May I surprise you some more? Me--the one who never finishes a book and is so very whack-me-with-a-2x4-annoyingly picky? Yes. I shall startle you with the unexpected and tell you about the book I am reading.

Note that I am only on page 43 which is not the time to be giving a book review. Bien sur que non. But I am. I am! Because I love it so.

In fact, late yesterday afternoon as I sat at the auto repair shop reading (and waiting to find out that they didn't have the part* and I would have to do the 3 hour round-trip** again to get the part put in--gah gah gah how I spent the first day of my summer vacation) I called Tara to read to her passages from the book.

Was she surprised. Being at work (hah!) and also, not exactly the kind of calls she has ever received from me.

Hmm, it just occurred to me-- is my deep, powerful excitement more about the freedom of yesterday or the magic of the book? On reflection, I think it is the perfect combination of the two.

The book is Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. As you may remember, I was very intrigued by her book about Eustace Conway, The Last American Man so I thought I'd give this a whirl.

Oh whirl me now.

So so so good. And I'm only on page 43 and if I HATE the ending I would still be happy I bought the book I am enjoying it that much.

Anyway, one passage that grabbed me by the heart was her struggle to deal with the expectation that she would want to have a baby. God, did I go through exactly that and spend nine years of my life turning that question six ways to Sunday and never feeling a hundred percent about it and then when I read this, I felt so less alone and--squid! Squid is funny.

(from page 11) And every month when I got my period I would find myself whispering furtively in the bathroom: Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me one more month to live . .

I'd been attempting to convince myself that this was normal. All women must feel this way when they're trying to get pregnant, I'd decided. ("Ambivalent" was the word I used, avoiding the much more accurate description: "utterly consumed with dread.") I was trying to convince myself that my feelings were customary, despite all the evidence to the contrary--such as the acquaintance I'd run into last week who'd just discovered that she was pregnant for the first time, after spending two years and a king's ransom in fertility treatments. She was ecstatic. She had wanted to be a mother forever, she told me. She admitted she'd been secretly buying baby clothes for years and hiding them under the bed, where her husband wouldn't find them. I saw the joy in her face and I recognized it. This was the exact joy my own face had radiated last spring, the day I discovered that the magazine I worked for was going to send me on assignment to New Zealand, to write an article about the search for giant squid. And I thought, "Until I can feel as ecstatic about having a baby as I felt about going to New Zealand to search for a giant squid, I cannot have a baby."

God-- this just, well, it just--let me put it this way, you don't hear that everyday and it just resonated for me down to my very toes. Again, anything that makes me feel less alien, less alone, less weird, less bizarro-freakazoid helps me to remember we are all different and not to judge myself by the choices/needs others make/have.

And then -- oh god, I would be scribbling passages out of this book all day. Here's my recommendation: don't worry that she's a baby-eating monster-- she's not. The book is gorgeous and an exploration of finding oneself. I love it (only 43 pages in) and recommend it highly if you need a book for the weekend.

*The part that burned out was the blower motor. My car is only 2 years old and it's way too early for that to happen (although the good news is it is still under warranty). Same thing happened to the last car I had which prompted the following:

Me: How is it the blower motors always burn out on the cars I own?

T: You're a hottie. No motor stands a chance.

**YES. THREE HOURS (1.5 each way). Now who thinks they want to live my life, huh? Now who thinks my life is so perfect, hmmmm?

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