Eat, Pray, Love

I don't know when I first learned the art and bad habit of only noticing what is missing from the architecture around me. Each day I am surrounded by a million things and I can see them in whatever way I want to. Some days, there seems to be more sunlight in my view, and everything seems to sparkle with some kind of pleasant magic. More days, however, clouds brood above my window. Most days, I sit within my small room made smaller by all the clutter, and I despise everything in it and myself for allowing it to become so inhabited. That attitude usually (and by that I mean nearly always) follows me into whatever other rooms I venture to, including those of others and even outside in nature. Who taught me to be so negative? What is it that causes me to wish I was somewhere else, believe I should be doing something else, pray I was someone else?


Some days I wake up and can sense, both from my own mood and the mood of others around me, what kind of day it is going to be -- either sunny or stormy. Today, I knew my mood was in the right place from the moment I awoke at 5:30 a.m. to the blood-curdling screams of my 5-year-old. Despite her mood and the mood of my lover, mine was steady. I handled the situation like a professional, and even thought to myself "I should be given awards for actions like these." No one else wanted to play along, though. Buddy awoke angry and tried to fight it all day. Johanna awoke emotional and needy. Howie, our 7-month-old Peke-a-chin awoke horny and nearly overheated himself trying to hump a bigger, more masculine cousin.


But in my alone time, I popped in Eat, Pray, Love, and regardless of others' critiques, I still believe it to be a part of my story as much as White Oleander. By that I mean that it is an inspiration and an emotional journey I can relate to. Only a third of the way in, I am writing. Hallelujiah... I am writing, and I am doing it because the mood of the movie is pleasure-seeking in a healthy, not animalistic and selfish way. As I watched and reveled, my eyes drifted to the pile of shoes thrown helter-skelter into the back corner of my room. Before, I would see them and become depressed, thinking of the messes I make and my lack of motivation to clean them up due to my innate focus on the destruction rather than on the potential for improvement. Today, I look at them and see an old tattered Nike that belongs to a boy and inevitably endured hardship and, if it had had a camera attached, most likely would have recorded exciting adventures. I see cheap high-heels mixed with expensive work boots and I smile at it, because I see it for the beauty of chaos that it is instead of seeing it all as a mess and a failure.


If only I could take that image with me throughout every second of every day and see the world, my world, for it's beauty and potential and simple pleasure.