Eat, Pray, Love ..... and Read

The story goes like this. My niece suggested I might enjoy Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. The title sounds like my cup of tea. When I saw it at the Sacramento airport, as I prepared for the long flight to the East coast, I sprung for it - something I rarely do at an airport. It just doesn't seem right to pay full price for a book anymore. Well, actually, this is a topic I have internal arguments over. I can make things as complicated as even Elizabeth herself! It's never an easy choice. Buy on line, get a bargain. Put another independent bookstore out of business? VS: Get in the car. Burn fossil fuel. Buy from an independent bookseller. Pay full price. and feel good that I'm helping to keep the guy's store open. Go online and buy the book used but pay more for shipping than for the book. By the time I'm done there isn't much time left for reading :-)

But on this trip, feverish with a new cold, I sprung for the book, but didn't get very far into it on the flight home because I spent much of the flight sleeping. The book then lay unopened along with days of mail while I slowly recuperated. Meanwhile, my neighbor had lent me Obama's Dreams from my Father - his 2004 autobiography. My rule of thumb is if I find a riveting book I want to finish it before getting riveted by the next. It's not unusual for me to read 4 or 5 things at once, usually non-fiction. But then I can never remember who said what --- all that information gets synthesized somewhere within. Memoir is different. Obama has enough to worry about without having to be part of Elizabeth Gilbert's story.

Sometimes you can't tell if I've slept in a bed or not, but you can always tell if I've read a paperback. I cart it around with me, take it to lunch, stuff it into canvas bags. I was embarrassed. When I asked my neighbor if she would lend me Obama's first book, she took it down from her bookshelf and if I'd seen first the pristine condition it was in I doubt I'd have had the nerve to ask for it. My impulse to replace it with a brand new one was thwarted. She'd know, because she wrote her name in the front of hers, and had a couple of notes within. I hunted around for a way to reciprocate to make up for my clumsiness. There sat Eat, Pray, Love, just where I'd put it down a month earlier. Hmmm. I'd make a gift of it and get it off my back at the same time!

Two days later I heard the storm door open and close. When I went to investigate, there was Eat, Pray, Love with a note that she just had to have her own copy so she could write in it.

Sometimes I'm kind of dense, but this was like being hit by a 2 X 4. Alright. I guess I'm really supposed to read this book. So I put aside a stack of non-fiction, including A New Earth, which had been gifted to me by a dear friend, and which Oprah is discussing with Eckhart Tolle. At this point I've finished eating. (Wouldn't that be nice!) Well - I've finished eating with Elizabeth Gilbert in Italy. And I'm almost through praying with her in India. And half the time or more I'm wondering how she ended up in my head. Even though it ain't the same story. In fact she's deciding to be celibate at just about the time I'm beginning to wonder how I ended up that way all these years, and how much that has contributed to my current health challenges, which are many. But that's a different blog altogether.

So, all this to say how highly I recommend that you Eat, Pray, Love with Elizabeth Gilbert, and READ. And when stuff comes up as you read, transform it, just as she is doing!