elizabeth: The movie, Eat, Pray, Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling memoir (for those of you have been living off the planet for a few years) is coming to a movie theatre near you this Friday. I, for one, am excited. A good friend and I are meeting up on the upper West Side of Manhattan for lunch and a serving of Eat, Pray, Love.

I think so many women wished they could have run away and penned this book – minus the early bathroom scenes.  Hell, I would have been happy to have taken a year long trek to …okay, I am feeling the love and just ate so I won’t mention the state, but you know where you are located. I just want to get the hell out of my office.

Laurie: Home is where the heart is.  Who said that?  Beside me, just now.  Maybe because I did so much of it when I was younger, I am not a travel person.  I like my creature comforts, my nesting space, and NOT flying in big tubular carrier through the sky (after having gone through the hell of airport security and procedures).

elizabeth: Eat:  I  want to throw people into a shallow grave when they just look at food as fuel. That is like those people who eat dirt. Please don’t put any of that on my plate. Food should leave you legless like your most memorable lover and savored like the afterglow(right before he starts snoring) and should always be non-caloric. In my world.  When I visited Italy, home of some of my ancestors (while I do consider myself 100% Italian, some of my relatives might mention the Irish and Scottish side, but I relate more to Michelangelo than to Yeats), I bought pants a size too big so I could eat my way across the countryside. I did not disappoint. Still trying to lose the last few pounds from my trip in 2002. I consider it my Italian baby fat.

Laurie: Now eating I can get into and I don’t need a special country to do it.  Unfortunately.  I’m having company this weekend and I have used that as an excuse to purchase all the decadent things I would never consider – macadamia white chocolate chunk cookies (250 calories EACH), rolls and bagels and all the accompanying butters and cream cheese, pasta just in case I break down and cook, and full-calorie ice cream.  See, I don’t need to go anywhere.  People are traveling to me and I will probably need pants that are two sizes too big before the weekend is over.

elizabeth: Pray: I go back and forth on praying. I think I do, but not always sure whom I am praying to.  I don’t think he has a long beard. I don’t think she has red curly hair. Is it living in my soul or sitting on my shoulder whispering directions to a place of worship?  I think my version doesn’t care where I go as long as I take responsibility for my life and help people and animals who can’t.  When I meet whoever is in charge, my first question (yes, I do plan on having a Q&A with whomever shows up) I would like to know if our planet was the only one that bred so much hate and waged so many wars in the name of God. My God. Your God. Their God.  And question Number 2:  where can I find the best double fudge soft ice cream that won’t cause a muffin top? Okay question #3 – if I become a Buddhist, can I keep my hair long?

Laurie: Man, I bug God to death.  I am constantly talking to him/her.  “What am I supposed to do with new catastrophe?”  “Why on earth would you make somebody so silly?”  “Think it might be time to give me a break?”  “Wow, how could anybody doubt your existence?”  A constant running conversation with a person I have never seen.  The one thing of which I am not guilty is asking him/her for stuff.  Take a break, God.  I lost my keys and I’ll find them.

elizabeth: Love: This is a “word” in progress.  Some days I feel it. Some days I deny its existence.   I try to love the people who make me believe that love is just the most overused word in the universe. According to Askmen.com, “love” overtook the word “hate” on the top ten list. (But the word “like” won. Like it really should have).  So many people are looking around for it.  If you find a place where it really does exist, let me know. I just might take my Italian eating pants and long hair and go live there. As long as I don’t have to eat dirt.

Laurie: Yeah, I need some work here.  When I read many of the philosophies that say we are all one, I look around and go “No way!”  But I love lots of stuff – bargains, sunsets, oceans, birds, etc.  I just have to keep working on the people part.

© 2010, Coaches on the Edge ™

If you would like to learn more about Laurie, please go to her site: Empowered Life Journeys.

Stop by at elizabeth’s site at: Coaching for the Creative Soul