Eat, Pray, Love

I won’t go through the entire drama of the week, or try to explain what it feels like to open
e-mails every day from all over the world that all say, “Count me in!” Everyone gave. People
whom I personally knew to be broke or in debt gave, without hesitation. One of the first re-
sponses I got was from a friend of my hairdresser’s girlfriend, who’d been forwarded the e-
mail and wanted to donate $15. My most wise-ass friend John had to make a typically sar-
castic comment, of course, about how long and sappy and emotional my letter had been
(“Listen—next time you feel the need to cry about spilled milk, make sure it’s condensed, will
ya?”), but then he donated money anyway. My friend Annie’s new boyfriend (a Wall Street
banker whom I’d never even met) offered to double the final sum of whatever was raised.
Then that e-mail started whipping around the world, so that I began to receive donations from
perfect strangers. It was a global smothering of generosity. Let’s just wrap up this episode by
saying that—a mere seven days after the original plea went out over the wires—my friends
and my family and a bunch of strangers all over the world helped me come up with almost
$18,000 to buy Wayan Nuriyasih a home of her own.
I knew that it was Tutti who had manifested this miracle, through the potency of her pray-
ers, willing that little blue tile of hers to soften and expand around her and to grow—like one of
Jack’s magic beans—into an actual home that would take care of herself and her mother and
a pair of orphans forever.
One last thing. I’m embarrassed to admit that it was my friend Bob, not me, who noticed
the obvious fact that the word “Tutti” in Italian means “Everybody.” How had I not realized that
earlier? After all those months in Rome! I just didn’t see the connection. So it was Bob over in
Utah who had to point it out to me. He did so in an e-mail last week, saying, along with his
pledge to donate toward the new house, “So that’s the final lesson, isn’t it? When you set out
in the world to help yourself, you inevitably end up helping... Tutti.”
Eat, Pray, Love