Book Report

image by swiss miss via port2port press

My greatest hope as a mother is to see my girls grow into confident, creative and perhaps even unusual (are you reading this Karey?) women.

My mother and I were watching Juno a few of weeks ago, when she asked what I would do if Audrey or Millie turned out like the title character as teenagers. My swift response was that I would be thrilled (minus, of course the unwanted teenage pregnancy.) I was pretty smitten with the Juno character -- loved her humor and her confidence and well, her general "unusualness." (Honestly my biggest fear is that the girls might turn out like Juno's overly boy crazy, cheerleader best friend -- nothing against cheerleaders of course.)

My mom ultimately agreed...she's good like that.

This desire (longing really) to raise creative daughters is partially what drew me to read the Eleanor Coppola book... I was pretty darn interested in perusing the "notes on a life" of the woman who is at least partially responsible for how Sofia Coppola turned out...I'm awfully enamored of Sofia, what with her creativity and confidence (her ability to look insanely cute in the frumpiest of frocks) and yes, her tendency to sometimes seem unusual -- in the best possible way.

Sofia Coppola via House and Garden

And while there were certainly some good tidbits on fostering a creativity-inducing environment for your family, a wholly unexpected side-effect of reading the book is how it now has me thinking of my own mother's life non-stop. Her experiences in many ways parallel those of Eleanor Coppola's in that she spent countless years striving to create normalcy for me and my sisters amidst a wholly unconventional childhood (and often in the process put her own dreams and desires on hold...)

Ultimately, she taught me an awful lot more about raising slightly unusual children than any memoir could (although it was fun to read those behind the scenes accounts on-set during Lost in Translation.) And for that I am awed and grateful.