Two Poems from an Ashram in India

I promised more quotes from one of my favorite books, Eat, Pray, Love.

In the book, the author spends four months in India at an ashram doing yoga and eating vegetarian food and meditating on a previous divorce, and another failed relationship, etc. There are two poems. The first was written after being at the ashram for only a month, the second after almost 4 months.

First

All this talk of nectar and bliss is starting to piss me off.
I don't know about you, my friend,
but my path to God ain't no sweet waft of incense.
It's a cat set loose in a pigeon pen,
and I'm the cat-but also them who yell like hell when they get pinned.

My path to God is a worker's uprising,
won't be peace till they unionize.
Their picket is so fearsome
the National Guard won't go near them.

My path was beaten unconscious before me,
by a small brown man I never got to see,
who chased God through India, shin-deep in mud,
barefoot and famined, malarial blood,
sleeping in doorways, under bridges-a hobo.
(Which is short for "homeward bound," you know)
And he now chases me, saying: "Got it yet, Liz?
What HOMEWARD means? What BOUND really is?"

Second

However.
If they'd let me wear pants made out of the
fresh-mown grass from this place,
I'd do it.

If they'd let me make out
with every single Eucalyptus tree in Ganesh's Grove,
I swear, I'd do it.

I've sweated out dew these days,
worked out the dregs,
rubbed my chin on tree bark,
mistaking it for my master's leg.

I can't get far enough in.

If they'd let me eat the soil of this place
served on a bed of birds' nests,
I'd finish only half my plate,
Then sleep all night on the rest.

I love love LOVE the second poem. Someday I'm going to escape to a place much less civilized for awhile so I can revel in nature.

Fraud

My sister Emily has this uncanny ability to remember the birthday of any person she meets. Sometimes we tease her about it, other times it comes in very handy! The other day I needed my grandma's birthday and so I went and checked her calendar. September 4th. Because Emily has always been very, very right in the birthday arena, that is the birthday I used. Later, I came across a book which noted that same grandma's birthday as being on September 12th. This book should have had more credibility than my 17-year-old sister, but still I questioned it based on Emily's history of flawlessly remembering birthdays. BUT... after checking yet another more reliable source, this grandma's birthday was indeed September 12th.

Me: "Emily! You wrote Grandma Hollenbaugh's birthday down wrong! It's really September 12th!"
Emily: "... What??? OOOOOOOOH NO! I'm a FRAUD!!!"

We (me and all my siblings, which had spontaneously appeared at the mention of Emily's birthday error) looked at each other for a moment, before erupting into rioutous laughter.

She really has a great talent for using just the right saying at just the right moment.

Sleep Talking

My sister Katie and I have been sharing her double bed since I've been home. On school nights she's always in bed before me because she has to wake up for seminary. Usually when I get in bed she moves around a little bit, or I might have to move her arms or legs back over to her side of the bed, but she doesn't say anything.

On the contrary, this is what happened last night.

11pm-I crawl into bed for the night

Katie: (sits up and looks around the room, and says, in a sleepy voice) "What are we supposed to be doing?"
Me: Uh... sleeping...
Katie: Huh?
Me: Just sleeping.

Then she layed back down and went to sleep again.

Weirdo.

Eat, Pray, Love--Quote of the Day

My Best Friend's Wedding

Last weekend I flew down to Utah for Caitlin's wedding. Me and Kaitlyn Pruitt (KK) arrived at the airport about the same time Friday afternoon, Caitlin picked us up, and we went to Whole Foods to eat. We got a fabulous vegetarian salad, organic pizza with spinach and tomatoes, and an interesting sort of juice... which upon further examination had tons of health benefits, but also had a tendency to ferment (we referred to this drink as the "wine" the rest of the time :)). After we ate we decided to go shopping! We ended up at The Gateway (which is a beautiful outdoor mall in Salt Lake) and hit Anthropologie (which all three of us loved to death... KK suggested we just move in), Victoria's Secret to outfit Cait with a few extra goodies, and we did a little window shopping. The weather was great, the sun was out, we had an awesome time.

The three of us were staying together in an awesome hotel/timeshare up at snowbird that Cait's parents own for the night before the wedding, and so we decided to go and touch base about when we'd be heading up, etc. We met them at Caitlin's aunt's house in Salt Lake, and I FINALLY met Cait's family, whom I've been hearing about forever, but I've never actually met, and we headed up to the resort.

