Thoughts On Eat, Pray, Love

I frankly can’t stand Elizabeth Gilbert’s writing.  She kowtows around religion a ton in her books like a proper politically correct New Yorker, but the thing is that she’s very religious and it comes up a lot in her writings and well, I just wish she’d stop stuttering around God and Jesus and straight up come out with it.  Venting aside, and in spite of myself, I’ve read both her books; Eat, Pray, Love and Committed. 

She does her research and there are always at least a couple ideas I seem to quote from each book.  I fear my favorite is from Eat, Pray, Love.  While studying Italian cooking in Rome and an Italian man tells her that every city has a special word, like a zeitgeist keyword, and every individual has their own personal word.  If those two words don’t mesh in some way then the individual will never truly feel at home.  In the book her word is PURITY (or something along those lines) and Rome’s word is SEX.  Because they are two such opposed ideas, she will probably never feel truly comfortable in Rome.

I latched on to this because if I didn’t feel comfortable in a place then I would always think it was my failing for not finding some aspect of the town to like, or that I hadn’t given myself enough time to settle in.  This idea freed me to understand that you know what, sometimes it’s just not my place.  Austin, North Carolina, Paris, Germany—these are my kinds of places.  London, Greece, southern Colorado—these are not so much my speed.  I will always be able to appreciate these places for what they are but I’ve come to discover that I’m a big fan of bustling, quaint, and orderly kinds of places.  Try as I might to change that, I’ll always desire cute orderly bustle.

Which is not to say that I haven’t grown to adore the people of Arboles, because I have.  Cookouts, internet access, boating, borrowing movies--it’s been wonderful to get to know all of you.  And geez louise, we really couldn’t be doing this project in such style without your help and support in getting Breathless all ready for the open road.  So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for being so wonderful.

I suppose I’m still young enough to feel like I’m missing out on something if there’s not a ton of activity around, so for now I’ll be a city girl.  However, at the recommendation of Bryan and Laura we watched Cars last night.  Through the story of a young hot-shot race car finding love and a home in a small town…well, let’s just say that through the magical life lessons taught in Disney films I’m down for the quiet life with my garden, a pot-belly, chickens, and Conner in the shop working on restoring yet another vintage car.
Photo: Trevi Fountain in Rome via Washington Uni