Meryl Streep

Today is the 67th birthday of the Holy One, Her Royal Highness the one-and-only Mary Louise Streep. This summer also marks the 10th anniversary of my personal Summer of Streep, when in 2006 I decided for really no reason at all to watch all of Meryl Streep's movies. I subsequently amended that to include all recorded performances I could get my hands on, which ended up being quite a lot. It's impossible for me to describe exactly what it is that I find so alluring about Meryl, but I was certainly not the first (and won't be the last) to be similarly affected by her.

So many things about my life (and about me) have changed over the past ten years that I hardly recognize who when I saw The Devil Wears Prada for the first time (or the sixth time). Meryl entered my life at a time when I needed her the most, and I've been able to drop in and drop out of my fandom whenever it suits me. I saw Mamma Mia thirteen times at the theater not because it was a good movie (spoiler alert: it isn't) but because I had just graduated college and I was floundering, at least emotionally. Being able to sit in a theater (once for back-to-back showings) for two hours and forget about myself while Meryl romped around the Greek Isles in linen overalls singing ABBA songs did more for me than any therapy or anti-depressant ever could have.

I have done so many things in my life by using Meryl as a conduit. I planned an entire New England trip around the fact that her daughter was in a play in the Berkshires. Do I remember anything about that play? Not really. But I remember my first trip to Newport, RI and our tour of Mark Twain's home in Hartford, CT and the bad animatronics at the Salem Witch Museum. I remember learning about ghost orbs from a cemetery tour guide and eating pizza in Sandwich, MA. I remember being absent for the set-up of my college portfolio show because I had tickets to a tribute for Meryl at Lincoln Center, and I remember being so incredibly sick that I chugged half a bottle of cough syrup before the show because I was terrified that I'd cough and interrupt Robert Redford or Uma Thurman. I remember Meryl pulling up her bra strap during her speech and thinking "hey, I know what that feels like," and I remember sleeping on my friend Jessica's couch somewhere off the L train in a neighborhood that I'm sure is trendy now, but at the time terrified me.

My friend Trent and I probably owe our friendship more to our shared love of all things Streep than to anything else, and I will not soon forget the weekend that we spent following her to various promotional events around town for Hope Springs. Sure, she waved at both of us, but what I remember most about that trip is how much fun we had together. The only reason I remember the drunk texts that I sent during The Devil Wears Prada drinking game we played is because there was evidence, but I do remember going to multiple stores to find lemon bar mix because we wanted to make Lemony Snicket bars and Hope Spring(s) rolls. But most of all, I remember that earlier in the day, I sat under the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and decided once and for all that I needed to move to New York.

I loved New York before I loved Meryl, but the two are so linked in my mind that it's hard to make the distinction anymore. Of course I remember her once-in-a-lifetime (or in my case, twice-in-a-lifetime) performance in Mother Courage in Central Park, but I also remember my uncle and I looking up Cats That Look Like Hitler on his Blackberry while laying on a tablecloth at 5:30am outside of the Delacorte Theater and laughing hysterically because we were so tired and because cats that look like they have mustaches are funny.

Susan Orlean writes in The Orchid Thief  (a book I probably never would have read if it had not been for Meryl starring in Adaptation): "The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility."

Without ever knowing it, Meryl Streep whittled the world down to a more manageable size for me, and in the process opened it wider than I would have ever thought possible. She was the reason I went to plays, took trips, reconnected with old friends, bonded with family members and read life-changing books. Of course I could have come at all of those things organically and without her help, but having a starting point was invaluably helpful for me. She'll never know all of this, and that's ok. It's too selfish for me to ever want her to, or to think that it would make any difference.

It's been ten years since I first checked The Bridges of Madison County out of my local library and crossed my very first Meryl movie off my list. In ten years I've lived and loved and cried and despaired and graduated college and succeeded and failed and moved halfway across the country and it's all been a little bit easier knowing that if I'm having a really bad day, I can queue up a Meryl movie and everything will be ok for a few hours.

*I took the photo above on a film camera after standing outside of Letterman in 90 degree direct sun, waiting for Meryl to arrive—I then had to wait the longest hour of my life to see my photos after taking them to a one-hour photo place around the corner, which seems unfathomable to me today*