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Quote of the day: "KEEP YOUR INNOCENCE. DON'T ASK LIFE TO DO IT FOR YOU."

Dear Ones —

Many Christmases ago, my friend the wonderful poet, playwright and children's author Irene O'Garden (www.ireneogarden.com) sent me this simple little inscribed heart, and I have kept it near me ever since.

(I don't even know if she knows how much it has meant to me…THANK YOU, IRENE!)

Life can do a number on us. Show me the place in the world where we can permanently hide from suffering, from frustration and loss, from injustice, from shame, from our own failings? It doesn't exist. Who has ever lived a life free from all pain and trial? Nobody.

As a monk I met in India once said, "Dig a deep hole in the furthermost corner of the world, and suffering will still somehow manage to track you down." There's simply nowhere to hide from trouble.

Sometimes it seems like all we want from the world is an easy path ("When will things get EASIER?" we wail, and have wailed for millennia)…but ease is precisely NOT the contract that humans have ever been promised.

So we get hurt, and then we get angry, and then we close down, protecting ourselves with cynicism, rage and indifference.

Yet while some of us get hardened by life, others are somehow tenderized by it — softened, gentled, humbled. The people whom I love and admire most are those who walk through the fire and somehow manage to keep their humor, their grace, their wonder, and yes, their innocence. Not through naiveté, mind you, but through muscular, decisive acts of love.

That, to me, is a hero's path.

But — as Irene reminded me on this little paper heart so many years ago — it is not the world's job to keep your heart open for you. That part is your job.

Look to the world for evidence that you should remain innocent, and the world will likely punch you right in the face.

Look to your heart for evidence, though, and that's a very different story, indeed.

All love,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

OK, I'm a day late on this one, but a friend of this page posted this on my wall today and it made me laugh. And I didn't want to wait till NEXT Easter, so…

G'night,
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

Dear Ones!

Hey, guess what? I'm selling my beautiful house!

Why, you ask?

Because I'm a weirdo and I need to move every few years…and it's time to move!

Happily, I'm staying in Frenchtown. I am literally just moving 1/4 of a mile down the road. (That is the full extent of my weirdness: All this huge effort, in order to move, like, 10 feet away.) But it's time for the next chapter. And I really love moving.

My friend Dave Cahill (of Frenchtown's Rivernet Computers!) helped me make this website and this SUPREMELY DORKY VIDEO about the house sale. (We had so much fun making this, because we are supreme fools, as you shall see.)

Here it is:

https://bit.ly/1i8th0D

So take a look! In watching this video, you will learn two things: 1) I've been really lucky to be living in such beautiful house for the last six years, and 2) I do not have a future as a television host on Home and Garden TV.

By going to this website, you can also click on the lovely article that was in the NY Times yesterday about the house being on sale…and there's a slide show there.

SO…if you want buy my house — or come look at it with the thought of maybe buying it — contact my friend Rayya Elias, my dear friend and property manager:

917-650-5223

or

rayyaelias@gmail.com

I kind of hope one of you buys it. Would be really nice to live near family…

ONWARD TO THE NEXT THING!
LG

Eat, Pray, Crib | Buy author Elizabeth Gilbert's beautiful home. – eatpraycrib.com
www.eatpraycrib.com
Dear Ones — I’m selling my beautiful perfect house. Why? Because I’m a restless person and I need to move all the time. It’s time to move, then! Otherwise, there is no sane reason to sell this exquisite and lovingly renovated “four-over-four” Italianate Victorian house that was built in 1869 by the…

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY! Thank you, Sofia, for sharing…and thank you to all who joined me last year to read Jane Eyre together. We need a new book club title soon!

Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
Google UK is displaying this lovely illustration today, for Charlotte Brontes' 198th birthday! Thank you for being the one who inspired me to read Jane Eyre! Can't wait for the next bookclub fb session!

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall

Every year, this is still hilarious to me.

Every. Single. Year.

Have a happy day, all!
LG

via Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook Wall