Eat, Pray, Love

ably never speak to my ex-husband again—might there be some level upon which we could
communicate? Some level on which we could forgive?
I lay up there, high above the world, and I was all alone. I dropped into meditation and
waited to be told what to do. I don’t know how many minutes or hours passed before I knew
what to do. I realized I’d been thinking about all this too literally. I’d been wanting to talk to my
ex-husband? So talk to him. Talk to him right now. I’d been waiting to be offered forgiveness?
Offer it up personally, then. Right now. I thought of how many people go to their graves unfor-
given and unforgiving. I thought of how many people have had siblings or friends or children
or lovers disappear from their lives before precious words of clemency or absolution could be
passed along. How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfin-
ished business? From that place of meditation, I found the answer—you can finish the busi-
ness yourself, from within yourself. It’s not only possible, it’s essential.
And then, to my surprise, still in meditation, I did an odd thing. I invited my ex-husband to
please join me up here on this rooftop in India. I asked him if he would be kind enough to
meet me up here for this farewell event. Then I waited until I felt him arrive. And he did arrive.
His presence was suddenly absolute and tangible. I could practically smell him.
I said, “Hi, sweetie.”
I almost started to cry right then, but quickly realized I didn’t need to. Tears are part of this
bodily life, and the place where these two souls were meeting that night in India had nothing
to do with the body. The two people who needed to talk to each other up there on the roof
were not even people anymore. They wouldn’t even be talking. They weren’t even ex-
spouses, not an obstinate midwesterner and a high-strung Yankee, not a guy in his forties
and a woman in her thirties, not two limited people who had argued for years about sex and
money and furniture—none of this was relevant. For the purposes of this meeting, at the level
of this reunion, they were just two cool blue souls who already understood everything. Un-
bound by their bodies, unbound by the complex history of their past relationship, they came
together above this roof (above me, even) in infinite wisdom. Still in meditation, I watched
these two cool blue souls circle each other, merge, divide again and regard each other’s per-
fection and similarity. They knew everything. They knew everything long ago and they will al-
ways know everything. They didn’t need to forgive each other; they were born forgiving each
other.
The lesson they were teaching me in their beautiful turning was, “Stay out of this, Liz. Your
part of this relationship is over. Let us work things out from now on. You go on with your life.”
Much later I opened my eyes, and I knew it was over. Not just my marriage and not just
my divorce, but all the unfinished bleak hollow sadness of it... it was over. I could feel that I
was free. Let me be clear—it’s not that I would never again think about my ex-husband, or