Lifelines.

Among the many things I love about books and reading is that sometimes you come across something where the author can express in words exactly what you are thinking or feeling in way you couldn't figure out how to do.

I find this happens to me especially at times when I am going through something life changing. Whether is meeting someone or breaking up with someone, making career changes or exploring new adventures I always happen to stumble across a book expressing my exact sentiments that I couldn't find the words for. And when this happens, these stories become life lines- something to hold on through as you figure your way through. It keeps you grounded and serves as a reference point to which you can look back for inspiration, courage or remembrance.

When I find books like this I hold on to them and find that I reread them over again when I am faced with a situation similar to the one that latched my onto the story in the first place.

One of my favorites is a book by Alison Pace called Through Thick and Thin. It tells the story of two sisters, Meredith and Stephanie who lead completely opposite lives. They both bond and separate because of dieting and they try to deal with the issues of their lives while trying to lose weight. At one point Meredith adopts a dog and decides to try a dog yoga, or doga if you will, class. As Meredith struggles through poses her teacher says something so simple, yet so brilliant. "Try easy," he says. What a revelation! And this can be applied to so many things in life. I recall the scene from this book constantly when something is giving me trouble. I'll take a moment and repeat: try easy. I think we have a tendency to make thing far more complicated than they may actually need to be. We get ourselves all worked up into a frenzied, stressed out state of madness until we can't see which way is up. If we take a moment, breathe, and try easy things just might turn around.

Another book I turn to constantly because it's so full of wisdom that I learn something new every time is Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert offers such insightful views on so many important aspects of life: love, relationships, self discovery, work... to name a few. I tend to turn back to Eat, Pray, Love after things turn sour in my love life. I see a lot of similarities between myself and Gilbert in the way we behave in relationships (as I'm sure many women and maybe even some men do too.) It's nice to turn back to this book and rereard Gilbert's comforting words, like wrapping myself in my coziest blanket and settling in for the period of "getting over it" or "moving on."

Another book I've mentioned here that offers some great advice is Cathy Kelly's Past Secrets. In it Maggie suffers a devastating breakup after discovering her boyfriend's been cheating. Her friend suggests getting back at him, making him suffer and other sorts of revenge. Instead of giving in Maggie says, "I'm trying to put myself in the happy Zen state where the only true revenge is living my own life well." And it's true. You can't look anything but fabulous and confident when you are living your best life to its fullest potential. Instead of worrying about him (or her if the case may be) you focus on you. You make you better and you sink your teeth into carpe diem.

Most recently I've been reading Now and Then by Jacqueline Sheehan. It's been an interesting read so far. I've been enjoying it but I'm only half way through so I don't have an official opinion yet. Anyway, While I reading before bed last night I came across a great droplet of wisdom. The main character Anna is thinking about her situation (which is that she and her nephew have time traveled back to Ireland 1844 and don't know how to get back) and she realizes: she could endure the most excruciating circumstances as long as she knew there was an end. Similarly Anna thinks that "surely she can do anything for a few days." We as people don't do well with any sort of uncomfort. Pain. Confusion. Anxiety. Helplessness.  But we forget it's only temporary. Those feelings don't last forever. I know for me, when I'm in the middle of something, I feel like it's never going to be any other way. When I'm in it, I can't see that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. But as cliche as it is, it's there. The feelings fade back, time makes it better and it ends.

Escape.

I rarely travel without a book in my bag.

It's why I insist on carrying such a large purse....

But having a book is the perfect way to escape when I need a break from big city living. Like today. Mondays are generally busy for me with teaching group exercise classes in the morning, working as the web editor for my grad school's newpaper all afternoon and then going to grad school class at night.

However, sometimes I have a couple of hours of break in between work and class. Lately I've been taking myself over to Starbucks to work on crossword puzzles (which we can turn in for extra credit! also, because I am terrible at them and am determined to get better) and enjoy an eggnog latte (because really there's not a whole lot that's better as a treat when it's windy and chilly). Today I worked on my crossword for as long as I could (read: for as many words as I could figure out) and then called it quits. Still having time to kill, I pulled out my book (which happens to be Eat, Pray, Love again because i love it so much) and enjoyed an escape for just maybe 15-20 minutes.

