--WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN, IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR

--My daughter has an obsession with Katy Perry. I’m not sure why exactly; she just does.
But it's a healthy obsession.
It’s a hobby for her, this Katy Perry fandom thing.
When I was her age I had a mild obsession with Bo Derek.
That’s her in the photo. The iconic image is taken from the film “10.”
I haven’t seen that movie in many, many years and I’m almost afraid to since I have such fond memories of it.
In the movie, Dudley Moore’s character is having some marital woes with his Julie Andrew’s wife when--while driving through Beverly Hills--Dudley is at a stop light, turns to his left, and happens upon the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.
It’s Bo, of course, seated in the back seat of the car next to him. She glances at him as one would another passenger in the opposing lane. It’s a subtle, slow motion gaze which confirms for Dudley (as well as viewers) that Bo is indeed stunning.
When the light changes to green, Dudley fights traffic to follow the car and the woman to, of all places…
a chapel.
Bo Derek (said beautiful woman) is getting married.
That doesn’t deter Dudley.
Nor does a toxic bee sting to the nose, the loss of several teeth, an arrest, being locked out of his house, a car wreck…
Nothing dissuades Dudley because he’s just too far gone, too obsessed with his obsession.
After a series of comic pratfalls, Dudley tracks the bride all the way to…
Mexico
where she’s…
on her honeymoon.
Eventually, Dudley saves Bo’s new husband from certain death by drowning and Bo, a new age feline, ends up smoking pot and wanting to engage in sex with Dudley while Ravel’s Bolero plays on the stereo.
Ultimately, Dudley realizes that Bo is beautiful, but always somewhat vapid, scrupulous to a degree, and, well, just not the perfect “10” he’d thought her to be—at least not spiritually or mentally.
His hopes dashes, he returns to Julie Andrews, not settling, but wiser and more grounded.
The film is a great tale about the grass always being greener on the other side, the fallacy of beauty, and the truth about love.
Those are the things I think about when I remember “10.”
Really, they are.
I don’t think about Bo. It seems silly now, that I ever had a crush on her. After all she wasn’t real. I should have known better.

“Love is not a feeling. It is an action, an activity. True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.” Scott Peck