The Butter on the Altar: Why I'm Still Here

A few weeks ago, I found out that Julie Powell had passed away.

I know. It was 2022. The rest of the world had already grieved and moved on. But the news hit me like a physical weight — because to the rest of the world, she was a blogger and an author. To me, she was the person who gave me permission to start.

The movie that changed everything

I remember watching Julie & Julia in 2009. At the time, I was a lonely single mum with three kids, raising them pretty much by myself. I had good friends, great kids, and a roof over our heads — but I always felt like something was missing.

I'd started my family young. Sixteen with my first, eighteen with my second, twenty with my third. I loved them dearly, but I'd never had a career — I'd chosen to stay home and put them first. And somewhere in that choice, I'd quietly set aside the part of me that wanted to make something.

Then I watched two women — one in a tiny Paris kitchen in the 1950s, one in a cramped Queens apartment in 2002 — battle their way through self-doubt, difficult days, and people who didn't quite get it. And something in me thought: if they can do it, so can I.

Before the credits finished rolling, I'd Googled "how to write a blog," found Blogspot, and started typing.

The long road to finding my voice

I had no idea what I was doing. But I was figuring it out as I went — which, I've since learned, is the only way any of it ever gets done.

Over the years I've had several blogs. In 2011 I found WordPress and started again. But looking back, I think I was trying too hard to be like the "big successful bloggers" instead of simply being myself.

There have always been doubters along the way. People who couldn't see the long-term picture. Even those closest to me have sometimes struggled to understand why I persist — why I keep painting furniture, writing posts, building something that doesn't yet look like what it's going to become.

But I've learned to trust the process. When I look at a piece of furniture — worn, overlooked, someone else's cast-off — I already know what it's going to become. I can see it. And I've learned to look at my own life the same way.

Now, at 51, I have my voice.

I don't try to be anyone I'm not anymore. I write what I want. I run a house, homeschool a teenager with autism, tend a veggie patch, bake our own bread, and run a small online business — all from home, all on my own terms. I have slow mornings and busy evenings. I have declared myself the CEO of my own life.

Society may have other ideas about what I should be doing. But I've found that when all else feels wrong with the world, I can — like Julie, like Julia — retreat to what makes my heart sing. The world drifts away. It's just me, a paintbrush, Margaret Whiting on in the background, and the image of Julia in her kitchen in France and Julie in her little apartment in Queens.

Both of them are gone now.

The movie ends with Julie leaving a silent tribute to a woman she never met — a woman who changed her life without ever knowing it.

This post is my stick of butter.

To the two women who gave a lonely single mum in Perth the permission to start — merci. From the bottom of my heart.

I'm still here. I'm still blogging. I'm still creating. I'm still doing the work. And for the first time, life is working around me.

À bientôt....Michelle x