Now far ahead the road has gone, and whither then? I cannot say. - Tolkein

The last movie I saw in the theater was Julie & Julia. I really liked it. I enjoyed seeing a movie where women played the lead roles rather than just accoutrements or the romantic interests of a leading male character. I also enjoyed how the film delved into their attempts to discover and live out their vocation.

Take Julie. What she really wants to do is write. Instead, she works in a cubicle, answering phone calls from distraught and angry family members of those who died on 9/11. It is an exhausting and thankless job. She has another thing she really wants to do: cook. So she decides to, even if it means doing so in the little free time she has left over after work. She sets herself a daunting goal that combines both of her interests: to cook through Julia Childs' cooking book in one year and blog about it. That's 524 recipes in 365 days. To meet her goal, Julie has to carve out space and time, set goals, and deal with the challenges and friction this new "hobby" creates in the rest of her life, particularly in her marriage. She is sometimes discouraged and misunderstood, but working towards this goal is more satisfying for her than anything she did before, because she is finally simply doing what she loves. In the end, much to her surprise, this little project becomes the ticket to her dream of becoming a published writer.

Take Julia. She is living in France, the wife of a diplomat, listless, looking for something to do since she cannot fill her days with the role she longs to take up, that of a mother. Her husband, looking to steer her towards some new pastime, asks her a simple question: "What is it you really like to do?" She tells him, "Eat!" And with that, Julia begins to discover her love for cooking as more than just a hobby; she determines to learn how to cook just as well as the men studying to become professional chefs in Paris. She takes up her newfound purpose despite the significant opposition and discouragement that she encounters along the way. For much of the movie it looks as though her success will be limited; the moment when she discovers that her book will be published is so exciting precisely because it seemed that such a moment would never arrive.

Both of these women had to swim upstream as they chased after their vocations. They weren't handed their vocation in a kit; each one had to patch it together in unexpected and unconventional ways. Who would advise a young aspiring writer to start a blog about her cooking endeavors as the way to get published? Who would have ever predicted when Julia first took cooking classes in Paris that she would become a household name with her own cooking tv show? Not a soul. Not even Julie or Julia. And yet that is what happened to these real-life women. And one woman took her inspiration from the example of the other, which adds so much beauty to this movie, as it interweaves these two stories, showing how the first story ripples outwards until it sets the second off on its way. Julie puts it more dramatically: "I was drowning, and she pulled me out of the ocean."

I find much in this movie to learn about how vocation unfolds in a person's life. I see in these two women's stories how unpredictable and uncalculated that process can be. Calculation should not be abandoned, but it is so rarely the deciding factor in the best stories out there. The stories of vocation to which we find ourselves drawn are often told by folks who say, I didn't set out to end up where I did, but by grace I ended up there nonetheless. And they are grateful they ended up where they did, even though it was not their intended destination on the day they took their first step over the threshold of the familiar and out onto the way. I for one am encouraged by how, for these two women, the whole picture became something greater than the sum of the parts of their lives. I take comfort in the way that for years no one could see that whole picture, because all the parts were busy arranging and rearranging themselves until they finally fit into a beautiful mosaic. I reflect on which stories have have sent out ripples that nudged me out onto my own path, and I wonder where this path will lead - if it ends up being a good story, surely it will lead somewhere other than where I expect.

snapshot

of my evening.

tea lights lit in the window sill,

keeping watch for me and for whoever else might see them.

keep watch with those who work or watch or weep this night.

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it. ~Oscar Wilde

When I was a kid, I read like crazy. I was, as adults would have said and probably did, an "avid" reader. Some of the books and characters I loved:

that endearing double set of twins, the Bobbseys.

another set of four siblings, the intrepid and resourceful Boxcar Children, who could have kept living in a train car in the woods the rest of their lives if they'd wanted to, but there were mysteries to solve!

Encyclopedia Brown. what a whiz, using math to solve mysteries.

the Babysitter Club, to which I liked to believe I belonged. remember the extra long "Super Specials" when they went on a special trip, and each chapter was narrated by a different character, with their name printed at the top of the chapter in their handwriting?

Nancy Drew.

Nancy's male counterparts, the Hardy boys.

a dream come true - the books that blurred the limits of the written page, as Nancy Drew and the two Hardy brothers stepped into the same story to solve a mystery together. To me this indicated that they really did live in the same universe, as I had always hoped they did. I wonder if Nancy ever ended up with one of the brothers or if she went back to Ned.

Apparently I had a thing for serial books; I never thought of it that way until now. And now that I think about it, I still like reading series; right now I'm working Susan Howatch's six Church of England novels. (they're better than they might sound.) but I swear that I also read books that weren't part of series when I was a kid. I also seemed to love books starring pioneer girls.

Little House on the Prairie. (ok, right, that's also a series.) These books probably shaped me and my ideals more than anything else. When Frontier House premiered on PBS, I practically drooled. I disdained that family from southern California on the show who would never appreciate the chance to live like a pioneer like I would have. they didn't do half bad, though, in the end.

Sarah Plain and Tall. not my favorite book but I had a lot in common with the main character (same first name, from Maine, so willing to try out pioneer life that she became a mail-order bride), so I felt I owed it to her to read her book. on the other hand, we weren't entirely alike. she was plain and tall. the second attribute didn't apply to me, and I hoped the first one didn't, either.

not exactly pioneer girls, but close enough. I remember checking out Little Women with great pride from the little library at Windham Christian Academy when I was maybe in 2nd grade. With great pride because I liked the way it shocked some adults, who didn't believe a girl my age could read such a long book. If I remember correctly, I returned it half-read. guess I was too young. I suspect I got bored because they were too genteel and not pioneer-y enough for my taste.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There were hundreds of other books to which I lent my imagination, but those come to mind first. I remember hours on my checked white and blue bedspread reading in the light of the late afternoon sun (I had a north facing bedroom). I chose to spend my free time reading whenever I could. maybe I read seemingly endless book series (Babysitter Club books surpassed #130) because it meant I'd never run out of books I liked reading.

After that nostalgic look back, one might wonder what has become of this favorite pastime. The truth is my reading life is in a sad and sorry state. Other things (primarily the device on which I type this post) command my attention much more often than a book. My default time-spender is no longer a paperback but a laptop. I'm working to change that, though. I started with strategy #1 this past week: a good reading chair with a footstool to boot.

My next strategy may be a 2010 New Year's Resolution to read a book a week. Making an annual resolution has only worked for me once, but I think this is doable. I'm inspired in part by Julie of "Julie and Julia." If she can cook through Julie's book in a year, surely I can read one book a week. She had to slave over a hot stove in the kitchen; I've just got to sit here.

lego iam!

(I wanted to figure out how to say "let the reading begin," but because the subtleties of English-to-Latin translation are eluding me, for now I'll stick with this: "read now!")