How "Julie and Julia" Helped Me Find My Voice

Nancy Roberts

I'm descended from remarkable, strong women, and thus it's no surprise, I'm inspired by remarkable, strong women, or those on their way. Julie and Julia, the 2009 film about Julie Powell, a frustrated 30-year-old cubicle dweller and unpublished writer who blogs and cooks her way through Julia Child's Art of French Cooking, had a profound impact on me. With that I must give proper credit to Dory Devlin's excellent post, which in turn inspired my commentary.

The past 3 years of my life have been a bit of a rollercoaster. Following my divorce. I'd quit my full-time job, bouncing between several writing freelance jobs and short-lived relationships. I sublet my apartment in San Francisco to live in New York a few months. Traveled to Central America alone and on a whim, prompted by the invitation of an ex. People joked that they never knew where I was. Perhaps living my own "Eat, Pray, Love," or early midlife crisis? Something was clearly driving me to live a different life, but I craved stability at the same time. Or maybe I just just caving to the subtle pressure of family and friends to settle down.

When we first meet Julie, she is still struggling to find her voice. By day, she toils as a hapless bureaucrat and at night, finds solace in cooking. She leads a life of stops and starts: an unfinished novel that is 8 years in the making. She is restless, listless, and dissatisifi

ed until she realizes her raison d'etre. One of the film's most memorable quotes: "I was drowning, and Julia pulled me out of the ocean."

I haven't found my lifejacket yet, but I do know that I like to write, I'm good at it, and I need to do more of it. I love to travel and see different cities. Maybe my destiny is not to be like my peers who are mostly settled down with good jobs and partners. I've never been good at coloring inside the lines.

Julia Child said, 'I never fit in so I stopped trying." She was 6 feet tall, didn't cook until she was 40, and was 37 when she first married -- virtually a spinster in her day. But she had passion for her food and she put everything she had into it. She didn't care what anyone thought. She wasn't afraid to make mistakes.

That's all we really need -- passion and chutzpah. At the risk of repeating an old cliche, "well-behaved women rarely make history." Maybe these 3 years have not been so chaotic, but just the path to living the life I want to lead. Life only gives us one shot, so we'd better be calling our own shots.

.