It was absolutely beautiful, with mountain views, a spa, an outdoor pool and hot tub, not to mention our room which had a king sized bed, a fold out sofa, laundry, and big bathroom and extra vanity. We stayed in the same room Cait and Tim had plans to stay in the night after their wedding, so we got to reap the benefits of their celebration and christen the room before they had a chance to enjoy it. We had an awesome time, all three of us in the king bed, goofing off, making jokes, and giving last minute advice. In the morning we all woke up around 7:30am and hit the outdoor hot tub. We had just barely gotten in when we noticed big ugly storm clouds closing in on us, so we took a few pictures, lingered for a bit, and then we started hearing thunder and seeing lightning we decided that electrocution on the wedding day probably wasn't the best idea and we excused ourselves and went inside.

Getting ready for the wedding was a huge blur. Cait is hilariously low maintenance and so we were rushing around trying to make sure she didn't forget to do anything important... because honestly, she could've cared less! We convinced her to at least get her hair straightened at the local supercuts, and KK helped her with her makeup while I took the chipped red toenail polish off her toes. She took off for the temple with her parents while KK and I finished getting ready, only to call us and ask us to bring her her toothbrush and toothpaste (only Caitlin would forget to brush her teeth on her wedding day :)).

Anyway after a little waiting on the part of the bridesmaids and some swapping bridesmaid dresses, Cait and Tim came out the temple doors just as it started to downpour. We all huddled in the crevices of the temple, and waited for cloud breaks to take pictures... it was actually fun. I enjoyed mingling with all the family and friends during picture time, and Caitlin was just glowing. The reception was great too... at a park in Sugarhouse (just south of Salt Lake). The turn out was good but thankfully small, and the food was unlimited ice cream sundaes! I made sure I had two... with extra hot fudge. Cait's sister Lauren played the guitar while the bridesmaids sang "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson for the couples first dance, and when we ran out of people to talk to, we had a little bridesmaid game of four square and volleyball.

I loved it, Cait and Tim loved it. We all had an awesome time!

*note: while we were in Anthropologie I found bottles of lotion with whimsical sort of quotes on the backs of the bottles. Here's one that I particularly liked:

"Every morning she rose with the sun--a ritual punctually followed by peach-blossom tea and grapefruit. For refreshment she walked through the woods. There was life to be lived."

Eat, Pray, Love

I just recently read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and it is officially one of the most difficult-to-put-down books I have ever read. I just finished it today, and after reading the last page I had no qualms whatsoever about flipping back to the first page and beginning again. I folded down the corners of so many pages and underlined so many sections... because they applied very accurately to my life presently. All I could think about was sharing the wonder with all of you! Here is one that I'm really enjoying today.

"I walked home to my apartment and soft-boiled a pair of fresh brown eggs for my lunch. I peeled the eggs and arranged them on a plate beside the seven stalks of asparagus... I put some olives on the plate, too, and the four knobs of goat cheese I'd picked up yesterday from the formaggeria down the street, and two slices of pink, oily salmon. For dessert--a lovely peach, which the woman at the market had given to me for free and which was still warm from the Roman sunlight. For the longest time I couldn't even touch this food because it was such a masterpiece of lunch, a true expression of the art of making something out of nothing. Finally, when I had fully absorbed the prettiness of my meal, I went and sat in a patch of sunbeam on my clean wooden floor and ate every bite of it, with my fingers, while reading my daily newspaper article in Italian. Happiness inhabited my every molecule."

Doesn't that sound absolutely exquisite? At this very moment, I tend toward feelings of guilt when I have little moments like that. BUT... I am trying with all my might to smother them! There is no need to feel guilty taking pleasure in simple things. Especially when I LOVE them so much. I would be happy to just have a simple life... I wouldn't need to be famous, or rich, or beautiful if I could just have a life filled with moments such as that.

by the way: this is a book you will need to purchase. i considered checking it out from the library, but I'm so glad I bought it... otherwise marking and dog-earing the pages would yield obviously negative consequences :)

ps. i've been quite busy lately and have participated in several blogworthy events which I have not yet blogged about! I'm going to make a note here so I don't forget to record them. So... these events are: Two nights at dad's (Pike Place and Shrek the Musical), the Puyallup Fair, Cait's wedding (lotion bottle quote).

Favorite Quote and an Interesting Discovery!

I ran into this quote from one of my last year's students today, and couldn't help but laugh.

"Miss Hollenbaugh just told you to be quiet... with her eyes..."

Oh and guess what I discovered! Alexis Bledel (aka Rory Gilmore from the show The Gilmore Girls... one of my guilty pleasures of late) is originally from Houston, Texas, and her first language was spanish! Her parents are mexican and argentinian. Who knows... maybe I'll convert those Bledels :)