Eat, was fun, upbeat, and delicious. Traveling around Italy and Rome sounded exciting, almost intoxicating. Elizabeth described the food and the people, her experiences in such detail and in such a fashion as it made you feel you were there eating the delicacies as well and hanging out with her friends. I almost wish this section of the book could have gone on for another 200 pages. I am truly a sucker for a nice travel essay or travel memoir.
Now in all fairness, the Pray part did have some rather uplifting stuff and it did give me pause on occasion. The real issue for me about this section was that it seemed a bit, well preachy is not exactly the right word. It was a bit too ethereal, and yes I suppose it should be as it is talking about the spiritual realm, but it was to much for me. I am not a really religious person, having checked out of the Catholic Church and organized religion as a whole, a long time ago and have my own beliefs about "God", good and evil, karma, the after life, etc.
Love, well love is pretty much about learning to love others and to let others love you, but at the same time knowing what kind of love is right for you. This is a game of chance, but if one knows who they are this leads to knowing what you like, and what you want for others and a relationship. Love can me messy sure, loving oneself and others can be hard to do, but not impossible and ca be very rewarding on so many levels.
I am glossing over a lot here, and in no way am doing the book justice, but I will say I enjoyed her writing style and the messages found through out the book. To me, Eat was about enjoying life, sampling it, and sampling it often. It is important to let go once in a while and enjoy lifer and all its delights with wild abandon. To do nothing and enjoy it, or as the Italians say, Il bel far niente (the beauty of doing nothing). Pray was about getting in touch with your self and learning to appreciate how unique you are and that we each have our own spirituality. One should take time to listen to themselves and be comfortable with oneself, for loving oneself goes a long way to leading a life of contentment and hopefully happiness.
Heer are a few things from the book that I rather enjoyed:
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
...the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one's humanity
I love you, I will never leave you, I will always take care of you
The last one, was the one I truly enjoyed. This was something she wrote in a journal that she kept and would often refer back to when she was depressed and dealing with more than she wanted to or could handle. It I think is the summation of the book, in a nice simple phrase. Love yourself, respect yourself, help yourself and be there for yourself (the rest will fall into place).
All of this is following with my last post about finding the beautiful in life as well as finding the happy. Sure, some days I am not looking for beauty and am in no way happy, but this is something to aspire to and to work on or work at. This book helped clarify a few things and gave me hope, the hope and aspiration to find the beauty within myself and within the world around me.
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