The Art of Pleasure

I finally saw the movie "Julie & Julia" in which the lives of Julia Child and modern day blogger, Julie Powell, are paralleled. See it if you haven't because it is delightful. However, I warn you, you will leave hungry and possibly wanting to cook.


There are the obvious delights: learning that Julia Child had a wonderful and warm relationship with her husband Paul, somewhat sexy also. Meryl Streep is flawless and Stanley Tucci, well, how can you not love Stanley Tucci. Amy Adams, Chris Messina and all the other actors were wonderful. But why would I mention a movie on my blog? Because it is about pleasure, it is about bliss, not just food (although the food was amazing), and pleasure is an art, perhaps the truest art of all because it is simple and it is our right as humans. And bliss is a state of being we often feel is difficult to attain. With all that spirituality, religion, and politics running around loose, sometimes we think life needs to be lofty and it really just needs to be real.


Joseph Campbell said Follow your bliss and it has been said in many ways by many people but his quote is my favorite. Really, following your bliss is following your pleasure. Doing something because you simply love it can and should be its only real reward, although following your bliss will bring you the security you need because within you there is a sense of peace not found by people who are doing things just for money and without great pleasure, and following your bliss puts you on the path you probably should have been on in the first place, before you believed everyone else about who you were.....I think I've said that before....LOL


Julia Child began as most women did, as an ordinary cook. Yet she wanted something to do other than just "be", something with purpose, with pizazz; always a happy eater she fell in love with food while living in Paris. She took cooking lessons to feed her loving husband, Paul, and to de-mystify French cooking for those of us who were "servantless". She fell in love with french cooking to the degree of an obsession and in doing so, changed the world of home cooking.


Julie Powell held a non-bliss job and decided she needed something more. Another cook looking for passion that was right there in front of her and she began her blog The Julie/Julia Project (you will need to navigate your own way through the blog but it is fabulous reading) which later became a book and then the movie. It began as a self-challenge, to cook her way through Julia Child's magnificent book (and one of the first cookbooks I read as a young woman) Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. And she did. Brilliantly.

If you want a taste of what it means to Follow Your Bliss, watch the movie and read the original blog by Powell. A simple dedication to something you truly love brings meaning to life. To me, that is art in its fullest form. Just being happy with who you are, what you "choose" to do, and how you pass your time, when done with gusto and fearlessness is an amazing thing.

Namaste'