Eat, Pray, Love

Actually, that’s not true. One person talked to me, every day. It was this little kid, one of a
gang of kids who run up and down the beaches trying to sell fresh fruit to the tourists. This
boy was maybe nine years old, and seemed to be the ringleader. He was tough, scrappy and
I would have called him street-smart if his island actually had any streets. He was beach-
smart, I suppose. Somehow he’d learned great English, probably from harassing sunbathing
Westerners. And he was on to me, this kid. Nobody else asked me who I was, nobody else
bothered me, but this relentless child would come and sit next to me on the beach at some
point every day and demand, “Why don’t you ever talk? Why are you strange like this? Don’t
pretend you can’t hear me—I know you can hear me. Why are you always alone? Why don’t
you ever go swimming? Where is your boyfriend? Why don’t you have a husband? What’s
wrong with you?”
I was like, Back off, kid! What are you—a transcript of my most evil thoughts?
Every day I would try to smile at him kindly and send him away with a polite gesture, but
he wouldn’t quit until he got a rise out me. And inevitably, he always got a rise out of me. I re-
member bursting out at him once, “I’m not talking because I’m on a friggin’ spiritual journey,
you nasty little punk—now go AWAY!”
He ran away laughing. Every day, after he’d gotten me to respond, he would always run
away laughing. I’d usually end up laughing, too, once he was out of sight. I dreaded this
pesky kid and looked forward to him in equal measure. He was my only comedic break during
a really tough ride. Saint Anthony once wrote about having gone into the desert on silent re-
treat and being assaulted by all manner of visions—devils and angels, both. He said, in his
solitude, he sometimes encountered devils who looked like angels, and other times he found
angels who looked like devils. When asked how he could tell the difference, the saint said that
you can only tell which is which by the way you feel after the creature has left your company.
If you are appalled, he said, then it was a devil who had visited you. If you feel lightened, it
was an angel.
I think I know what that little punk was, who always got a laugh out of me.
On my ninth day of silence, I went into meditation one evening on the beach as the sun
was going down and I didn’t stand up again until after midnight. I remember thinking, “This is
it, Liz.” I said to my mind, “This is your chance. Show me everything that is causing you sor-
row. Let me see all of it. Don’t hold anything back.” One by one, the thoughts and memories
of sadness raised their hands, stood up to identify themselves. I looked at each thought, at
each unit of sorrow, and I acknowledged its existence and felt (without trying to protect myself
from it) its horrible pain. And then I would tell that sorrow, “It’s OK. I love you. I accept you.
Come into my heart now. It’s over.” I would actually feel the sorrow (as if it were a living thing)
enter my heart (as if it were an actual room). Then I would say, “Next?” and the next bit of