Julie&Julia&Me

I've thought and thought about how to write this and started three or four different times. I think though that to do a straight review of the film would be silly, there are loads of those out there and written far better than I could ever hope to do. So I decided to write about it from the point of view of the parallels I found it drew with my life as a blogger. However before I start that I will say this. It is an amazing film, I don't really know anything about Julia Child but having seen it I am enthused to find out more about her! Although given my current weight loss plan I doubt I will be cooking any of her food anytime soon. The amount of butter and cream! Delicious I am sure but sadly just not for me at the moment.

But on to the blogging aspect! There were so many pieces of this film that resonated for me. In the main the idea that Julie Powell was turning 30 and for various reasons she felt as though her life hadn't lived up to the expectations that she felt she and others had her for her life when she was younger. Something I have been struggling with recently. There is a great line in Reality Bites that goes something like, this wasn't where I was supposed to be at the age of 23. Well fast forward that to 30 and I think that is much the feeling that Julie and I had about turning 30. Although on my 30th birthday I was quite satisfied, recent life events have forced me to think about. In fact this is the first time since I made the decision to leave university that I have had even vague regrets about the idea. Julie Powell started blogging as a way of controlling her life and I think that for me that has certainly been one of the reasons, in retrospect, that I started and certainly why I continue. I think a lot of bloggers are frustrated writers and use blogging as a way of releasing that pent up frustration they have with that area of their lives. I certainly don't blog as a way of getting a publishing contract, which I think was always at the back of Julie Powell's mind, because lets face it who would want to publish the meanderings of my mind. But I do blog as a way of continuing to write, to keep that part of my mind alive and kicking. 

There was also a reference to blogging being a way of keeping control in the wake of chaos. Blogtoberfest this year is absolutely that for me. In a period of my life where so little seems to be under my control this little area of the web is something that is totally within mine. Whilst I may not be able to force myself into a job I can certainly force myself to sit at my laptop and write something everyday, it gives a form of routine and timetable to my day, a way that when I go to bed tonight I can feel as though, yes, today I achieved something, that it wasn't a total waste. With my propensity to depression anything that gets me out of bed in the morning and makes me do something is a good thing. The regime of short term goals and achievement is something that can't be overlooked! Julie Powell says that she was saved equally by food and blogging. Whilst I can't claim to have been saved by blogging it is certainly helping me keep a grip, however small, on my sanity at the moment.

One of the moments that most bloggers I think will identify with is the instant that Julie gets her first comment; from her Mother. I think we all struggle with the comment thing. The idea that we are all sitting and writing into a vacuum and whether we want/need the validation that we get from comments. The idea that the only person who thinks your thoughts are worthy of validation is your Mother is one that I know I used to struggle with. It's certainly the reason why I stopped checking my stats obsessively every day, multiple times a day! The fact people were reading and not commenting sometimes used to drive me to distraction! What could I do to make people comment? What was wrong with what I was writing to make them not comment? Once I returned to my original thought that I was blogging for me and not necessarily for anyone else my mental status improved beyond belief! That isn't to say that I don't enjoy comments, my heart skips a beat whenever I get one, just that for me, these days, I try not to focus on them as the be all and end all of my blogging joy!

On that same theme though is the idea of friendships through writing. Julia Child has a long term pen pal that she eventually meets and Julie Powell obviously had the legions of fans that she gained through her blog. The friendships I have made through blogging have been one of the most valuable things for me. There are two ladies in particular that I count as actual proper friends even though I haven't ever met them and there is the distinct possibility that I never will. Julie Powell said she wrote to the imaginary friend that she felt Julia Child had become to her. I suppose in a way I am more fortunate than that. I don't write to imaginary people, to friends that are real despite the distance and lack of "real" contact. I know they are real and I know about their lives. There isn't any need for the title of imaginary.

So that is it folks, my thought on Julie and Julia, I haven't really dipped into the gorgeous imagery, the amusing moments of food and meltdowns, the way that Julia and Paul Child's relationship tugged at my heart strings in every way. Those are there and there in their multitudes. I loved this film and when it is released on dvd I am buying it. So that I can watch it again and again and appreciate it from different points of view each time, not just from the seat of a fellow blogger which seemed to be my overwhelming urge this time.