The colossus of Julie Anne Rhodes

It's not always easy for me to tell that I've grown up. I still feel the same as I ever did on the inside - all my life I've had parts of me that were about 3, about 12, about 18, and about 40. Actually being 39 doesn't feel all that unusual. I still love Winnie-the-Pooh, Legos, and Barbie; I still have stuffed animals; I still think way too much about just about everything.

I guess I really notice the difference in my relationships with other people. The first time I really felt grown up was when my boyfriend found out his 16-year-old daughter was pregnant. I was in my early-to-mid-30s and when she decided to have and raise the child, all I could think was how much harder than necessary her life would be. That she had no idea what she was giving up. (Of course, I'm thinking all this from the vantage point of a childless woman, so you have to take my opinion with an entire shaker of salt.)

I could tell I'd matured a lot last night watching the Ultimate Recipe Showdown on the Food network. It was the "Burgers" episode. One of the chefs participating in the poultry burger competition was named Julie Anne Rhodes. "That's funny," I thought to myself. "That was Nick Rhodes' wife's name back in the day." (Those of you who don't know who he is clearly weren't young girls in the mid-80s.) I have one picture of them in my head - both impeccably made-up, dressed in a suit (him) and a fabulous fitted white dress (her) (a wedding picture, maybe), her towering over him. She had gorgeous olive skin, a long face, and Mediterranean features and I, unkindly, referred to her as Juliearf. She had taken Nick off the market! The nerve of her!

Anyway, I'm looking at this chef making this amazing-sounding turkey burger with jasmine rice and she's tall, yes, and olive-skinned, and gorgeously Mediterranean, but built much more like a normal woman (a little heavy maybe even, though she carries it well with her height) than the skinny model I remembered Nick's wife to be. Then she mentions her 15-year modeling career. No. No way. Then I notice her unusually-shaped ears. OMG.

OMG! It's really her, the internet tells me this morning! Right there on her Personal Chefs Network page it talks about how she started cooking as a child and developed an appreciation for many kinds of cuisine traveling the world with the band! OMG! How cool is that?

How cool is that? That a woman can have a 15-year-modeling career and be married to a popular member of a hugely successful band and travel the world and throw glamorous dinner parties for fabulous people, and then after her divorce move back to the US from London and start a whole new career as a personal chef. She started her own company and obviously loves what she does. The bonus is the picture of her with her daughter on her company's site - man, you can see Nick all over Tatjana's face!

I'm a grown-up now, Julie, and I take back all the awful things I said and thought about you back in the day. You were a Duran Duran wife; it was my job to be a jealous fangirl. Now I know a whole lot more about letting people be gorgeous and successful without thinking that makes me less so; about perfect make-up and lighting not equaling a perfect interior life; about how happiness can be damn hard to cultivate and should be celebrated all the time. In fact, Julie, I think you may have become a personal hero!

And congratulations on winning the poultry burger competition! My aunt printed out the recipe - can't wait to try it.

ETA: Found the picture!! Gods bless the Internets!

The Legacy of Bobby Dunbar

A friend of mine shared that part of his family's history was going to be featured on This American Life - the story of Bobby Dunbar. It's an interesting story of the Dunbar family, whose four-year-old son was lost in a Louisiana swamp on a camping trip in 1912. Several months later a boy was found who, after a trial, was determined to be Bobby Dunbar.

The trial was held because the man who had custody of the found boy, William Walters, claimed he was Bruce Anderson, the son of a woman who'd been temporarily unable to care for him. Both Julia Anderson and Lessie Dunbar were allowed to meet with the young boy and neither were immediately able to positively identify him.

TAL tells the story from the point of view of one of Bobby Dunbar's descendants. She was given a scrapbook of information relating to the kidnapping (as it was called by her family) and did extensive research of her own. Ultimately a DNA test was done on two different lines of the Dunbar family (that of Bobby Dunbar and that of one of his brothers) and it was proven that, in fact, they shared no male ancestor. The found boy grew up as Bobby Dunbar, but had not been born him.

