It’s bound to be a good week. David’s new book, Charming Gardeners comes out on Tuesday and—that same day—my friend Karen Karbo’s book in the “kick-ass women” series, Julia Childs Rules, also comes out. Blessings abound! More on Charming Gardeners later in the week. So let’s talk about Julia. I love Julia Childs and I adore Karen so I jumped at the chance to be part of the Live Like Julia project. The rules are these: Choose one of the rules that defined Julia’s Julia-ness and test-drive it for a week. Then write about it.
I chose Rule #4: “Obey Your Whims: . . . you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.” This is the perfect rule for a mother of two adolescent daughters who works full time and is in a sprint to finish another book of poems. Yes, it’s ideal in a week in which there are three soccer games and four practices, a volleyball jamboree and two practices, four dance rehearsals, a photography class, and the first week of yearbook. Oh, plus a doctor’s appointment and David is out of town.
But despite all that, I want to obey my whims. I really do. One of my best traits is the reflexive “I don’t need this job.” Whenever a boss or a board member or even just a cranky client makes me feel unappreciated or criticized or misunderstood, I just say to myself, “I don’t need this job.” Sometimes I even say it to them. With that, I am protecting the option to have a whim. The option to pick up my purse and walk out the door. The problem is that I never exercise the option. Maybe I don’t need the job, but I like it. Then the impulse passes, and I go back to work the next day.
Julia’s whims were major ones, too. As Karen tells it, she joined the OSS (think CIA) on a whim. She moved to India on a whim. And fell in love, pursued and married Paul Childs. All a whim.
So starting this week of Living Like Julia, I was intimidated and a little grumpy. I would like to move to India or become a spy or—as Julia recounted it—even a file clerk to a spy. But it’s not happening. No one in this household is up for moving to India, and I’m not going without them. Spy? No. I’m too old now and have become terribly far-sighted. I would be a liability to the nation while I rummaged through my bag for my reading glasses.
And I’m not even very good about cooking on a whim. Nine days out of ten, I wake up thinking about what I am going to make for dinner. No room for whims. So, most of the week, I spent berating myself for not living like Julia. For having every last second of my—and my children’s—life scheduled with obligations and personal growth activities.
But to go back to my earlier point, maybe it is the option of the whim that matters. Maybe I should “lean in”—to quote another “kick-ass woman” (Karen? Karen?)—to the option of the whim. The option of quitting my job. The option of letting Violet skip soccer practice or Ruby take pictures in the pouring rain. Maybe I should embrace the option that we might all up and move to India one of these days. And in that option there is a certain non-attachment to the job and the soccer and the idea that we will always live here and do these things.
Maybe right now we are too busy and too enmeshed to Live Like Julia, but maybe Julia and her whims can help us all hold on a little less tightly. Maybe she can inspire me to think about what I would do if I were to pick up my purse and tell the family to pack the car. Maybe she can inspire me to consider reversing course and ordering take-out Thai if it’s 7.30 and dinner isn’t even started. So for now, maybe it’s enough if I Think Like Julia. Or Dream Like Julia. And maybe some day, I will pick up my purse and I’ll write you all from India.
