and she had that special gift of recognizing what someone needed, something before they could see it themselves. She saw that I was unsure. She saw that I needed confidence. And maybe most of all, she understood that I needed a place where the very things that made me feel awkward might begin to feel beautiful.
So in the 1960, she took me to a modeling studio - Faye Neri Modeling -located upstairs in North Star Mall in San Antonio where I lived. She asked them to enroll me in classes.
I was 12 years old and at the time I was the youngest student there.
And almost immediately, something changed.
For the first time, I felt like I fit.
Suddenly I was surrounded by girls (young women) who were tall and thin too. What had made me feel different in one setting felt entirely natural in another. The very qualities I had been unsure of began to feel like strengths. Instead of feeling awkward, I felt graceful. Instead of feeling out of place, I felt that maybe there was a place for me after all.
That changed my life.
Modeling gave me so much more than posture, poise, or pretty photographs. It gave me confidence at a time when I deeply needed it. It gave me a sense of belonging. It gave me a new way of seeing myself.
And it opened the door to a world that felt full of beauty and possiblility.
I was young, but I still remember the feeling of it -the elegance, the presentation, the discipline, the clothes (that they would sometimes give me as payment!), the quiet thrill of stepping into a world that felt polished and elevated. There was something glamorous about it, yes, but what stayed with me most was not just the glamour. It was what it awakened in me.
It awakened confidence.
Looking back now, I can see that those early modeling years shaped me in ways I did not fully understand at the time. They taught me about presence. About how to carry myself. About the relationship between style and self-expression. About how beauty can be more than surface-it can be a way of stepping into yourself.
And all of it began because my grandmother had the wisdom to place me somewhere I could begin to feel at home.
That means even more to me now than it did then.
Especially at this stage of life, as I return to modeling again I find myself thinking not only about the photographs or the runway moments, but about the girl I was when it all began. The girl who felt awkward. The girl who felt different. The girl who did not yet know that the very things that made her stand out might one day become part of of her strength.
And I think about my grandmother.
I think about how one loving, perceptive person can help change the course of your life simply by seeing you clearly and opening a door.
She did that for me.
When I look at these vintage pictures now, I do not just see a young model. I see a young girl beginning to believe in herself. I see tenderness. I see beginnings. I see the first spark of confidence in someone who needed it very much.
And maybe that is why returning to modeling now feels like more than beginning again,
It does not feel like I am chasing the past.
It feels like I am honoring it.
It feels like I am reconnecting with the girl I once was and recognizing that what began then never really left me. The love of style. The love of expression. The love of carrying myself with intention. The feeling that beauty and confidence can go hand in hand.
In some quiet and beautiful way, this chapter feels like picking up a thread that began long ago.
And for that, I will always be grateful - not only for modeling itself, but for the grandmother who saw me, understood me, and helped me find the first place where I truly felt I belonged,
That is the edit…
Sometimes the most beautiful beginnings are the ones that help us see ourselves for the very first time.