It's time to: Eat. Pray. Love.

Rarely does a movie preview knock me off my feet, tie my wrists, and drag me into its' cave.

But in the case of Julia Roberts' newest film, Eat. Pray. Love, I became entranced, captivated and changed, in a mere 60 seconds. This teaser depicted one of those uncommon movies that hit you straight on, appealing to your interests, your wrenching your heart.

Thirty year old Elizabeth Gilbert was the epitome of a classic American woman. She was married to a gorgeous man in a beautiful country home and working a successful career. But she knows she is unhappy. Gilbert trades these outward marks of sucess for "the backdrop of three very different cultures: pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and the Indonesian island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence."




When a favorite teacher of mine bought a french copy of the book on Amazon, she recommended friends follow suit. I was completely unaware that the entrancing movie stemmed from a book, and literally 5 minutes later I had ordered my own copy. In English of course.

Eat. Pray. Love. is, "A meditation on love in its many forms-love of food, language, humanity, God, and most meaningful for Gilbert, love of self...." -Los Angeles Times

Gilbert's views have been so awe-inspiring that I find myself marking passages with my turquoise pen page after page, so as not to forget the stirring thoughts that hit home so abruptly. Since life doesn't allow the time to read every enlightening book that floats past us, I'm more than happy to share some of my favorite pieces of Eat. Pray. Love.

Lately I have been feeling so drastically the difference between happiness and misery. This beautiful passage describes so perfectly the essential need to find and cling to joy in our own lives.

"It was in the bathtub back in New York, reading Italian words aloud from a dictionary, that I first started mending my soul. My life had gone to bits and I was so unrecognizable to myself that I probably couldn't have picked me out of a police lineup. But I felt a glimmer of happiness when I started studying Italian, and when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt- this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

"But is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a little while? Just for a few months of one's life, is it so awful to travel through time with no greater ambition than to find the next lovely meal? Or to learn how to speak a language for no higher purpose than that it pleases your ear to hear it?"

Gilbert talks of a profession men held in Venice during the Middle Ages called a codega. This man's job is to lead you through the city at night by latern, showing you the way, scaring off thieves and demons and bringing you confidence and protection.

Today, I wonder about my own codega. Is there a single being who lives to guard and defend me? Or do I have many protectors prepared to fight when danger arises?

At one point Gilbert sits at an outdoor cafe having a conversation with her friend Giulio. An Italian woman struts by- fantastically manintained, jewelry-sodden and sporting four-inch heels and a tight skirt. The woman is walking a fancy dog on a gem-studded leash, and she exuded a glamorous air of: "You will look at me, but I will refuse to look at you."

Gilbert points out to Giulio, "That is a Roman woman. Rome cannot be her city and my city, too. Only one of us really belongs here. And I think we both know which one."

Giulio offered a fantastic point. "Every single city has a single word that defines it, that identifies people who live there. If you could read people's thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be- that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don't really belong there."

He explained that Rome's word is 'sex,' but since the Vatican isn't part of Rome, they have a different word. Their word is 'power.' New York City's word is 'achieve,' and Los Angeles' word is 'succeed.' Stockholm's is 'conform,' and Naples' word is 'fight.'

Gilbert didn't know the answer when Giulio asked what her word was. Similarly, I was left pondering what my own word would be.

Sadly, Eat. Pray. Love. is not released to theaters until late August. Until then, I will take my time mulling over the enlightening gems this lovely book has to offer.