The Physics of the Quest

When it first came out, I read Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir Eat Pray Love with abandon, alternating between laughing, crying and nodding in agreement with her sentiments. Although Gilbert has received quite a bit of criticism for her selfishness, her story resonated with me. After reading, I had a gravitational pull to travel to Indonesia (I have already been to Italy and despite my relatively decent yoga practice, India kind of scares me), but resisted. I realized on a logical level that her experience would not directly translate into my experience and that I would not automatically achieve inner peace by seeking out her medicine man or raising money for her healer.

Because Hollywood seems to be out of ideas, of course a studio bought the rights to make the movie, and I went with my girlfriends to see it this past week. I was a bit dubious, having heard mixed reviews about the movie based either on the fidelity to its original text or just that "it sucked." Yet, we popped our own corn, shared a $5 Diet Coke and settled into the perfect seats--not too close, not too far back, center of the row--to live vicariously through Julia Roberts. Despite my original misgivings about the casting, I thoroughly enjoyed her performance, and, me-ow, Javier Bardem could not have been sexier. Other than a few little additions to the start of the story, like inventing the persona of her agent friend who tries to talk her out of the idea, I thought it was pretty close to Gilbert's depiction of her journey as outlined in the memoir, though my friends and I did spend a bit of time whispering back and forth "wait, did that really happen?" but that is due mostly to the time-lapse between having read it and watching the movie.

Of course, Gilbert'st story rings even more true now. In these "tough economic times" I gave up a tenured teaching job at a well respected suburban high school--whose salaries are among the highest in the state--for a stipend that puts me below the poverty line for the next five years. I left a very lovely 1900 square foot townhouse with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, a deck, a loft, and eat-in kitchen for a 722 square foot one bedroom apartment with a stained hall carpet, noisy upstairs neighbors and so few kitchen cabinets that I had to get really, really creative with storage. I left colleagues and friends to live in a city where I know one single person--who is leaving in June. And, of course, let's not forget the swirling maelstrom of emotional shit that is my personal life. I packed my books, my KitchenAid mixer, and the cat to move to a place that is no where near as exotic as Indonesia, to live off my savings account while I bust my intellectual ass for five years to hopefully earn a Ph.D in a discipline that typically gets the "huh!" with raised eye brows response. (No one ever quite knows what to say about Literature for Children and Young Adults except "what, um, do you plan to do with that?")

My move to Ohio for graduate school is anything but sexy, unlike Gilbert's triple-I year long voyage, but at least it's mine. It makes my stomach churn knowing that peace-seeking has been turned into a media conglomerate--QVC has its own line of "EPL" inspired body lotions and scrubs. Travel agencies are taking hoards of women (and men?) on "EPL" themed excursions to meet the real Ketut, profiting not only from a very personal one-woman journey, but deluding hundreds into thinking that a flight-and-hotel package will ease their troubled minds. And, of course, I can't begin to estimate how many women have tried to replicate her journey solo, expecting to have the same inspiring results, complete with meeting their own version of Felipe. (Ok, the real Felipe is also quite sexy.) If Elizabeth Gilbert did it, why can't I?

I'm not surprised at this, of course, and it's surely increasing tourism to Indonesia, but this copy-cat mentality ignores the basic premise Gilbert tried to portray and that she came to accept by year's end:

“…I’ve come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call “The Physics of The Quest” – a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: “If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your 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 you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself….then truth will not be withheld from you.” Or so I’ve come to believe.”

Gelato, ashrams and biking through Bali are not going to solve your problems. A sexy Brazilian man is not waiting at the dock for everyone woman who leaves behind her comfortable suburban life. We don't all have publishing houses funding our travels (yet). But we can all shed the familiar, seek out clues from the Universe, and forgive ourselves in order to grow as humans.