Friday, June 11, 2010

inspiration from Julia

I have been feeling a little like a stranger in a foreign land lately, missing the cool evening breezes, clear streams, easy ways of keeping food and my friends in the many places we've lived. In an effort to remind myself that I'm not the only one who went somewhere completely new and different, I checked Julia Child's My Life in France out from the library.

Julia inspires me! She arrived without knowing the language, had to find an apartment, learn to navigate Parisian streets, and learn to cook, and she did it all with aplomb and flair. She led her life with wit and joy and made friends wherever she went and created an amazing career and way of life for herself and her husband out of something completely unknown to her.

While I am learning to love many things about Texas, it is still somewhat difficult getting aclimated, but I don't have to learn a new language or how to drive and I already know how to cook, although the local fare of boiled crawfish and fried cornbread will always baffle me, I'm thinking.

With all the differences in our two lives, Julia Child and I do have something in common--she explains it in this paragraph, which I find delightful:
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I made up a budget, but immediately grew depressed. Paul's salary was $95 a week. After I'd divided our fixed costs into separate envelopes--$4 for cigarettes, $9 for auto repairs and gas, $10 for insurance, magazines, and charities, and so forth--we'd have about $15 left for clothes, trips and amusements. It wasn't much. We were trying to live like civilized people on a government salary, which simply wasn't possible.
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At least we've kicked our cigarette habits, so that saves us $4. And I doubt we'll ever be really "civilized."

2 comments:

Sylvia said...

Thank you for sharing your real feelings about life. Its so easy to just go on and pretend that everything is always peachy and perfect when really we all do have struggles and things that require us to adapt. Thanks for reminding me that we are all human!

Amber said...

I love reading your blog! I love the pics and your commentaries. I am so glad that we are able to be friends even though we lived by each other for a couple months. You are wonderful!