That's the thing about reading vacations, if you will, that they don't need to be a lengthy ordeal. Even if you're got 10 or 15 minutes to spar, jumping into that story and getting lost is a wonderful break from reality. It calms me if I'm frazzled or gives me some energy if I've hit a lull, which happens a lot after working, working working on Mondays.

No matter what I'm reading or where I am in the story, I can jump right back in a take a little time away from whatever it is I was doing or will be doing or finished doing.

Sometimes a little escape is refreshing and enough to get through the rest of the day.

Confessions and where it comes from.

I have a confession to make.

Wait, I have two.

1. Sometimes I don't feel like writing.
2. Sometimes I don't feel like reading.

I know, but I'm a writer who started a book blog. How is that possible? Well here's how: like everything else, sometimes I hit a wall and burn out for a short period of time. I'll sit down all set to write a blog post or a theatre review or crack open a new book and all of a sudden I'm overcome with an overwhelming desire to anything else.

In the case of my writing, it's usually a story of writer's block. I can't think of anything clever or funny to say or something anything at all. I get stuck and before I know it, I can't put a single word to the page. Or as the case my be, to my blog.

Then with reading, I'll get all settled in to get lost in a novel or memoir and instead I find myself extremely tired and in need of a big ol' nap.

Luckily these are only phases and as quick as they set upon me, they are over and I can't wait to connect with new characters and write out all my thoughts. Because I know, I love writing and reading; there's really nothing like becoming engulfed in a new world created in an author's mind with characters I know I'll either fall in love or loath with.

And if you ever wondered where my affinity for reading comes from, I will tell you.

From my mother.

For as a long as I can remember, my mother has been more of an avid reader than I am. Chances are, in my parent's house you will find my mom curled up on her chaise lounge or in her bed with one of many books she is reading. Her coffee table is always full of five or six or seven different books she will get through in only a matter of weeks.

And when we talk, the conversation more often than not will turn to what we are reading, recommendations we have for each other, books we've heard about and are interested in or books on our reading lists. She's always discovering new, amazing authors or fascinating books she feels I must read. So I do and I love them. I can't think of a book she's recommended to me that I haven't enjoyed. She's the reason I brought you Past Secrets and Eat, Pray, Love.

Since I was a little girl, my mom has told me (and my siblings) just how important reading is. When I was little, I read because she made me but now I read because I love it. And I learned that from her.

Then there was the movie

Last week I made this post about Eat Pray Love.


Last weekend my mom, my sister and I saw the movie. 


I loved it. Julia Roberts was stunning as Elizabeth Gilbert. And it was really interesting to see Gilbert's life story play out in actuality, not just how I saw it in my mind while reading the memoir.


While in Italy, it was amazing to just see Italy. (so jealous). And it really inspired me to go back and relearn my Italian. I really enjoy speaking the language and I do it rather poorly. After hearing all the characters speak and seeing how Gilbert gained so much happiness from learning the language it made me realize how much I miss it. Also, it was really refreshing to see Gilbert and her friend Sophie let go of the need to be teeny tiny and just enjoy the Italian food without guilt.


In general, I thought it followed the book pretty well and it was very pleased to see how the characters came to life. It's funny, touching, inspiring, thought-provoking and entertaining.
I recommend seeing it, especially if you enjoyed the book.


Did you see the movie? What did you think?

Eat, Pray, Love Favorite Quotes

In honor of Eat, Pray, Love the movie coming out this weekend I decided to take a look back at the novel and pull from it my favorite parts. This has become a very important book for me in terms of a place to go to for advice, an inspiration to live the way you want and to figure out how to do what you love. I've read and re-read it a couple of times now and it never ceases to amaze me (and make me a little jealous) of the year Elizabeth Gilbert had during the writing of Eat, Pray, Love. So here is a list of my favorite quotes- quotes I find funny, inspirational, full of advice and that really touched me.

