The theory of julie mancini
Hi, my name is Peter Mancini Bromka, I’m Julie’s eldest son.
We’re here in the First Congregational Church today because this is where Mom got her start on stage.
She had this way of being on up here, where you felt like it was just her and you. She’d carry these pieces of paper, this small stack of handwritten notes, and she’d hold it sort of like this, moving them around erratically, and she’d speak to the audience, especially as she got older, she’d talk like she might go off script at any moment.
Which was hilarious, cause she was in charge! She could have said anything! It kept your eyes locked on her, like, “what’s this lady about to say?!” You didn’t want to miss it.
No one could hold a stage like her, it just felt warm. It put you at ease, and left you wanting more.
— — —
Before I begin I have a couple of orders of business,
First - if you’re as frustrated as I am by her absence, and you want to do something, then GIVE. That’s what she did her entire life.
Memorial funds have been established in her name at College Possible and The Children’s Institute, two organizations that she worked for tirelessly. What was most clear in the final year of her life was how much she still wanted to give, even trying to attend board meetings while in the hospital. Her desire to work on behalf of children who’ve been given less opportunity sustained until her body no longer could.
So, please consider giving to help continue her work.
There are links to these Julie Mancini Memorial Funds on the front of her website, Juliefuckingmancini.com
How much should you give? I’ll get to that in a minute…
Second - for all the children in the audience, what I’m about to say includes words that, as we like to tell my son Will, are “Words that Julie uses but we shouldn’t use.”
Please know that I use these curse words with love and affection. Thank you all for being here to celebrate Julie.
Beginning
I imagine that it won’t come as a surprise to hear that when I was younger I resented all of you.
When I was a kid I’d see my mom go out into the world, day after day, evening after evening, and I’d wonder why she was always giving her energy to everyone, not just to us at home.
As kids, my brother and I would joke that if the Oregonian wrote about her one more time we were going to go down there and beat them up. Because we didn’t care that they were praising Julie Mancini for everything that she was doing in the community. We just wanted our mom at home.
Luckily, thankfully, as I grew up I came to understand that my mom had much to offer the world, and more importantly, over time I came to grasp the central thesis of her life: She was willing to give us everything she had, always trusting that she could find more.
So, as I stare down how to continue on in a world without the central figure in my life, I wanted to capture what I think it means to live in the essence of Julie Mancini, because these are the principles that I aim to live by.
What I came to see growing up is that when people met my Mom they experienced something. I'd be at an event, look off to the side, and notice someone pinned in conversation with her. They were transfixed by the experience of being with Julie.
There was a look in their eye as they were released from the conversation.
A bit in shock.
Slightly bewildered.
A smile creased across their face, they weren't sure what had just happened, but they were more hopeful for their future.
Over time I understood that mom was a creative. But instead of literature, music, or art, her medium was human connection. She excelled at messing with the space between people just enough to create a spark that propelled us forward.
But it wasn’t always easy having her as my mom.
F you up
Having Julie as your mother will sort of fuck you up to the traditional standards of this world.
I saw her stand with people of great wealth and understood clearly that she had a peace that they did not.
I marveled as she ushered people of immense fame, observing that she was more comfortable in her skin then they were in their own.
And I hung in her shadow as she introduced me to people of traditional professional success who couldn't seem to find a fraction of the lightness and joy with which she carried herself and which she offered to those around her each day.
So being her son in some ways soured me to standards of financial and professional success. She never told me what to do in my life, but she modeled values that are difficult to quantify.
What’s been most wonderful about the stories you all have submitted of her from across her life is that her spirit, the Theory Of Julie Fucking Mancini, becomes clear seen over the years.
From a young age, she lived in a manner most of us either cannot access or are afraid to try. She understood from an early age that she had enough love to offer others in pursuit of their dreams.
So, if you miss her as much as I do, maybe this will be of value to you as well, not a reflection on the past, instead a set of 6 principles to live by, the Theory of Julie Mancini…
#1. Swear with your whole heart
Everyone knows that my mom swore a lot.
I’m not really sure when that came about, since my sense is that she wasn’t a foul-mouthed president of the student body in Catholic school, but by the time I was a kid she dropped shit, fuck and douchebag left, and right.
Growing up it made me uncomfortable. As a teenager, I consciously did NOT swear because that was MOM’S thing. After all, it’s not very rebellious to cuss if your mom does it more than you do!
People were never more thrown off than when she’d call me a Son Of A Bitch. “DOES SHE REALIZE WHAT SHE’S IMPLYING?!” They’d marvel.
Of course, she did.
She always understood what she was doing. What I gathered over the years is that she swore as a tool, to defy expectations, shake people out of their sleepy assumptions, and open their minds to what the rest of the interaction could entail.
