People who love “Eat Pray Love” may also threatened by it. In the Oprah generation, we’re allowed candles and Me Time as long as we don’t appear selfish, but I think the self is all we’ve really got!
I first read Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir in 2007, at the age of 33, and on the edge of emotional upheaval.
My first thought was, “Excuse me, Elizabeth. I didn’t buy this book to give you free therapy.” I recently heard a woman on her cell say something similar. “Oh, my God,” she said, passing me on the street. “Julia Roberts is so self-indulgent.” Roberts, the movie’s star, is the object of female envy and annoyance because she is beautiful, financially stable, and unhappy.
I do understand the jealousy, but when I had a crying jag, similar to the author’s bathroom prayer to God, I was in no position for charitable giving.
A former musical theater dancer, I shared a tiny walk-up with two other dancers in New York. One was roommate was lovely, but the other drank and wailed like a crime victim; she wasn’t on Broadway. Now a fitness instructor, I knew I was in the right field but was frustrated with checkerboard hours and poor pay. I taught at any gym that would take me. “Can you do 6 a.m. and a 9 p.m.?” a manager would ask. “Sure!” I’d exclaim. By nightfall, no energy bar could revive me.
Exhaustion and sorrow knocked me flat on a Central Park bench in September of 2007. I sobbed for hours while people passed.
This was a call to arms.
Under Liz’s influence (I now called her Liz), I signed up for a yoga retreat to India scheduled for January 2008, a new year. As a yoga teacher, I wanted to see the origin of my practice as well as the source for my funk. Had I slowed down and read the checklist thoroughly, I would have made it there.
Yes, I had all my shots and anti-malaria pills. Yes, I had my mosquito tent that propped onto a single bed. Yes, I had my passport, but I didn’t have a visa.
You need a visa to visit India. I learned this when the plane went off without me that January night.
At Gatwick, I weighed my options. I could go back to New York, or I could regroup in my friends’ London flat. I chose the latter and searched on-line for a new plan.
Like Liz, I chose “I” countries; I wanted to know myself, but while Liz had Italy, India, and Indonesia, I had Ireland and Italy in less time. Instead of a whole year, I had less than two weeks to find enlightenment and a life partner, just like Liz.
From London, I booked a ticket to Dublin. It was good to be alone in a foreign country with no major goals. I ducked into museums and cute churches, snuck away into old pubs and tea shops.
Next on my list was Italy, more specifically Rome. January and February are rainy months, a good time for travel deals. I got a great hotel near the Colosseum: three nights for the price of two!
After dropping off my bags, I ordered pizza, wine, and tiramisu in a neighboring trattoria. The table was a work of art, with a holly tree near my plate. I sketched that little plant in my notebook, marveling how Romans linger over their holidays. Americans hide theirs January 2, sequestering wreaths like crazy relatives.
On my first Roman morning, I walked to the Colosseum and was rewarded with whistles, all delivered by sexy Italians who could smoke and ride Vespas at the same time. In New York, a woman could walk around naked unnoticed for hours – unless she made a fig leaf out of her iPhone.
For the next few days, I ate and shopped. If a store looked pleasing, I went in. I lusted over leather bags and bought one.
Now that I’ve paid off the trip, I look back on those weeks with curiosity and less embarrassment.
I didn’t find enlightenment or a lifelong partner, but I did find a truth. “If you have your self,” a yoga teacher recently said, “you have everything.” My “I” experience drives this belief.