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Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth- Sheryl Louise Moller

This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude.

Go back to bed...because you don't need to know the final answer right now, at three o'clock in the morning on a Thursday in November. Go back to bed because the only thing you need to do right now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do know the answer. Go back to bed so that when the tempest comes you'll be strong enough to deal with it.

I was actually feeling kind of delighted about all the compartments of time and space that were appearing in my days, during which I could ask myself the radical new question, “What do you want to do today Liz?”

When I realized that the only question at hand was how do I define pleasure? and that I was truly in a country where people would permit me to explore that question freely, everything changed. Everything became delicious. All I had to do was ask myself every day for the first time in my life, “What would you enjoy doing today Liz? What would bring you pleasure right now?” With nobody else's agenda to consider and no other obligations to worry about, this question finally became distilled and absolutely self specific.

When I get lonely these days I think, so be lonely Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life, welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.

Moreover, I have boundary issues with men...to have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place right? But I disappear into the person I love....if I love you, you can have everything. you can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dogs money, my dogs time- everything......I will give you all this and more until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else. I do not relay these facts about myself with pride but this is how its always been.

There's a constant level of closeness that I really need from the person I love...but it just destroys me to not be able to count on that affection when I need it.

What are my choices to be? What do I believe that I deserve in this life? where can I accept sacrifice and where can I not?

It's for the best. I know it is. I'm choosing happiness over suffering, I know I am. I'm making space for the unknown future to fill up my life with yet to come surprises. 

Do not apologize for crying. Without this emotion we are only robots.

When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that 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.

When I ask my mind to rest in stillness it is astonishing how quickly it will turn 1. bored 2. angry 3. depressed 4. anxious or 5. all of the above. 

I was full of a hot powerful sadness and would have loved to burst into the comfort of tears but tried hard not to remembering something my guru once said- that you should never give yourself the chance to fall apart because when you do it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. you must practice staying strong instead.

Your problem is that you don't understand what the word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you then they leave. They tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so an new light could get in make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life...

That's your problem. You're wishing too much baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone outta be.

You've got some serious control issues...You're a powerful woman and you're used to getting what you want out of life and you didn't get what you wanted in your last few relationships and its got you all jammed up. Your husband didn't behave the way you wanted and David didn't either. Life didn't go your way for once. And nothing pisses off a control freak more than life not goin' her way.

You gotta learn how to let go, Groceries. Otherwise you're gonna make yourself sick. Never gonna have a good night's sleep again. You'll just toss and turn forever beatin' yourself for being such a fiasco in life. “Whats wrong with me? How come i screw up all my relationships? Why am i such a failure?”

At some point...you gotta let go, sit silt, and allow contentment to come to you.

What I'm alarmed to find in meditation is that my mind is actually not that interesting a place after all. In actuality I really only think about a few things and I think about them constantly. I believe the official term is "brooding."

In our real lives we are constantly hopping around to adjust ourselves around discomfort- physical emotional and psychological- in order to evade the reality of grief and nuisance. Vipassana Meditation teaches that grief and nuisance are inevitable in this life but if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough you will in time experience the truth that everything both uncomfortable and love does eventually pass. I wondered whether it might serve me and those who are burdened with the task of loving me if I could learn to stay still and endure a bit more without always getting dragged along on the potholed road of circumstance.

Faith is a way of saying, “Yes i pre-accept the terms of the universe and i embrace in advance what i am presently incapable of understanding”...If faith were rational it wouldn't be, by definition, faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face first and full speed into the dark.

Take the time to heal but don't forget to eventually share your hear with someone.

To meditate only you must smile. Smile with your face smile, with your mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile with your liver.

He says, “Dude- why is life and crazy like this?”

I keep remembering one of my guru's teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck something that will descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.....And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it.

Wayan ticked off on her fingers the six elements of her fail-proof broken heart curing treatment: Vitamin E, get much sleep, drink much water, travel to a place far away from the person you loved, meditate and teach your hear that this is destiny.

What is this life? Do you understand? I don't.