Although she tossed out expletives, it wasn’t exactly in anger. Sure she was often pissed, but it was always because the person was falling short of her expectation for them. They were letting themselves down, and she was pissed about it!
When she told people to Go Fuck Themselves she wasn’t telling them off, she was actually drawing them in! She was lighting a spark, marking a fork in the road, and welcoming them down a path toward a world that was more fun, free, and human.
Things got pretty wild once she got ahold of social media. As we all know, the internet lacks context. So once she got going on Facebook and started calling people sluts for vacationing on tropical islands, or telling them affectionately to GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, it really blew their minds.
“That’s your MOM?!” Friends would marvel. I’d just laugh and smile.
#2. Don’t take yourself too seriously
Central to my mom’s essence was not taking herself too seriously.
“We’re all the central characters in novels that no one is reading,” she started repeating to me at a young age.
As a kid, that didn’t mean much. “Okay mom, sure, thanks.” But over time I came to understand what this seemingly silly literary reference actually meant.
People are so focused on themselves that they barely have any attention left to really see or hear you.
Mom used that understanding to her advantage.
She’d say things, push people, and try things that might not work because she understood that no one else had their shit together either, so why not try something more fun?
One day when I was 18 I was sitting at the kitchen table in my usual spot, which meant that mom was to my left in her usual spot.
We were talking about something or other when I got distracted by food on her face.
“What?! What is it P?! She exclaimed.
“Mom, you have food on your face!” I explained.
“P” she stared at me seriously.
“I’m 50 fucking years old, I’m too old to give a shit about having food on my face.”
Still serious, I insisted, “Mom, you have COTTAGE CHEESE ON YOUR EYELID!”
We both burst out laughing.
“Oh fuck, that’s disgusting, I’m sorry.” She apologized.
Aside from being a story so absurd that it’s impossible to forget, it drove home that life isn’t to be wasted worrying about how people perceive you.
Central to her essence is being yourself, with humor, love, and acceptance.
3. Focus on others
The thing that I could never fully figure out about Mom was why and how she always made everything about everyone else.
I asked her once why she always deflected, why she ALWAYS turned conversations away from herself.
“I’m just not that interesting honey,” she replied. I suppose she meant that she wasn’t interesting to her, because she was sure as shit interesting to all of us.
Last year we threw a birthday party for my son and a lifelong friend attended who hadn’t seen my mom in years. Afterward, I asked how it was seeing Julie again and her reply captured it perfectly,
“Oh, I love talking to your mom, cause I love talking about me, and me, more about ME!”
My friend both understood how self-centered this was, but also how good it makes you feel.
When my mom asked you questions she would drill down further and further into the bedrock of what you were getting at. She wanted to know not just WHY you were doing something but HOW you knew how to do that, and WHAT inspired you to even think like that.
THAT is what drove my mom the most: CREATIVE INSPIRATION.
Julie didn’t have hobbies, she had all of you.
THAT is what drove her. It was like she had a huge puzzle in her mind of how things worked and she feverishly peppered each of us with questions about how we lived our lives to fill in the gaps.
That’s how she was with music. When I was growing up she used to BLAST her favorite songs in our old minivan until the panels fell off, from Van Morrison to Bob Dylan, Patti Smith to Neil Young, she brought me to concerts and would point to the performers, transfixed by their inspiration.
THAT’S what drove her.
She appreciated the artist's messages, but she was mostly in pursuit of the next dose of authentic emotional creativity.
When my wife Julia and I moved back to Portland years ago Mom bought us tickets to go see Lady Gaga in concert. She was floored by Stefani Germanotta’s ability to create human connection. So there we were with a bunch of teenagers and Mom and Dad at the Gaga Monster Ball.
She brought me to see the Rolling Stones, dancing out of her seat as Mick Jagger gyrated his old hips in circles. “Can you believe he can still do that?!” She marveled. “He’s so fucking OLD!”
Over time I understood that for her the energy these artists harness with their music acted like a compass. Blasting those speakers each morning retuned her drive to spot that spark in others and support them without restraint.
Also, she mentioned that if you really crank it up while you’re parallel parking you can’t hear it if you smash into the other cars. So loud music also helps with that as well.
What became clear when you listened to her closely was that she was always working, always listening, and always resharing what she’d gleaned from others.
One semester in college I called home concerned because I was bombing a class.
Introduction to Classical Architecture. It sounded interesting, but I just couldn’t see it. I thought that I’d do well because I had a background in art. Boy was I wrong.
I called home.
“Mom, I’m headed toward a terrible grade. I don’t know what to say, the class doesn’t play to my strengths.”
See, from aptitude testing that I’d done I actually knew that I am relatively bad at distinguishing between minorly different visuals. As the class had progressed it’d dawned on me that identifying between minutiae of Greek and Roman columns demanded exactly the type of visual acuity that I lack.
