YOU JUMP, I JUMP...REMEMBER?

How to recognize, honor and be changed by the right partnerships.

On a recent trip to Newport, I begrudgingly rewatched Titanic and not only did it churn up a lot of emotions, but I also started thinking about partnerships in a whole new way.

Now, I am not a boat person. This is important context for what I’m about to tell you—and also, a little ironic.

I have been known to make a boat reference or twelve in life and career. “I’m the dinghy tied to the yacht, paddling to keep up.” “My boat isn't sinking, the waterline just keeps getting lower and lower.” And my personal favorite, consistently co-opting from The Shawshank Redemption: I just want to be sanding my boat in Zihuatanejo, waiting for Red to arrive. (And, I've actually been to Zihuatanejo!)

I'm also a devoted viewer of the shows Deadliest Catch and Wicked Tuna — so much so that I can guess the weight of the haul to within a pound.

I do love pools. In fact, I consider myself a “pool person.” I worked at the town pool for three summers in high school. I was on the grounds crew, however, I was definitely not a lifeguard.

And I am a good swimmer. I would clock 20 Olympic length freestyle laps daily in my teens — in the 3 feet. While making it through Intermediate level swim lessons certainly gave me an advantage here, that was the highest level I ever achieved. I had to take the test to pass twice because I refused to swim across the 12-foot section using my own girth. The first time, I gave up halfway and turned back. I suppose the second time the instructor took pity on me.

I don’t like not being able to touch the bottom. It’s the treading that gets to me. While I’m blessed with broad shoulders and a wing span, the muscle tone itself is lacking.

I'm almost certain that in a previous life, the one before I was a Regency-era Duchess, I drowned. While I wish I were an explorer navigating the Atlantic, in all likelihood I lost my footing in a lake on my sprawling estate, gasping for air and meeting my demise.

Maybe it isn’t the boat or the water so much as the depth??

All of this to tell you that in less than a week I am supposed to be taking to the high seas with my beloved on a Mediterranean cruise. What were we thinking? Mostly we (me) were in a haze of watching too much Dr. Odyssey.

Shockingly this is our 2nd cruise — the first one being Alaska a decade ago where we hugged the coast and I could see land most of the time.

And yet, here I am — taking small steps into deeper water. The same way we do when we trust a partnership enough to let it carry us somewhere new. Which brings me to Titanic.

Or rather, back to Titanic.

Oof—I do not love this film. Yes, for all its Gilded Age romance and historical significance, this Duchess just couldn't stomach it after the initial theater premiere and occasional clips caught on TV. I always felt it was...saccharine.

The “I’m flying!” scene? Cringe. The nonstop crowing of “Jack, Jack, Jack” every three seconds? Exhausting. And the underuse of Kathy Bates as the unsinkable Molly Brown? A crime.

I did not think that Kate Winslet (Rose) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Jack) had any chemistry.

I do absolutely adore older Rose. And, RIP Bill Paxton.

But, it's been (84, er) many years and rewatching the film now...I think I missed the initial point.

While it's billed as a love story, it's actually a story about liberation — and what the right person at the right time can set in motion.

When Jack and Rose take their walk around the upper class promenade, she comments "I know what you must be thinking, 'poor little rich girl, what does she know about misery?'"

And Jack retorts, delivering the most pivotal line of the film. "No, no, that's not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was, what could've happened to this girl to make her think she had no way out?"

There it is. The spark. Before this moment, Rose had never had anyone even hint that there was any other way out.

He later teases her, painting a picture of what life could be like riding the roller coaster in Santa Monica, trotting on horseback, spitting in public—all of the things she could never do under the unbearable weight of society, her mother's emotions, and her fiancé’s aggression.

He practically shakes sense into her at one point after Cal's (and her mother's) threats. And she does, eventually, see the way out.

She trusts him.

Jack was Rose's first taste of AGENCY and FREEDOM, he was the first person to encourage her to live for HERSELF and not to fulfill expectations. He rescued her from the life she thought she had to live. He was the key to her gilded cage. And she, in turn, gave him a kind of immortality.

There is a beautiful love story woven into the film. I would not be the Duchess I am, or who I actually am, if I did not highlight Rose’s love of art — the Picassos, Degas and Monets — and how that appreciation is used as a vehicle for her expression, vulnerability, and freedom (yes, girl!). This leads to an extremely erotic, but elegant, moment in the film where she completely lets down her guard. And, yes, a little later, there is a wild moment in the back of a cab.

But it’s the partnership, rather than the courtship, that is the true mark.

The right kinds of partnerships shift you. Challenge you. Push you. Catch you. And make you see things from a different point of view. What once seemed scary and inconceivable, with support, seems possible. You don't leave as the same person you were when you entered into it. You change.

In the end, Jack's death wasn't the plot—his IMPACT was. Without him, she survives but never really lives. With him, in his immortality, she becomes who she is supposed to be. Holding onto Jack isn't about him, it's about the pivotal moment she was freed.

What I think is the most fascinating is how life imitates art for the two actors playing these roles. The success of this film basically catapulted Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio into stardom with an intense filming experience underneath them. If you've ever seen them interacting out of character—as themselves, on red carpets, in behind the scenes footage—you'll see how a trust-based, platonic partnership has lasted decades.

They've worked together since and there seems to be a way they've navigated fame without losing themselves, at least with each other, and not letting Hollywood cheapen their bond.

In Titanic, Jack saw Rose before she saw herself. Outside of film, Leo and Kate created a safe space for each other to grow. Both stories are about recognizing and protecting people who give you permission to be your fully authentic self.

It's not just that Leo and Kate stayed friends—it's that Leo, in real life, continued being Jack, and Kate as Rose, in the ways that mattered most: encouraging agency, protecting space, showing up for pivotal moments, being a constant reminder to each other of who they both were before they broke free.

In love, friendship, work—we have our own "Jacks", the people who see us, remind us, and make space for us to live off-script. People who stand beside you without clipping your wings. Some are fleeting, some are lifelong, but their influence can be permanent.

And these are the partnerships worth honoring.

Sometimes stepping into the unknown is easier when someone is willing to jump with you. I'm very lucky to have such fine people in my life—particularly with this little passion project called The Duchess you all are a part of.

I am still not a boat person but I'm learning to trust the water. One of my favorite -ism's is "sometimes you need to wade in the water and see what the tide brings in instead of splashing around so much in the ocean." There are moments that demand stillness and attraction vs. chasing but sometimes you also need to let go, trust in your own strength to tread and be OK with not touching the bottom.

Just make it count!

PS. I would not be a writer if I did not give credit where it was due. My wading in the water quote—although I use it often—that is Caroline Bessette-Kennedy’s and not mine. A treasured Duchess in her own right who was gone far, far too soon.