On the Path of Eating, Praying & Loving

Gilbert speaking at TED in 2009 on creative inspiration.

What I find so very fascinating about the phenomenon known now as "Eat, Pray, Love" is the angry backlash. I could be way off base here, but from where I sit it feels like only the Twilight books/movies and before that the Harry Potter series were similar in the strength of their cultural megastormness.

You can now buy "Eat, Pray, Love" travel packages and perfumes and whatnot, and this is making some who are very serious about their spiritual path (and some who just like to be critics) uncomfortable and crying everything from "this is only spiritual-lite" to "this is Western narcissism at it's finest."

Let me say up front I am a fan of the writing of Elizabeth Gilbert. I have been a fan of her writing since I read her first novel, "Stern Men." Where others say "Eat, Pray, Love" doesn't deal with the true harshness of real life, and that she seems uber unaware of her uber privileges as a white woman sent on an all expenses paid vacation I say, hold on a minute. Is life often filled with harsher realities than Gilbert's life is filled with during the episode the book covers? Absolutely? Do most people in the world have the economic benefit her talent as a writer has carved out for her? No.

But I think many are missing three main points of the book. One, Gilbert is a writer to her bones. She is not a spiritual seeker who  decided to write down a bit of her spiritual journey. Gilbert was given the assignment to write "Eat, Pray, Love" precisely because of her talent. She is not a fly-by-night or over night success, she's an award winning writer whose 1997 magazine article in GQ profiling her time as a bartender in an East Village dive became the film "Coyote Ugly."

Writers often create their best work when they face with honesty their darkest moments and come out on the other side. Gilbert's editor smelled gold in her gifted client's yearning to break away from the hauntedness of being the "leaver" of a marriage, the provider who decides she wants something else (an interesting twist, this is usually played by a man), who lets go of her nest egg in order to get a new lease on life. The editor said yes to the book idea and the trip because she knew Gilbert would deliver something worth reading, perhaps something that would win a prize, and maybe be featured on NPR.

I'm sure neither thought, "oh this will be a blockbuster of the likes no one has ever seen for the 30+ crowd." Neither realized how many females (and males too) were at a place in their life that they would relish going along for just such a journey.

Here is how I saw the book - I saw the book as a journey to the right romance at the right time. I saw the book as an exploration and sharing of the kinds of things you've got to go through to be in the right headspace/heartspace to accept it. The book is called, "Eat, Pray, Love" not "Eat, Pray, Love and How I Got Really Real in My Spiritual Journey" or "Eat, Pray and How I Learned to Love the World." It is a book for still hopeful romantics who've been chewed up and spit out by love, but who want to know there's still a chance for them, that middle age isn't too late (either side of it), that the person you initially overlook might just be the very right one - and if you're open to it you can learn to look with new eyes, a new heart.

If you are from a culture where individual romantic love is not seen nearly as important as the wholeness of family, or the creation of children, than the book is definitely not for you. It is absolutely the book of an individual's journey to love, one individual's take. If you were the one who was left in a marriage, the one who is too frightened to take your own creative risks because you've always put the care of others first, then I can see how this book might not be for you.

And where the movie (I haven't seen it yet, so I'm projecting here) might go wrong is that it has cast the incredibly sexy Javier Bardem as the final love interest for Julia Roberts as Gilbert - they are 41 and 42 respectively. In the book, and in her real life, the man Gilbert falls for finally is quite a bit older than her. He is a polite, erudite, and incredibly thoughtful and charming man but someone Gilbert initially only sees as a friend. I don't know about you, but when I look at Javier Bardem I don't automatically think, "Oh gee, I hope he'd be my friend." (Which means that why yes, I am going to go to see the movie anyway)

When I read the book the first time I was disappointed by the ending. At the time I as at the age that Gilbert is now and I had recently discovered the fun of dating younger men. I didn't like that the hero was older so I almost missed the point.

However, when I went back and read the book a second time I was more open to the story's message of learning to be open to love in unforeseen moments, in unforeseen places, that sexy can surprise you (which I am in the process of discovering myself right now thank you).

In the arms of an older man, Gilbert, who was the major bread winner in her first marriage, is allowed to be her full self in the arms of a man who has seen more of life, who can talk her down when her fast introspective spinning brain gets her into trouble, who gives her the space to be both silly and sensual, who is unfazed by the small every day challenges that can make many of us feel the world is out to get us, and who continues to behave with kindness and decorum when the really hard knocks smack us.

He is, in a word, a man. Really, the book for me is about the triumph of becoming a grown up.