Give Thanks

How would you describe Gilbert as a travel writer?  What subject position does she claim?  Does she actually inhabit that position?  Use this journal to explore the answers to these questions.

I am alone, I am all alone, I am completely alone.

Grasping this reality, I let go of my bag, drop to my knees and press my forehead against the floor.  There, I offer up to the universe a fervent prayer of thanks.

First in English.

Then in Italian.

And then – just to get the point across – in Sanskrit. (Gilbert 9)

Elizabeth Gilbert’s fervent prayer is “Eat, Pray, Love.”  She is more than a travel writer; she is a pilgrim writing her prayers.  In doing so, she takes the reader on a journey around the world and into her soul.  I am going to have a hard time casting a critical eye because I just want to gush about her brilliance.  Gilbert writes like she is talking to a friend, not only talking, but entertaining them.  She has wit for days and has the perfect combination of self-deprecation and acceptance.  Reading her work was like picking up her journal, it was personal, revealing, and yet universal.  What she writes pertains to her story, but pertains to all of our stories.  If it didn’t, she wouldn’t be a best seller.  I love how the writer crafted the character – how both are the same, yet vastly different, person. 

There is this dichotomy when we look at Gilbert as a character and as a writer.  As a character, Gilbert is a thirty-six-year-old divorced woman, who just happens to be a writer.  She is religiously open, deeply faithful and on a journey for this strange thing we crave: balance.  She is impulsive, noted by her journey itself, and short of stabile.  Her character is American, but does not fit in with the cultural norms of her age group.  There are no PTA nights, minivans, or even a husband to call hers.  Getting away from her culture did not help her find cultural inclusion.  In fact, she could not even mention her divorce in the countries she went to.  But, this character fought her way into belonging through her spiritual quest.  She found sanctuary in the ashram, and within herself. 

Gilbert is an outsider as a character, but as a writer, she is all of these things, but she makes it right.  She goes from seeking the answers, to finding them.  Then what does she do? Exactly what others did for her: she passes them on.  “Eat, Pray, Love” allows the pilgrim to become the guru.

The teaching that she articulates the best is that of attraversiamo, let’s cross over.  Ok, it’s not really a teaching, but her favorite Italian word.  And this word is just what she does.  We grab her hand and cross over the world with her.  She crosses the lines of culture, destroying borders and opening up the world to her reader.  Maybe that is what so is attractive about Gilbert, her writing is open – she has broken down her borders to let us in.  The process was not always clean and pretty, there are still puddles of gelato and tears by the broken down planks of her personal border, but each episode fought for clarity, for openness. 

She makes us want to eat and pray, but mostly to love.  Love not only another, but ourselves.  Once we find that love, all that is left to do is give thanks.

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives.  In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.” (Gilbert 334)