When Jamie Lee Curtis recalls a moment in time when she was overcome with a revelation, her arms propel upward, her fingers spread apart, her head jerks back, and she lets out an onomatopoeic-like boom. It’s as if a stick of dynamite ripped a negative thought or misconception out of her head and created a new path forward. A mining metaphor for opening her mind.
When speaking with Curtis, a look behind her eyes reveals that mind in constant motion, eager for more information, more insight, more interaction, more explosions.
Many discoveries have blasted their way through Curtis’s head. Her motto, a result of one of those detonations, is “Live Wisely and Love Well.” That sentiment is not only conveyed to all those she meets, but it’s an authentic descriptor of Curtis. She is a walking book of wisdom, giving from an infinitely deep well of love.
To her, life boils down to two choices, exclude or include. Since the former is about hate, she has no room in her heart and mind for that. And, since the latter is about love, that is where she chooses to focus her time, energy, and her inclusive spirit.
At 65, Curtis is arguably at the peak of her fame. While some may become jaded over the years by life’s challenges — or of constant scrutiny like Curtis has faced — she is jauntier. She glides across a room, with her head held high, and a smile that sings. There’s a glint in her eye that hints of holding a happy secret filled with love, one that she’s eager to share.
She describes the uneven road to these discoveries through a forward she wrote for a book that changed her life, and that she reads daily, , by Mark Nepo. The tome is, in part, her manifesto, that addresses privations confronted and outcomes
