The Young and Beautiful Blogger

How old do you think I am, reader? Am I fat? Do I have wrinkles? Am I wearing a stylish outfit? Am I sitting in my pajamas in the basement trying to ruin Sarah Palin?

You don't know. That's one interesting aspect of getting to know a person through their words alone.

I recently read a memoir of Knopf editor Judith Jones, who edited Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The front cover of the book, The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food, shows a black-and-white photo of a thin woman in a suit, with shoulder length, wavy hair and fine features who looks to be in her twenties. She wears a hat for traveling and gazes off into the distance, ready to take on the world.

This is the woman I pictured writing the first half of the memoir, which described Jones' youth and her adventures cooking and eating in Paris.

At some point, I turned to the back flap of the dustjacket and saw that the woman writing was actually old, probably in her sixties. She had long, whitish-gray hair and wore a purple knit turtleneck and ironed pants. She sat at a table, with a napkin folded in her lap and a glass of wine before her. She may have taken on the world in her youth, but she no longer looked it. She looked boring.

Who was the writer, the young woman or the dining dame? The words sounded young and vivacious, but the writer was old and staid-looking.

I concluded that a writer's words have little to do with their appearance or age. The words are ageless. When Judith Jones remembers her youthful adventures and describes them, her thoughts are basically still those of the young woman on the front cover.

That's not to say that one's mind doesn't change with age. One grows wiser, hopefully, and becomes set in one's ways, whatever they are. That's not to say that the mind, like the body, doesn't eventually deteriorate. But one's outward appearance of physical health or decline may belie the state of one's mental health.

The same probably could be said for the way one's appearance relates, or doesn't relate, to one's thoughts and words. I have always been tempted to think that skill, intelligence, and beauty go all together. A violinist making beautiful music, a witty writer, a sharp reporter on the radio... when I can't see the person whose work I'm admiring, I assume it's the work of a beautiful young woman.

I know, though, that the chances of that are the number of beautiful young women divided by the number of people in the world!

I am young. That much is probably clear by now. I wonder if my picture of the unseen performer will age with me or if she will remain young and beautiful even as I become old.