I felt that I had a reasonable explanation for my failure!
She BURST out laughing.
She couldn’t get enough.
Once she stopped laughing she asked me to tell her the whole story again. And again.
Laughing the entire time.
But then, a couple weeks later she called me to say that she’d taken my advice to avoid responsibilities on a corporate board.
“What advice?” I asked.
“I told them ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t think that plays to my strengths!’ and they didn’t know how to respond, so I got out of it!”
She stole my line.
Over the years she encouraged countless others to quit jobs and turn down opportunities that they didn’t give a shit about because, it “didn’t play to their strengths”!
She was fixated on that internal drive.
Call it love.
Call it passion.
She worked tirelessly to spot and encourage it in others.
To all of us it felt like giving, it felt like she was offering us something that can feel in short supply, belief, and conviction in our dreams, but to her it was as easy as air, seeking out that which is most authentic.
#4. GIVE
There’s a saying, “Money can’t buy happiness,” but, having seen my mom’s bank records, I think that expression is incomplete.
Growing up I was told stories about my grandfather Joseph Mancini as a mythical character.
The way the tales went he was a GIANT. A self-made business success, that gave in every direction he could find. To schools, charities, and individuals. He created scholarships, put others’ kids through school, and supported many who were struggling.
He had a saying, “Money is like manure, you’ve gotta spread it around.”
Well, Mom inherited a portion of his estate but adopted all of his philosophy.
Looking around this room, everyone has a story of a time when Mom gave them something to which they thought, “Wait, WHAT?!”
She gave in a way most of us didn’t even realize was possible.
She gave out toys, new shoes, and pieces of art. She gave people healthcare, sent them back to school. She handed them dresses, jackets, and sunglasses, all because she sensed the opportunity to spark joy.
“I just always felt like there was enough to go around.” She told me over and over and over again. Key to her thesis on life is that spending on others is better than spending on yourself.
Last year, a close friend of ours was getting married and Mom brought a gift in a half-wrapped box to their engagement party. She asked me to carry it in for her, and as I grabbed it I noticed the part of the box you could see revealed that it came from an expensive pressure washer.
As our friend went to unwrap the gift, peeling off the paper and opening the cardboard, it became clear to him that it actually was what the box said it was, a top of the line pressure washer.
Our friend freaked out! HE WAS OVERJOYED.
The look on his face was priceless, but also so routine when mom gave gifts. The person would assume they were about to get something within a traditional spectrum of gift giving, then be totally blown away by what they received. It wasn’t just that it was expensive, it was that it was something he didn’t think you could get as an engagement gift.
I have no idea how Mom knew he wanted this.
She took immense joy in identifying items that could spark such joy.
— — —
Sometime in 2008, I was living in Boston and I started hearing stories about how Mom was giving out iPhones around Portland.
WHAT? She’s just handing them out? It sounded so absurd I called her to ask if it was true.
“Mom, what the fuck? Really?”
“Yeah P. I’m just so proud of Steve.” She said.
“I’m so impressed by what he did.”
“Mom, do you mean Steve Jobs?!” I clarified. She didn’t know the CEO of Apple, but she was so moved by what he and his team had accomplished that she wanted more people to experience it.
Most people might do this by buying THEMSELVES an iPhone and showing it off at parties.
But that wasn’t enough for her.
She was constantly on the hunt to find new ways to create more happiness in others.
#5. THEN GIVE MORE
The problem with being able to give in this way is that she often struggled to understand regular people like us. When others asked her for things, particularly money, she took them at face value. She wanted to know what it was for, and then gave to causes in a way that blew organizations away.
The thing she despised most was greed. If she got going about how someone was being stingy or selfish I couldn’t get her to stop ranting about their failure to see the opportunity for impact.
A few years ago she was fundraising for College Possible and I watched as her disappointment boiled over…
She believed deeply in the impact of the organization. She was addicted to supporting the drive of these young students, because to her it felt like a shortcut: when you provide the resources and mentorship to aspiring students the outcomes are marvelous.
One day I stopped by her office and she was fired up.
She was pissed.
“What is it?! What’s WRONG MOM?! I tried to get her to slow down and explain.
She was ranting about how a very wealthy person that she’d asked to support the students had sent in a 100 dollar check.
“I’m gonna call him and shove this check SO FAR UP HIS ASS!” She screamed.
WOW!
WOW!
WOW!
MOM!
I tried to calm her down, but good luck with that.
I attempted to rationalize that most of us don’t even have a framework for giving like she does. Especially giving without expectation for recognition.
My mom wrote checks like a mad woman. She saw a need and stepped up. Again and again and again. To her it was just obvious. That’s what you did. Once you identify the need you give.
There are no other steps.
There’s nothing else to consider.
