of Italy and feeling round

I started a book today, at the recommendation of the friend I'm visiting. It's "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I'd picked it up a couple of months ago at Book Warehouse, but put it back on the shelf in favour of something else which appealed more at the time. But now Eat, Pray, Love is in my hands again and I'm getting into it.

First of all, spending part of a lazy Sunday afternoon, on holidays, taking time to read for pleasure feels great. It's just icing on the cake if the book is also enjoyable, which this is proving to be, so far. The first clue that I'd like the writer and her writing comes in the Introduction where she writes, "Looking for Truth is not some kind of spazzy free-for-all, not even during this, the great age of the spazzy free-for-all." Excellent point, not high-brow, but casually eloquent all the same. The next clue that this is right up my alley lies in the fact that the first third of the book takes place largely in Italy. Elizabeth Gilbert writes about her experience of living there for four months, which she does because she's "drawn to the idea of living for a while in a culture where pleasure and beauty are revered." It's taking me and my imagination back to my time in Italy in 2004. That was a truly delicious time in so many ways. I came back from that holiday feeling "round"-- I felt like my crazy edges had fallen off, I felt full, ripe, lovely. Could the memory of a fabulous holiday, mediated by the writing of a kindred spirit also seeking Truth, have the same effect on my weary soul? It can't hurt.

I'll get back to my reading now, but will leave you with this little tidbit. It's the concluding sentence in a short chapter on God: "In the end, what I have come to believe about God is simple. It's like this-- I used to have this really great dog. She came from the pound. She was a mixture of about ten different breeds, but seemed to have inherited the finest features of them all. She was brown. When people asked me 'What kind of dog is that?' I would always give the same answer: 'She's a brown dog.' Similarly, when the question is raised, 'What kind of God do you believe in?' my answer is easy: 'I believe in a magnificent God.'"