If I hadn’t already been virtually removed from society, sans employment these last two months, I’ve certainly been an obscure member of my local community these last two days. That’s because I’ve been nuzzled up [permanently affixed] in a pink antique chair having a love affair with Elizabeth Gilbert’s newest book, Committed.
I was anxious to read it, not only for…what I knew would be delicious copywriting and reflections on life and love, but because I wanted to complete it in time for her booksigning in D.C. tonight. Ultimately I decided not to go primarily after learning the venue size. I’ve only been to a few author-in-the-flesh events before, where in my experience felt like a relatively small tribal fireside affair inside a cozy “bookstore” aka privately owned for-profit library with freshly brewed coffee at hand, including intimate group discussions, direct 1-on-1 eye contact connections with the pen to paper mastermind, and personal questions asked either during or after the signing segment. Apparently not so in this case — considering the attendant capacity would be 700 guests. Not my idea of intimacy if ya ask me. When I told Mr. Big (who would have been a mobile-support through this adventure by accompanying me) my decision to forgo the roadtrip to a jampacked synagogue, he gave me an adorable, transparent smirk that quietly translated, “You silly girl, what made you think this world reknowned best-selling author would set up shop, literally, in a tiny little shop?” Touché…sometimes naiveté bites my behind when I’m not looking. Besides, I’m sure she’ll inevitably be on Oprah’s stage soon and my fix will be forgotten.
Plowing through just shy of 300 pages was delightful every turn of the hardback’s insides. A total of 8 1/2 hours was happily invested with a few stops for meal preparation and toilet visits. When I got to the second to last page, I started to slow down, literally…I didn’t want it to end. Partly because her mouthwatering wordsmithing is like the finest chocolate evaporating into my tastebuds (have I ever mentioned how much I love dark cocoa?), but also because her non-fiction love story resonated with me so much…I simply wanted to continue enjoying the journey together.
When Big inquired on the subject matter and I told him it is about Marriage, he poignantly said, “You just can’t get enough of love, can you? (smiley face)” Although I would have devoured the book regardless of the content, based solely on the printed prequel, he is correct in that statement; I can’t get enough. For goodness sake, It is the entire premise of this blog. Sure from time to time I rant about poundage access and loathing body scales, friendships and career ambitions, but first and foremost my pursuit at/to find/to be/to sustain love is the center of my digital diary’s universe. Not to mention I’m seemingly at the cusp of cultivating many decades ahead of me in the context of an elusive ceremony, so absolutely the signficance of what it represents is of great interest. I want to fully understand all languages of love.
Elizabeth literally spent three years studying the subject in preparation for this book. Correction, in preparation for her own (2nd) marriage, which was documented in this literature. I now know more about the sanctity, history, development, evolution, cultural/religious manifestations, and traditions than I could have ever imagined. Specifically, weddings of the westernized society.
She married young at 25 and it ended in divorced. It was bad, bad, bad. Her book Eat, Pray, Love relived that bloody matrimony massacre…and walked away vowing never to legally say ‘I do’ again. But after falling in love with a foreigner, they were forced to marry under a United States mandate in order for him to live stateside. Not too romantic, eh? In order to go into the second coming with much more compassion and frankly…adapt a belief in the “institution” — she entrenched herself in historical writings, research, studies, data mining, and interviews with her living decendants to fully internalize, analyze and understand the contractually binding oath of commmitment recognized by the courts.
Let me stop here by saying I’ve never silently felt like such a dork before. I highlighted, with a pink florescent marker no less, countless lines that struck me, at least 50 words that I either didn’t know or had heard of but lacked a full understanding of their meaning with the intent of looking them all up and eventually incorporating into my personal vocabulary, as well as fascinating findings to share among friends and in this blog. One would think I was studying for the LSATs with my miniature green spiral Mead notebook of scribbled thoughts and illuminated “textbook” pages. No — this wasn’t only a means of pleasure and leisurely reading, this was business.
I’ve always been captivated by what makes marriages, or relationships for that matter, work. In college I took a summer school course on Marriage. Even “interviewed” through thoughtful, meaningful, deliberate Q&A sessions with my own lineage and family members dating as far as back as my teenage years. Although I haven’t published my findings or written a synopsis, they’re neatly tucked away in my mind. What I’ve learned is the preeminent, fundamental lifeline to a lasting commitment is Communication — hands down. Once that open, honest, healthy 2-way diagloue shuts down and/or becomes destructive and underminding, the plugs are pulled. Secondly, the other “love law” that I learned was from my own parents (who have been married over 40 years with 6 kids and 11 grandkids) is that love is a choice. They’ve been reciting and explaining that concept to me since I was in a training bra. “There are times I’ve wanted to walk away, smack him/her upside the head, give up, you name it. But I didn’t. I chose to forgive. I chose to stay. Sometimes, often times, love is a choice.”
So moving forward, as I’m not sure my mind has enough memory capacity left to sustain this much detrimental information, here are my scribbled, almost illegible notes translated and derived from Committed that I happen to find interesting (Spoiler Alert - if you want to read the book, then might I politely suggest you stop reading my excerpts now):
- A learning that really intrigued me in the course of this 2-day self-seminar was how lucky I am to be alive today. “Wherever you have landed in history determines to a large extent what your marriage vows will look and sound like.” The women who have come before me certainly did not have it easy. I am alive at a time where we have (well, on paper) equal rights, are able to work outside the home (if we choose) and (if we choose) raise a family at the same time, and countless other opportunities that people of older generations never experienced. I am eternally grateful for that realization and calendar year circumstance in my favor.
