« The traditional japa
mala is strung with 108 beads. Amid the more esoteric circles of Eastern
philosophers, the number 108 is held to be most auspicious, a perfect
three-digit multiple of three, its components adding up to nine, which is three
threes. And three, of course, is the number representing supreme balance, as
anyone who has ever studied either the Holy Trinity or a simple barstool can
plainly see. »
« Giovanni is my Tandem
Exchange Partner. That sounds like an innuendo, but unfortunately it’s not. All
it really means is that we meet a few evenings a week here in Rome to practice
each other’s languages. We speak first in Italian, and he is patient with
me ; then we speak in English, and I am patient with him. »
« Tall, dark and handsome
identical twenty-five-year-old twins, as it turned out, with those giant brown
liquid-center Italian eyes that just unstitch me. »
« This was my moment to
look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude. »
« For years, I’d wished I
could speak Italian – a language I find more beautiful than roses »
« But why must eveything
always have a practical application ? I’d been such a diligent soldier for
years – working, producing, never missin a deadline, taking care of my loved
ones, my gums and my credit record, voting, etc. Is this lifetime supposed to
be only about duty ? In this dark period of loss, did I need any
justification for learning Italian other than that it was the only thing I
could imagine bringing me any pleasure right now ? And it wasn’t that
outrageous a goal, anyway, to want to study a language. »
« I started referring to
my cell phone as il moi telefonino (« my teensy little
telephone »). »
« My divorce lawyer told
me not to worry ; she said she had one client (Korean by heritage) who,
after a yucky divorce, legally changed her name to something Italian, just to
feel sexy and happy again. »
« The medicine man, as it
turned out, was a small, merry-eyed, russet-coloured old guy with a mostly
toothless mouth, whose resemblance in every way to the Star Wars character Yoda
cannot be exaggerated. »
« Sometimes I feel like I
understand the divinity of this world, but then I lose it because I get
distracted by my petty desires and fears. I want to be with God all the
time. »
« You will live a long
time, have many friends, many experiences. You will see the whole world. You
only have one problem in your life. You worry too much. Always you get too
emotional, too nervous. If I promise you that you will never have any
reason in your life to never worry about anything, will you believe
me ? »
« The great Sufi poet and
philosopher Rumi once advised his students to write down the three things they
most wanted in life. If any item on the list clashes with any other item, Rumi
warned, you are destined for unhappiness. Better to live a life of
single-pointed focus, he taught. »
« I wanted to explore the
art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India and, in Indonesia, the
art of balancing the two. »
« But some things are
only in Rome. Like the sandwich counterman so comfortably calling me
« beautiful » every time we speak. You wan this panino grilled or
cold, bella ? Or the couples making out all over the place, like there is
some contest for it, twisting into each other on benches, stroking each other’s
hair and crotches, nuzzling and grinding ceaselessly… »
« It’s kind of a
fairyland of language for me here. For someone who has always wanted to speak
Italian, what could be better than Rome ? It’s like somebody invented a
city just to suit my specifications, where everyone (even the children, even
the taxi drivers, even the actors n the commercials !- speaks this magical
language. »
« I wandered through,
touching all the books, hoping that anyone watching me might think I was a native
speaker. Oh, how I want Italian to open itself up to me ! »
« Truthfully, I’m not the
best traveller in the world. I know this because I’ve traveled a lot and I’ve
met people who are great at it. Real naturals. I’ve met travelers who are so
physically sturdy they could drink a shoebox of water from a Calcutta gutter
and never get sick. People who can pick up new languages where others of us
might only pick up infectious diseases. People who know how to stand down a
threatening border guard or cajole an uncooperative bureaucrat at the visa
office. People who are the right height and complexion that they kind of look
halfway normal wherever they go – in Turkey they just mght be Turks, in Mexico
they are suddenly Mexican, in Spain they could be mistaken for Basque, in
Northern Africa they can sometimes pass for Arab… »
« I have never learned
how to arrange my face into that blank expression of competent invisibility
that is so useful when traveling in dangerous, foreign places. You know – that
super-relaxed, totally-in-charge expression which makes you look like you
belong there, anywhere, everywhere, even in the middle of a riot in
Jakarta. »
« Still, despite all
this, traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever
since I was sixteen years old and first went to Ruddia with my saved-up
babysitting money, that to traveil is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal
and constant in my love for travels, as I have not always been loyal and
constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother
feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby – I just don’t care
what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it’s mine. Because it
looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to – I just don’t care. »
« I am patient. I know
how to pack light. I’m a fearless eater. But my one mighty travel talent is
that I can make friends with anybody. »
« Mostly, you meet your
friends when traveling by accident, like by sitting next to them on a train, or
in a restaurant, or in a holding cell. »
« Depression even
confiscates my identity ; but he always does that. »
« I took on my depression
like it was the fight of my life, which, of course, it was. I became a student
of my own depressed experience, trying to unthread its causes. What was the
root of all this despair ? Was it psychological ? (Mom and Dad’s
fault ?) Was it just temporal, a « bad time » in my life ?
