Over the weekend I watched the movie ‘Eat Pray Love’, created by Ryan Murphy's cinematic adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's allegedly beloved memoir which keeps me aloft, because I imagine what it must have been like for ‘Liz’ to struggle with locked-in syndrome, and takes heart that she one day, breaks away from it all, and has the ability to move and express myself. It leaves the same effect on pretty much everyone who watches it or reads it - a huge smile and no small wonder (and envy) at the places she's been to. How many of us get to cut loose and take off like that? How many of us dare to? Watching the movie made me happy. It made me want to travel again. It made me want to step out of my cloak of inhibition.
(Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read any spoilers.)
***************************
Although, there are some parts of the movie I find hard to comprehend; that a successful, good-looking writer journeys the world for a year and still can't find happiness until she meets a similarly attractive and successful partner in the final part of the movie.
This sort of "voyage to finding oneself" was because she was rolling in the dough. In fact, this entire movie reminded me of all these foreign yuppies, I constantly run into in the city that would try to sound cool about their meeting with a yogi blah blah blah blah. I'm going to say that most of her readers could not (even if they wanted to) leave their careers and families to go on a year-long vacation to alien lands. Her experience is not based on reality for a large amount people. Nevertheless, the writer eggs on audiences to live richly through her, feeling the charge of self-empowerment and individual transformation, without getting off their couches and truly doing something exciting or significant with their own lives.
*********************************
Yeah, much as I dislike coming off as a hater of this movie, I can say that this genre, mainly the food variety, speaks to me, if it's any comfort to fans of food-porn self-discovery travelogues. This brings us to what I did after the movie.
I’m at this new burger joint called ‘Peppa Zzing’. I clear my throat and smile. “Yes, I’d like a cheese-burst beef burger and a cold coffee, please.”
It only takes a few minutes before I’m handed my basket of yum-yums. I dig into the chips, but that’s just a distraction. I get started with the burger and within seconds make a sticky sweet disaster of the burger and myself. I devour the burger but have problems finishing it.
I don’t give a damn about calories but I can’t seem to continue eating the deliciously wonderful, fattening, bad-for-you, so-tasty-it’s-gross burger. I think that wonderful patty is doing amazing things for my face (or so I believe). I highly recommend having lunch/dinner there soon. You deserve a break today. I know I did last night.
Until next time I wish you all the best with the eating and the praying and the loving.
 |
| Before |
 |
| After |
“Lie to Me”
To Long-Distance Guy
