Eat, pray, love

I just finished reading this book last night - it had been kicking around our house for a little while, i think i got it back in summer. Initially, i had been really excited to read it, however after reading a couple bad reviews, i was a little hesitant. Its not that the reviews said that it was badly written, the main criticism was that this was another tale of self-indulgence and what some could call "middle class white girl syndrome" - that is, people finding problems in their lives and then up and leaving them, all to "find themselves" and realign their chakras.

I'm mixed about all this, as you might be able to tell. I love that we have the luxury of therapy should people need it - one of my favorite people in the world is my past councilor, carolyn, a woman i would want to meet for coffee everyday if i could and who has helped me through some very difficult times of self-doubt. I try to approach things in life somewhat holistically, with attention paid to both physical and spiritual well-being. However, i do think that as it so often happens, the goodness of these opportunities has been saturated and now you have people falling over the other side of the line -- people in love with this realization that they can be happy, but in order to do so, must up and leave their families. jobs, husbands and travel to Italy to date a man named carlo (i did love the movie "under the tuscan sun" though - despite the liberties they took with the script!). Little bits of this is good for anyone, but it just seems like people give things up so easily, instead of working through the hardships or the rough spots. I guess what scares me and makes me a little sad is it seems that people have lost the ability to tough things out, or rather to know the difference when to stay and when to change something. There's absolutly exceptions to this rule, when situations are bad and horrible, but I'm talking about the ones where grown people act like 7 year olds and give no thought to their kids, or loved ones when they decide that its best to become a spinning instructor in chicago instead of whatever they were doing yesterday. its that instant gratifiction schtick - know what i mean?

Anyway, i feared that this book would be exactly that - and Hurray because it wasn't! There were no children involved to be thrust to the nanny, and the author was well aware of her decisions and their consequences. Not once in the book did i feel that this was a whiny self indulgent midlife crisis character, rather the opposite - a strong, searching, honest, and open woman who had the means and the schedule to adventure around on a spiritual and joyful journey. it was a wonderful read, a perfect escape from the cold weather here.