In Eat, Pray, Love, author Elizabeth Gilbert takes us along on her journey of self discovery and recovery. Dealing with the aftermath of her discovery that she doesn’t want children or to stay in her marriage we piggy back on her decision to spend four moths in three locations to study what each does best.
We discover Italy through her eyes (and stomach) learning and discovering pleasure in its many forms. The word today is most often associated with sex, and there is a level of that, it is Italy after all, but she reminds us that the definition is much broader and multi-layered.
Pleas-ure [plezh-er]
1. The state or feeling of being pleased.
2. Enjoyment or satisfaction derived from what is to one's liking; gratification; delight.
3. Worldly or frivolous enjoyment: the pursuit of pleasure.
4. Recreation or amusement; diversion; enjoyment: Are you traveling on business or for pleasure?
We encounter the aesthetic magic of an ashram and Gilbert’s breakthrough in self development, and forgiveness, in India in such a self depreciating manner that the breakthrough seem almost anticlimactic. There are so many misconceptions and taboos around a stay at an Ashram that her ability to bring to life each denizen in a straight forward and day to day manner was especially appealing.
After investigating pleasure in Italy and faith in India, Gilbert takes route to Bali where she hopes to study balancing both while learning from a medicine man she met two years prior who assured her she would return to the island and study with him. A brief foray into history helps the outsider understand some of the current culture and interactions of the Balinese.
At each turn in her journey he readily shares vignettes of her lack of planning, lack of strategy and ability to succeed in spite of the jumble she often feels. Makes international travel seem more plausible to the stay t home who has always believed it would be too difficult to make a trip outside one’s own borders.
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