(When the divorce ends, will the depression end with it ?) Was it genetic
(Melancholy, called by many names, has run through my family for generations,
along with its sad bride, Alcoholism.) Was it cultural ? (Is this just the
fallout of a post-feminist American career girl trying to find balance in an
increasingly stressful and alienating urban world ?) Was it
astrological ? (Am I so sad because I’m a thin-skinned Cancer whose major
signs are all ruled by unstable Gemini ?) Was it artistic ? (Don’t
creative people always suffer from depression because we’re so supersensitive
and special ?) Was it evolutionary ? (Do I carry in me the residual
panic that comes after millenia of my species’ attempting to survive a brutal
world ?) Was it karmic ? (Are all these spasms of gried just the
consequences of bad behavior in previous lifetimes, the last obstacles before
liberation ?) Was it hormonal ? Dietary ? Philosophical ?
Seasonal ? Environmental ? Was I tapping into a universal yearning
for God ? Did I have a chemical imbalance ? Or did I just need to get
laid ?
What a large number of factors
constitute a single human being ! »
« Here, in this most
private notebook, is where I talk to myself. »
« Liz, you must be very
polite with yourself when you are learning something new. »
« Humor is hard to catch
in a second language. »
« I don’t even know if
David and I are totally broken up yet. »
« Italian men are
beautiful in the same way as French women, to be honest. »
« We were talking the
other evening about the phrases one uses when trying to comfort someone who is
in distress. I told him that in English we sometimes say « I’ve been
there. » This was unclear to him at first – I’ve been where ? But I
explained that deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a
coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you
cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if
someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and
now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.
« So sadness is a
place ?’ Giovanni asked.
« Sometimes people live
there for years, » I said.
In return, Giovanni told me
that empathizing Italians say L’ho provato sulla mia pelle, which means
« I have experienced that on my own skin. » Meaning, I have also been
burned or scarred in this way, and I know exactly what you’re going
through. »
« I won’t go forth and
have children just in case I might regret missing it later in life ; I
don’t think this is a strong enough motivation to bring more babies onto
earth. »
« There is a theory that
if you yearn sincerely enough for a Guru, you will find one. The universe will
shift, destiny’s molecules will get themselves organized and your path will
soon intersect with the path of the master you need. »
« Medidate on whatever
causes a revolution in your mind. »
« But a true soul mate is
a mirror, the person who show 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, they come into your life just to
reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for
it. »
« Later, over the years,
my hypersensitive awareness of time’s speed led me to push myself to experience
life at a maximum pace. If i were going to have such a short visit on earth, I
had to do everything possible to experience it now. Hence all the traveling,
all the romances, all the ambition, all the pasta. »
« In my family, they have
already given up on me as too different. »
« This is what rituals
are for. We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe
resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we
don’t have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us
down. »
« sometimes the best way
to get over someone is to get under someone else. »
« I believe that all the
world’s religions share, at their core, a desire to find a transporting
metaphor. »
« Smile with face, smile
with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. »
« I had a dream you are
riding your bicycle anywhere. »
«He’s got a smile that could
stop crime. »
« Ketut went on to explain
that the Balinese believe we are each accompanied at birth by four invisible
brothers, who come into the world with us and protect us throughout our lives.