The story reveals a lot about the nature of truth and history. The truth of the matter is extremely different for the three families involved (the Dunbars, the Andersons, and that of William Walters). What really happened - what motivated each person to do what he or she did, the fate of the four-year-old Bobby Dunbar lost in the swamp - cannot be definitively known. That so much uncertainty surrounds one episode in the lives of these few families just underscores the absurdity of accepting any historical fact at face value. Everything we know has been filtered so many times - by the prejudices of the people who wrote the history, by meteorological and geological chance - yet we make decisions every day based on that history. There is so much room for doubt yet so many of us are willing to believe what others say is true.

The Dunbar story also reveals a lot about the nature of family. Most of the members of the affected families don't seem to bear any ill will to anyone with the notable exceptions of the siblings of Bobby Dunbar who resented the outcome of their niece's research. It's easy to speculate as to why they were angry, but impossible to know what I'd feel in the same situation.

When you think of how many of these kinds of situations must've happened throughout history, it seems that much less important whose blood runs where; what truly matters is the time you spend and the affection you share. Rather than drawing divisive boundaries based on blood or history, why not just embrace everyone?

Enough

I'm still not okay.

I just finished a quick tour of Greek Tragedy, one of The Observer's World's 50 Powerful Blogs (ahhhhh - that's why so many of them are British blogs I've never heard of). Stephanie Klein is an author who had what sounds like a wild-woman single life and is now married, the mother of twins, a published author, and a Lost freak.

After reading that she's got weight issues, I check the next picture I see of her and compare myself to it. Damn. She's winning. In white pants, even. Then I read the entry in which she quotes the description of her "perfect world life" from one of her first entries and realizes she's made most of it manifest.

And despite everything I said to Dr. B. (an old philosophy prof I met with for career/life advice) on Sunday, I'm not there. I'm not living my perfect world life. Am I?

Stephanie Klein's vision included a husband with whom she's "connected in a deep meaningful way", kids, a writing career, an SUV, and a home with land, a sauna, and a pool. As I start to describe my perfect world life I figure out my first problem: nailing it down. Yes, I want to be married - I want a partner to talk about the party to on the drive home, to take swing dance lessons with me, to be loved by deeply and meaningfully. But if I can't have that, I want to be okay on my own. Which I mostly am.

I want a job that pays me to do something I love. However, as has already been established, there is nothing I'm so passionate about that I can't not do it. Do I love anything enough to commit to it the way a career would demand? Could I do it on the job's terms and not mine? Hmmmm. If I can't have that, I want a job that I don't have to take home, that pays me enough to be comfortable, that doesn't demand I show up before 8:30 or 9. Which I have.

My perfect world life never included kids of my own - I love children, but I've never felt that need to have my own. And I don't. My perfect world life always included my own house - and I have one.

I want to be able to travel - I can and do. I want cats - I currently have one who insists on being the only child. I'd love a boat and a hot tub and a backyard with some privacy. But I don't want the hassle of a boat and am not sure I want to spend the money on a hot tub and for now, have a yard that's easy to mow.

The truth is my perfect world life is a moving target. I am constantly in flux. There is no way one reality could possibly satisfy all the things I can imagine wanting. Which leads to me, again, to the same conclusion I always come to when I start down this road of thought. No matter what I continue to want, there's only one thing I really need to live my perfect world life every day.

Enough.

And just like that, I'm okay.

How I spent my five-day weekend

I've been so busy catching up on the Internets that I've hardly made any contributions of my own. I do have pictures up on Flickr if you're into babies or NASCAR (my username there is my username here with an "18" tacked to the end); the words will come as soon as I sit still long enough to write them. They'll include the pros and cons of moving to NC and how easy it was to go five days without hearing the words "primary" or "delegate".

In the meantime, regarding news I missed...

Jeff Healey? How sad. And is Swayze dying or isn't he? During s(h)avasana last night, I found myself ruminating on the temporariness of it all - how you can be successful and famous and photographed and followed but none of that can be traded for time. Yes, strive and yes, dream and yes, always intend to be more closely aligned with your bliss...but don't put off joy until you get there. Be here now.