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SOAT and a happy reader…I love it when a 500 page novel leaves someone wishing…
SOAT and a happy reader…I love it when a 500 page novel leaves someone wishing for more! Thank you, Lilly!
Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
Not five minutes ago, I finished the last page of this masterpiece. I have been side by side with Miss Whittaker for quite some time now, it seems. Now, I cannot help but wish for more.
Thank you Liz, for this adventure.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Is your home a museum to grief? About nine years ago, a…
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Is your home a museum to grief?
About nine years ago, a dear friend called me one morning in a state of joy, to inform me that she had spent all night throwing out old letters, photographs and diaries. She sounded so free and light, it was amazing.
My jaw dropped.
Letters and photographs and diaries???!!! Who throws out letters and photographs? That's the stuff you're supposed to run back into the flaming house to rescue during a fire, right?
But she had thrown away several garbage bags of it, she said. Because many of those letters and photos and journals, it emerged in the conversation, were relics of her sad old failed relationships, or documents of bad times. She had been holding onto them the way we often do — as some sort of dutiful recording of her complete emotional history — but then she said, "I don't want my house to be a museum to grief."
The historian in me balked at the idea of this — you can't throw away letters, photos and diaries!!!
But I took her words to heart. I couldn't shake the sense that she was onto something. I couldn't forget how joyful her voice had sounded. I couldn't stop thinking about what miseries I had stored in my attic, literally hanging over my head.
Later that week, I took a deep breath. Then I took two big black garbage bags and did a MAJOR cleansing. Divorce papers. Angry letters. Tragic diaries of awful times. (YEARS of them: the chronicle of my depression.) Vacation photos of friendships now severed. Love letters and gifts from men who had broken my heart. All the accumulated evidences of shame and sadness. All of it: IN THE TRASH.
What was left were only items that made me feel light and lucky and free when I saw them.
That was nine years ago. I have never missed one single piece of it since.
So I ask you — are you holding onto anything that spurs memories of shame, of abandonment, of loss, of sorrow? (I don't mean healthy sorrow, like photos of a beloved friend or relative now deceased. I mean items like the letter where your ex-lover explains why it's all over, why you aren't good enough. That kind of stuff.)
Throw it away. Trust me.
See what happens when you stop hoarding sorrow.
Don't be a museum to grief.
All love,
Liz
SOAT at the hair salon…I LOVE this photo!
SOAT at the hair salon…I LOVE this photo!
Photos of Elizabeth Gilbert
Two women + hair salon + both reading the same epic novel = Instant friendship
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Thank you, TIME MAGAZINE! Time just named “The Signature of All Things’ as one…
Thank you, TIME MAGAZINE!
Time just named "The Signature of All Things' as one of the 10 best books of 2013.
I am so deeply, deeply honored.
And thank you so much, all of you who have come with me on my book tour over the last 9 weeks! I'm home now taking a breather, but will be running off again soon to meet more of you in February (Europe), March (Australia & NZ) and May (Europe again!)
Can't even find words for my gratitude these days.
LOVE
LG
Top 10 fiction books of 2013
entertainment.time.com
In 54 wide-ranging lists, TIME surveys the highs and lows, the good and the bad of the past 12 months.