- I’m still not quite sure how to swallow this factoid, but statisically and historically, marriages that are not developed from love last longer, if not forever. Whether they be arranged marriages, or the culture itself has a much different stance on marriage — where man & wife are seen more as duty-based roles and they each fulfill their individual responsibilities inside and outside the home; there is no such thing as romance. But in western societies who mostly marry from love solely, they have much higher divorce rates. Research shows that women want a husband to make them happy, to inspire them, to complete them. Generally speaking, our expectations are very high. Everyone has heard the story of the bride who thought she could change her husband, that effort fails miserably post-diamond ring acquisition, and she ends up miserable and divorced, or, miserable and married. “Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes is too good to be alone.”
- Vasopressin Receptor: This is a gene found in some men that allegedly breeds trustworthiness and reliable partners. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? So all I had to do this whole time was get my boyfriends tested, not only for STDs, but for a strong husband strand?
- Marriage doesn’t come with a training guide, per se. Just like bringing your first newborn baby home from the hospital, society has assumed the entire process is instinctive. You pick up your baby and BOOM, all the answers are within. Obviously that isn’t true. Well the same goes for marriage — you need tools, perspective, assistance, strategies, etc. to make it work. And that, my friends, is exactly why I read these kinds of books. Hmpf.
- Historically, infidelity “usually always” begins with a spouse forming a friendship with someone and eventually shares intimate information in conversations that used to only be shared with their married companion. They see this newly formed friendship as totally innocent, as it hasn’t turned physical (yet) and next thing you know, they’re in love (or infatuated) with the friend (partner). That is why people often say, “I didn’t mean for it to happen.” Knowing this insight goes back to having “tools” in the previous bullet, knowing what inevitable sabotaging grenades not to pick up along the way. Your life partner is the only person who should know your rawest emotions and inner most secrets, and no one else. That kind of intimacy is the sacred, private cornerstone of what makes, or breaks, a marriage.
- Believe it or not, seagulls have “marriages.” And, 25% end in divorce! Could you imagine being the scientist to figure THAT out? This example was to exemplify the concept of compatiblity. Not everyone has it, even birds.
- On another animal analogy front, a pre-Freudian philosopher, on the subject of companionship and finding a safe balance without smothering each other concepted the Porcupines Theory. On a cold winter night, two porcupines come together to keep warm but poke one another with their quills, so they separate. Once they begin to get cold again they come back together and repeat the whole episode all over again. This is a metaphor for the struggle to find a comfortable distance between entanglement and freezing in a relationship.
- The overused 50% divorce rate is skewed. The younger you are when you marry, the more likely you will divorce, but that big fifty number lumps in all ages. So the truth is, if you marry 30 and older, you’re in much safer hands to stay united. I’ll take that silver lining statistic, thankyouverymuch!
- The author Elizabeth (yes I’d like to refer to her on a first name basis), totally weary of a second failed marriage, decided to give her husband-to-be a “Prenuptial Informed Consent Release.” She literally wrote out all of her faults so he knew exactly what he was getting into, and, accept them beforehand. Brilliant idea if you ask me.
- Marriage Benefit Imbalance: This truth is not something totally new to me, but equally devasting nonetheless. In short, men benefit from marriage in a kagillion more ways than women do. Total bullshit if you ask me. But here it goes — Vs. single men, married men live longer, accumulate more wealth, excel at their careers, are less likely to die a violent death, report they’re “more happy” and suffer less from alcoholism, drug addiction and depression. The complete opposite is the case for females — Vs. single women, modern married women do not fare better in life than their single counterparts…They don’t live longer, do not accumulate as much wealth, don’t thrive in their careers as much, are significantly less healthy, more likely to suffer from depression, and more likely to die a violent death. Needless to say, after reading this section, being single doesn’t seem so bad afterall…
- Speaking of being single and bearing the big scarlett S across your chest, Elizabeth interviewed her non-married friends (who long not to be) asking why exactly they want a husband. Their answers were to feel “chosen” and ”special enough” and ultimately for the intimacy and companionship. One gal pal of the author, on her 40th birthday, put rose petals and rice (symbols of a wedding) in a wooden boat that she built herself, walked into the ocean up to her knees, put it on the water to float away, but not before setting fire to it. I busted out in hysterics when reading that, and also simultaneously felt sad for her. The story ending was sweet though in that her purpose in going through that ritual was to let go of the idea of marriage (if it never happened) and instead would marry (embrace) her own life.
Throughout the chapters, both in this publication and her last one, I can’t help but admire her ability to be unadulterated, candid beyond belief, emotionally naked, and powerfully unprocessed in her writing. I appreciate it because I too share much more than others might in this public forum. People have told me countless times how they “admire” that about me — which is nice to hear, but I honestly hadn’t even thought about it until pointed out. My formation of thoughts and feelings have no fine print. To be able to express myself without any barriers, anyone to please, or Editors at Large, feels natural. And if others find beauty in my submission to barebones wordplay, then that is great.
Lastly, in addition to her transparency through text that I very much value, I also equally shared her emotions of devotion to the Love of her life, Felipe. It was so abundantly clear how much she selflessly adored and cherished every cell that comprises who he is. In Committed, both as a descriptive and a nickname, she referred to him with one consistent, affectionate term of endearment. And every single time I read the particular expression, which had to be several dozen occurrences, it pulled on my heartstrings like a cutiepie puppy. There was something about that particular word that spoke to me and made me think, “that is exactly how I feel about Big.” In my Love’s foreign language, the word “azizam” is something I’ve often heard and have used myself over the years…always thinking it meant “dear” or “my dear.” I even had it engraved into a piece of jewelry for him. But after doublechecking the translation upon finishing the manuscript, turns out it is the very same word that Elizabeth used to call Felipe in English — Darling.
