Thank You, Jodie

On the night of the Golden Globe Awards, I watched the news as my husband cooked lemon-garlic pork chops and mustard greens. Our plan was a quiet dinner. We had no intention of watching the awards show; it's really not our thing. But during a commercial break from the news, I caught a glimpse of the red-carpet interviews.

Over the hiss of sizzling pork I asked my husband if he wanted to watch the Golden Globes, just for fun. He said sure, so I found our old bamboo TV dinner trays in the pantry and we parked ourselves in front of the television to take in all of the glamour and glitz.

I knew our college-aged daughter would be watching. I knew that this was something that we could really talk about; something that I could text and tweet to her that would get her attention. Sometimes she ignores her old mom's silly texts and tweets.

I looked for her in my twitter stream. I tweeted about Anne Hathaway's hair; my daughter adores her and we both think Anne's short hairstyle is terrific. I sent her texts about Adele and Amy and Tina, three women whom I know she admires.

And then Jodie spoke, and I wondered if my daughter had seen any of her movies. My daughter is 20, after all, and Jodie is my age. I wondered what she thought of Jodie's speech, so I sent her a text: "Did you see Jodie Foster's speech?" I wasn't expecting a reply, but she surprised me and texted right back: "Yeah. She's so cool."

Jodie made me glad that I ate my pork chops and mustard greens on a bamboo tray. She made me proud to be 50. She bridged a 30-year age gap between my daughter and me with her simple yet powerful words of love and with her honesty in expressing the universal longing to be understood and to be seen.

Thank you, Jodie. Thank you for being a model of vulnerability, authenticity and true strength. This fellow 50-year-old mom and her 20-year-old daughter both think that you are so very cool.