I simply adore Eat, Pray, Love. Somehow, especially because I am listening to it, I feel like I’m talking to myself, or listening to myself talk. I love Elizabeth Gilbert’s writing style, her topic is salient, and I find myself alternately laughing and nodding in somber agreement.

A long passage – but so far my favorite:

“I know the sad longing to delay the end of another February 4. This sadness is one of the great trials of the human experiment. As far as we know, we are the only species on the planet who have been given the gift – or curse, perhaps – of awareness of our own mortality. Everyone here eventually dies; we’re just the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day. How are you going to cope with this information? …. 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 one earth, I had to do everything possible to experience it now….
I should say here that I’m aware not everyone goes through this kind of metaphysical crisis. Some of us are hardwired for anxiety about mortality, while some of us just seem more comfortable with the whole deal. You meet a lot of apathetic people in this world, of course, but you also meet some people who seem able to gracefully accept the terms upon which the universe operates and who genuinely don’t seem troubled by its paradoxes and injustices….
Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time – when pursued like a bandit – will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you’re banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant. You have to admit that you can’t catch it. That you’re not supposed to catch it. At some point, as Richard keeps telling me, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you.
Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop this handle for even a moment, well – that would be the end of the universe.”

How can one not smile when offered this “card” by a happy 4 1/2 year old?

Listening to Eat, Pray, Love in the car – I love it. One passage resonated. Elizabeth (narrator and memoirist) writes about learning of a family whose mother and three year old son were both diagnosed with cancer in one year. Her reaction: “Oh, wow. That family needs grace.” Her sister’s reaction: “Oh, wow. That family needs casseroles.” And how, ultimately, casseroles are grace.

I thought of that as I picked up Byron and Sarah for swimming yesterday (their mother, my friend, is in the hospital), dropping off a dinner and some cupcakes.

And, right now, I sure could use a little grace. If it takes the form of casseroles, I guess I’m open to it. First choice would be the universe making itself a little bit clearer to me, though a cheese and breadcrumb topping ain’t a bad idea.

Had a really nice walk around the east side of Providence today. Lots of gorgeous white steeples and beautiful brick buildings against an achingly blue sky. FINALLY the sun is out. I could feel sunshine on my neck and envisioned it slowly unknotting the perma-hunch my shoulders have taken on in these endless raw and cold days. The sun hasn’t yet been able to permeate the thickly gloomy clouds that seem to have taken over my head & spirit lately though. Not a good couple of days! Lacy and Hadley: THANK YOU for being lifelines yesterday.

I do love those rainy/misty/cold-but-not-very days for running. Went for a short run yesterday in the drizzle. Stopped by Full Moon to squeeze Benjamin Wood for his second birthday, and then home for a night at home with the children. Matt is gone for 10 days now: London, Paris, China.

The run may have been ill-advised as I woke up with a sore throat and cough, again. I am really not sure what is going on with my health -I feel as though I’m immune compromised! May call the doctor and go back in, though I feel like a hypochondriac doing so – I’m a frequent flyer there these days.

I’m reading a memorial to Lindsey Pyle in the Shady Hill Quarterly, and it has me thinking about those long-ago years (mine, of course, at a different school). There is a group of six girls from those years who loom large in my memory. Four of us have lost our mothers – certainly an unusually large number. One of those girls just had a baby girl of her own (Madeline), last week, and another two had babies in the past few months (Hazel and Jack). As the generations unfurl before us, and as I hear news of the passing of parents (I attended Lauren’s mother’s memorial service last year), I am struck by how my memories of those friends are so much, vividly, about their families. The individual friendships from those years are firmly rooted in the family ecosystems – we were so much with each others’ mothers, fathers, siblings. I can recall as if it were yesterday moments spent with each of those six mothers – and it startles me to think that I’m nearing the age some of them probably were when I met them. Though I’m only in close touch with one of those girls, and in passing contact with three other of them, they will always be such an important part of the fabric of my childhood memories. This passage from Lindsey’s memorial reminded me of these particular friendships and their unique characteristics:

It’s so easy to forget the nearly invisible web that we discovered forming around us as children: the one that shakes when someone is born, shakes again when someone’s heart breaks, when someone moves away, or dies. Now I find myself wondering whether, when someone as bright as Lindsey disappears, there isn’t a little dent, almost imperceptible, in the universe. And if you’re really quiet, you feel it, thought at the time you may not recognize it for what it is.

(credit to Kerry Tribe for the beautifully written tribute)