OK, I have to admit it. I was pretty annoyed at the whole Eat, Pray, Love phenomenon.
For those of you who missed it, Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a book back in 2006 about chucking her fabulous life in New York—bored with husband and all—and traveling the world in search of herself. Yes, yes, I would love to spend months in Italy eating my way through their amazing culture, not to mention the pastas and wine. I would be fascinated by the spiritual and intellectual practices of meditating for weeks at a time at an Indian ashram; perhaps I’d learn something amazing. And I know I would thrill at more than a vacation’s worth of days in such a laid-back place as Bali, even if I didn’t find the next love of my life. But the experience and her writing about it felt totally self-indulgent in a way that seemed, at the time, elitist, something only a well-heeled modernist could accomplish. (Of course, it could just mean that I would never have the guts to head out of my comfort zone, but that’s another column.)
But I do think I want to read her latest, a more thoughtful, if still personal, take on how she came to a second marriage. This is remarkable only because she became the patron saint for the strong single divorcee (that word isn’t used much anymore, but her independent, freedom-seeking spirit did define her), and after stating blatantly that she would never enter the state again, here she is, another married lady.
Her book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, explores not only her reasons for taking the leap (more practical than romantic, in some ways), but also the diverse cultural approaches to the whole notion of marriage around the globe. Americans, it seems, have this fetish about marriage in ways that others do not, which is perhaps why we fail at it so often. She also talks about how much more she brings to this union at this stage of life that she couldn’t possibly have contributed to her first, as a rather silly, naive twenty-something. (Hear her interview with Diane Rehm on NPR for more food for thought.)
She gives us lots to think about…I’ll write more once I read it!
Found this over at remarriagemag.com
