The idea

My wife’s mind has a hard time shutting off. She is always thinking about everything. So it came as no surprise to me to learn that while we were watching a movie the other night, she was busy thinking about something else. Or better, something in addition to the movie.

We were watching ‘Julie and Julia’. In this movie, a young lady, Julie Powell, decides to cook every recipe in Julia Child’s cookbook ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ in one year. There are 524 recipes in that book and, as you are probably aware, there are 365 days in one year. And to top it off, Powell determines that she would blog about the experience. And this gave my wife an idea.

I am approaching my 55^th birthday. That seems like a big number, but I can’t help it. The sun gets up every day and so do I and if you do that enough, you will eventually get to birthday number 55. For me, that’s been happening since late in the summer of 1958.

“I have an idea.” When Kathy says that, I gird myself.  Not out of fear, but because whatever she is about to propose is going to be a departure from whatever we have been doing. And this is often a good and necessary thing. But I gird myself anyway because, whatever it is, it will not be the status quo and I am a creature of habit. Or habits, plural. Especially my particular habits.

“For your 55^th birthday, why don’t you write 55 posts in 31 days during the month of August?” she said. I was so happy that this was her idea and not something like, “We should only eat fruits and vegetables that are orange or begin with the letter ‘a’.” Not that she would say that, but as I said, when she has an idea, it is normally a departure from my comforts and it's easy to fear the worst. Writing blog posts, on the other hand, is something I love to do.

So that is what this blog is about. My dear wife knows I want to write, that I aspire to write, and she has given me a big shove toward doing so. Knowing her, she will get a great deal of satisfaction and joy from watching my happiness, because that’s the kind of person she is. And it is one of the many reasons I love her.

Or, as Paul Child said in the movie of Julia, “She is the butter to my bread.”