eat pray love

how does tea taste like when your tears keep pouring down your cup? it's sweeter : )

early this morning, i cleared my tear ducts as i surrendered to the drama of the movie....

...eat pray love is a story about a successful young woman, Liz Gilbert who woke up one morning and felt that she has lost the relevance of life. she divorced her husband, left her family and friends, gave up her job, said goodbye to all the comforts that she's been used to and set out to Italy, India and Bali to find the balance of life...to find herself again.

in rome, italy, she found her lost appetite for food. she indulged herself into all kinds of pasta and naples' pizza. she found friends, who taught her the value and love of family (her landlady even told her that, everything in this life is temporary, except your family))...she felt that it was a wonderful experience for her to witness how men take care of their wives and children and how happy they all seem to be. and as she learned to speak italian, she also learned that hand gestures are very important for italians in expressing how they feel. after four months in rome, she moved on...

in india, she learned how to meditate, to connect with herself, to acknowledge her feelings and drop it, to empty her mind and let things be, to surrender and most important of all, to forgive herself. but all these didn't come easily. she had to struggle with herself to achieve all those. and yes, it took another four months for her to finally realize that God dwells within her.

in bali, indonesia, she came back to Ketut, a wise man who taught her to look through her heart and not her eyes, to smile not only in her lips, but in her mind, in her heart and even in her liver as well. it was in bali where she found love. where she found felipe, who, just like her, a divorcee. they both experienced the pain that love brings. they were both broken and they were both afraid to love again. felipe felt ready to love and be broken again but liz was resisting because she felt that she had to keep the balance that she had gained in her journey. until ketut told her that, sometimes, loosing our balance for love, is a part of a balanced life, did she finally gave in, to love...and in bali, she did not only found love, she also found herself again and her word...attraversiamo, which means, let's cross over

i felt intertwined with liz and all the friends that she found along the way of her quest. it takes a lot of courage to go on a journey like elizabeth gilbert did. especially that, it's a kind of journey that in the end, entails, whether you will find yourself or you will totally lost everything that you are.

this is the most wonderful lesson that i've learned from the movie...the rule of quest physics: if you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything, from your house, to bitter old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally; and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone that you meet along the way as a teacher; and if you were prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself and the truth will not be withheld from you.

so today, i will smile with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my liver.....




*EAT PRAY LOVE is based on the novel of the same title by Elizabeth Gilbert*