The expression “Generous to a fault” made sense once I saw how much Mom gave away. She gave of her time, attention, and resources to the point where I once sat her down to ask, “Mom, are you and Dad going to be alright?!”
“Oh, we’ll be fine honey.” She reassured me, sketching out her finances. People could say she was careless with money, and in some senses, they’d be right.
She didn’t play it safe. She wasn’t focused on the possible worst-case scenario.
Her thesis on life demands that you drive toward doing the most good for the most people without hesitation.
It’s not easy, and it’s not for the faint of heart.
And finally,
#6. CREATE SPACE WITH OTHERS
But we all know it wasn’t about money.
The magic of my Mom wasn’t in gifts.
It couldn’t be captured in checks.
As I’ve given it more thought what’s become apparent is that Julie was most alive in the space she created with others.
That’s what I loved about the uniform she adopted over the years. Her Armani suits allowed her to pass easily from one context to another while never shifting, always being herself.
Growing up she’d introduce famous authors on stage, attend rainy soccer games, and attend wild art exhibitions, all dressed in her same navy pants suit.
Her confidence and ease with others has always been the model which I aim to emulate.
When I was in high school, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art started throwing annual fundraising balls that were the wackiest shit my sheltered west hills eyes had ever seen.
But Mom just led me in, wearing her same navy suit. She hugged drag queens and introduced me to people with technicolor hair in all sorts of undress. She welcomed them as they were and they adored her as she was. Because the space that she moved within, the air she created around her, was free from judgment, open to possibility, and always encouraging of more fun.
That was her understanding.
That was the Theory of Julie.
That in any moment, in the space between yourself and others, if you are willing to stand with the person with generosity, curiosity, and love, then both of you are capable of more than you’d previously dreamed.
What I realized over time was that, like an animal who can see frequencies of light or hear sounds that we cannot, Mom could see and feel a whole amplitude of emotion and experience that’s available beyond what most of us imagine. You just have to be willing to open your heart to its existence.
That’s what all of the other stuff was for.
The swearing, the goofy remarks, the hilarious sayings, and wild generosity. They were just tools she used to keep cracking open that window of connection with others.
MAKE IT BETTER
Her driving thesis in life was to, “Make it better.”
As a teacher, a nonprofit leader, and a mentor to many, her aim was to get in there and
Make.
It.
Better.
I’ve heard interviews that she gave over the years where she attributed this mission to her mother.
My grandmother Anne was an incredible woman. She was warm, kind, and generous.
But as I grew older Mom taught me that the important things in life are not simple. She encouraged me to embrace life’s messy reality.
When I asked her how she did it, how she could keep going out into the world giving so much to others, her answer changed my world forever.
“P, what you’re seeing is the functioning child of an alcoholic.”
As I’ve mentioned, my grandfather Joe was a generous giant, but he was also a cruel drunk.
I’ll may never know what demons he was running from, but when he’d been drinking and started to get mean, my grandmother would retreat to the kitchen, turn to her daughter and say, “Get in there and make it better.”
And so that’s what she did.
Her entire life.
She never stopped getting in there to make it better.
And that’s what all of us witnessed every time we saw her.
Each day.
Every interaction.
She gave everything she had without hesitation.
Never holding back.
Because she knew that she could. She understood how much it took and always gave everything because she believed that all of you were deserving of every ounce of her love.
End
I want to be clear: I in no way think my mom lived perfectly. But in a fucked up, flawed, random world, I believe in her style of navigating the most.
— — —
Recently someone told me that one of her friends was, "Really messed up for a while," after his dad died.
And while being "messed up" might sound awful, it's actually always how I hoped I'd be when mom died.
Cause she deserved that.
She’s worth being messed up over.
But my entire life she’s been intent on my strength and growth.
As a teacher, with a masters in education, she made frequent mention of the basic experiments of healthy development.
"He’d eat the marshmallow," she'd joke about someone with no impulse control who would probably fail the classic test of patience.
“You’d eat the marshmallow!” I’d rebut to her with love. She’d just smile and flick me off.
But she had a point.
People need to grow and be able to do hard things.
“He probably wouldn’t let his mom leave the room.” She’d say, referencing the developmental threshold when a child feels loved and safe enough that they can play even when their parent goes out of sight.
She meant it as a metaphor for taking on life. For having enough inside of you that you can adventure beyond what is safe and certain.
And so, over the past weeks, as I’ve talked to her, and tried to hear her reply, that’s what I keep coming back to — for me, and for all of us.
She would wish us the strength to allow her to leave the room.
If given one more moment with Mom she would reassure us that the time we spent together was enough.
And she’d remind us that that better version of the world that we saw when talking with her?
That’s it’s still there.
That it’s always been there.
That she was simply a mirror we used to see it in ourselves.
She’d reassure us that WE have HER energy inside of us, and ask that now WE go out there and make it better.
Thank you.