Peace, Comfort & Joy

Kasey Cox

No, I haven’t been spending too much time looking at holiday greeting cards. Although I did start putting up Christmas lights in the windows last night, I’m not in a hurry to begin the busy-ness of the holidays. In times (thankfully) past, I have not been well during November and December. The stress, the travel, the added hustle & bustle, and the encroaching darkness have often made this time of year more difficult than joyful.

So, what have I been doing these past couple of weeks to ease my way into the holidays? After my work is done for the day, I climb into bed, snuggle down with Hobo, turn out the lights, and listen to Elizabeth Gilbert tell me her story. I have indulged and soothed myself with the audio version of the best-selling memoir “Eat, Pray, Love.”

It’s unusual nowadays to find an audio book that is read by the actual author of the book. The trend now is to have award-winning actors give us their voiced versions, of everything from Thomas Hardy’s “The Return of the Native” (delectably delivered by Alan Rickman) to Dr. Seuss favorites like “Horton Hears a Who” (served with a smile by Dustin Hoffman). And there’s no denying, these audios are treats. However, no one knows the “voice” of a story better than the one who wrote it in the first place – especially when it is a collection of stories from her own life.

So we come to Liz Gilbert’s travellogue/collection of essays/memoir. Liz found herself, as she approached her 35th birthday, with a seemingly perfect life. Her books had twice been finalists for such prestigious awards as the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Award. Gilbert and her husband had just purchased a beautiful house. Her family and friends kept waiting for her to announce a pregnancy. Nevertheless, after a kind of mid-life crisis on her part, combined with problems in their marriage, Gilbert found herself dealing with a nasty divorce, life-threatening depression, and huge financial woes.

In the introduction to the rest of her tale, Gilbert recounts this time in her life with sensitivity, rueful insight, and aplomb. She refuses to drag her husband over the coals, gracefully declining to give the kind of lurid personal details we find all-too-often in contemporary memoirs. Elizabeth Gilbert tastefully explains how, in writing this book, she chose to keep the story of the disintegration of her marriage discrete, since it involves another human being, one whom she had deeply loved. Gilbert’s writing about herself – her thoughts, her idiosyncracies, her faults, her bodily functions – is open and humorous, but I really respect how her story is not told at others’ expense.

At the end of her bottoming out, Liz Gilbert did what so many of us fantasize about, but in reality, are too frightened to do. She, too, was terrified. But she left anyway. To heal, to learn, to explore, to find herself – Elizabeth Gilbert sold her stuff, quit her job, and moved away for a year. She decided to live for 3 or 4 months in each of these countries – Italy, India, and Indonesia. In each place, she hoped to dedicate herself to an aspect of health, in a place in the world that was well-known for that particular piece. In Italy, she nurtured herself with pleasure, eating and walking and looking at beautiful things. Next, she went to India, to practice devotion, discipline, and spirituality in the ashram of the yoga master who mentored her. Lastly, she went to Bali, in Indonesia, to find balance. Along with balance, she found love again.

Listening to Liz Gilbert tell me pieces of her story every night as I relax toward sleep, I shared in the comfort of feeding oneself well -and feeding oneself in many ways; of partaking in silence and calming one’s spirit; and of striving for balance and purpose in life. What better way to usher in this season?