Do you think any of us know what were doing? Do you think there's any ways humans can love each other without complication?...It's still two human beings trying to get along so its going to become complicated. And love is always complicated. But still humans must try to love each other, darling. We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we tried for something.

It is strange and true that sometimes intense emotion can cause us to respond to cataclysmic news in exactly the opposite manner logic might dictate. This is absolute value of human emotion- joyful events can sometimes register on the Richter scale as pure trauma and dreadful grief makes us sometimes burst out laughing.

I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential....many times in romance I have been the victim of my own optimism.

To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.

Why am I worrying about this, by the way? What have I not yet learned about the futility of worry?

What's your favorite quote? Have a quote you like that I missed? Leave a comment!

Influences

I didn't start off wanting to be a writer. I actually started off in sociology. Then theatre. But it was while I was doing an off-campus study in college that I realized how much fun writing is. Especially about the arts. I didn't want to be directly involved (I realized just how hard being an actress is and how it's so not for me) I could write about it. And I loved that even more.

Lately I've been reading a ton. Partly because I love getting lost in stories and partly because I work at a job where I have time to read. But I have been just devouring books.

Not that long ago, I read Elizabeth Gilbert's memoirs Eat, Pray, Love and Committed. Eat, Pray, Love was read while I was going through a very painful breakup and it struck such a

cord with me that I felt Gilbert was somehow, through her own journey, helping me along mine. On almost every page I found advice or just a simple thought to mull over. I came out of this memoir feeling a little more settled and one step closer to moving on. After that I couldn't not read about her next journey and hope that she would further help me along in mine.

While on my own journey I discovered my new passion for writing book reviews. It hit me one day- I can combine the two things I love most: reading and writing. Since then I've been reviewing almost everything I've read. Here is my review of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed:

When writer Elizabeth Gilbert's world began to unravel she did what she does best to put it back in working order- she travelled and she wrote about it. Both Eat, Pray, Love and, most recently, Committed, chronicle Gilbert's search to discover what truly makes her happy and how to come to terms with and survive what she is most averse to in her life.

I know I'm a tad behind on the phenomenon that was Eat, Pray, Love when it first came out, I still believe it holds relevance and is just as worth discussing now, especially in light of her second memoir being recently published.

One thing to keep in mind when entering into these books

is that they do tend to run on the side of self-indulgent. Gilbert comments in her intro, “I did not anticipate that those readers would enjoy a rather emotional first-person chronicle about a divorced woman’s quest for psycho-spiritual healing. I hope they would be generous enough, though to understand, that I had needed to write that book for my own personal reasons, and maybe everyone would let it slide…” (Committed). I don't necessarily see this as a negative aspect, but more of just a fact worth noting. Going into it, it's obvious Gilbert wrote these books to work out personal dilemmas in her own life, and therefore uses the pages of her memoirs to delve into personal thoughts and ideas. She even admits at times in the novel

that she wrote these books for the purpose of working things out and I believe that if you begin these novels with that notion in mind it shouldn't be something to get too hung up on.

This is especially true because Gilbert is so accessible. It's simple for a reader to begin to relate to what Gilbert goes through and to sympathize and/or empathize. Gilbert's witty writing style and entertaining anecdotes are also effective at pulling the reader into her world. While spending time in Laos, she and her fiancé, Felipe, visit their tour guide’s home and meet his family. They learn about the tradition of marriage in Laos while having a wonderful time making new friends. The reader can begin to feel as if they are travelling around the globe with Gilbert and can vicariously experience all she went through (both the good and the bad).

Not only does Gilbert provide plenty of entertainment but education as well. It's clear she did her homework, investigating the history and facts of everything from various types of Indian meditations to the tradition of marriage throughout the ages as she quotes from various books she’s read and research she’s done. The reader comes away from these memoirs having learned new about relatively common practices and it can be appreciated that Gilbert made herself an expert on these subjects before imparting wisdom about them to others.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Gilbert in both Eat, Pray, Love and Committed. Both memoirs were a pleasure to read and I enjoyed being allowed to tag along with Gilbert as she took her literal and emotional trips around the globe.