When the child is in the womb, her four siblings are even there with her – they
are represented by the placenta, the amniotic fluid, the umbilical cord and the
yellow waxy substance that protects an unborn baby’s skin. »
« She says that people
universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that
will maybe 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. You have to participate relentlessly in
the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of
happiness, you must never becom lax about maintaining it, you must make a
mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat
on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your innate contentment. It’s
easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when
your crisis has passed is like a healing process, helping your soul hold tight
to its good attainments. »
« all the sorrow and
trouble of this world is caused by
unhappy people »
« You cease being an
obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to
serve and enjoy other people. »
« Well, I always try to
look nice and be feminine even in the war zones and refugee camps of Central
America. Even in the worst tragedies and crisis, there’s no reason to add
everyone’s misery by lookinf miserable yourself. That’s my philosophy. This is
why I always wore makeup and jewelry into the jungle – nothing too extravagant,
but maybe just a nice gold bracelet and some earrings, a little lipstick, good
perfume. Just enough to show that I still had my self-respect. »
In a way, Armenia reminds me
of those great Victorian-era British lady travelers, who used to say there’s no
excuse for wearing clothes in Africa that would be unsuited for an English
drawing room. She’s a butterfly, this Armenia. »
« The boldness of my
statement hovered in the air around us like a fragrance. »
« I like the fact that
Felipe speaks four, maybe moe, languages fleuntly. »
« I don’t feel like going
through all the effort of romance again, you know ? I don’t feel like
having to shave my legs every day or having to show my body to a new lover. And
I don’t want to have to tell my life story all over again, or worry about birth
control. Anyway, I’m not even sure I know how to do it anymore. I feel like I
was more confident about sex and romance when I was sixteen than I am
now. »
« Only the young and
stupid are confident about sex and romance. Do you think any of us know what
we’re doing ? Do you think there’s any way humans can love each other
without complication ? You should see how it happens in Bali, darling. All
these Western men come here after they’ve made a mess of their lives back home,
and they decide they’ve ha dit with Western women, and they go marry some tiny,
sweet, obedient little Balinese teenage girl. I know what they’re thinking.
They think this pretty little girl will make them happy, make their lives easy.
But whenever I see it happen, I always want to say the same thing. Good luck.
Because you still have a woman in front of you, my friend. And you are still a
man. It’s still two human beings trying to get along, so it’s going to become
complicated. And love is always commplicated. 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 have tried for something. »
« He told me that
Brazilians have a term for exactly my kind of body (of course they do), which
is magra-falsa, translating as ‘fake thin,’ meaning that the woman looks
slender enough from a distance, but when you get up close, you can see that
she’s actually quite round and fleshy, which Brazilians consider a good thing.
God bless Brazilians. »
« I have a history of
making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and
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. I have fallen in
love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man,
rather than with the man himself, and then I have hung on to the relationship
for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend his own greatness. Many times in
romance I have been a victim of my own optimism. »
« To feel physically
comfortable with someone else’s body is not a decision you can make. It has
very little to do with how two people think or act or talk or even look. The
mysterious magnet is either there (as I have learned in the past, with
heart-breaking clarity) you can no more force it to exist than a surgeon can
force a patient’s body to accept a kidney from the wrong donor. My friend Annie
says it all comes down to one simple question : ‘Do you want you belly
pressed against this person’s belly forever – or not ? »
« To lose balance
sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life. »
« Now that we’re
together, I get to hear Felipe’s version of how we met, a delicious story I
never tire of hearing »
« Let your conscience be
your guide. »
« I hadn’t even brought
any books to read, nothing to distract me. Just me and my mind, about to face
each other on an empty field. »
« Fear- who cares ? »
« there is no such thing
in this universe as hell, except maybe in our own terrified minds. »
« I was the administrator
of my own rescue. »
Eat Pray Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
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