Book: Eat, Pray, Love

I can't stop reading. As cliche as this sounds, it's truly become the easiest way for me to escape from things. But in a good way. When I'm reading, my mind is quiet, and I'm absorbing new words faster than I can worry about old words.

I also believe that books can come into your life at certain points in a most appropriate way. It's not like it's a psychic thing, or fortuitous premonitions. But often, quite often in fact, I'm reading a book and thinking, how in the world did this book find me at this exact moment?

As I read, Eat Pray Love, I was thinking that thought the whole time. But I'll be honest. It wasn't love at first sight. Well, I loved the cover at first sight. But the author, not so much. I was equally irritated and intrigued in the first few chapters. I was transfixed by the story line, by the things she was writing about, by the events surrounding her. But she, the actual woman living this life, was not someone I was dreaming of meeting.

I read it at the yoga retreat I was on, and there is probably no place better to read this book than on a yoga retreat. It looked as though they were handing this out at the door, because there were quite a number of women walking around with this book in one hand, and their yoga mat in the other. We should have started a book club right there and then.

I told a few people my frustrations with it. I said, "She's irritating me. She's trying to be funny when it's not necessary. She's writing whimsically about things I wish she'd be more serious about. She's making excuses for things that I don't think she should have to excuse." The women smiled and said, "Keep reading." They said, "Yeah, she has a tendency to do that. But keep reading."

They'd ask me as we passed each other in the hall, "What are you up to?"

I'd say, "We just finished Italy. And now we're flying to India."

They'd say, "Good, keep reading."

It struck me around that time, how I kept saying, "we". And I began to realize, that it felt like I was on this journey with this woman. The way she wrote about it all, made me feel like I was already traveling with her. That she and I, we, were eating pasta in Italy. We were planning our voyage to the ashram. We, were about to mediate together.

That's when I started to accept the book, and let go. And I forgave her for her shortcomings (now, what author is really perfect anyway?) and appreciated the story for what it was.

And then strange things began to happen. It was like paragraphs in the book were being written for me. To me. Names of characters and everything were identically paralleled to things happening, or things that had happened, in my life.

I read this straight for 4 days. I did nothing but read this book. The other day I was sitting at the coffee house, reading the book, and I laughed out loud. Right there. Heartily. A man walked by me a few minutes later and said, "Enjoying that book?" I smiled back, "It's amazing!" I said. "Have you read it?" He just smiled and shook his head. And I realized, he didn't even know what book I was reading. But he must have seen me laugh out loud.

I can see why some people would be agitated with this book. After I finished it (at 4am last night) I made a point to read the negative reviews first. And I get what they are saying. I really do.

But at the end of the day, who cares. This book is so full of so many things, that if there is only one thing you want to take from it, it's there. If it finds it's way into your hands, chances are, there's something in it for you. And I hope, by the end, you've found what you were looking for.