I have been reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert this week.  A friend recommended this book last year, but I had forgotten about it.  The book is now front and centre with the Hollywood connection and I was reminded of my friends advice when the centre aisle display nearly tripped me in my favorite bookstore.

Right now I am deep into Gilberts Italian experience.  She is brilliant the way her book reads like her journal.  I feel like I am sharing her private thoughts in an Italian cafe.  I love the way she describe Naples in a way that I feel the energy of the city and taste the margarita pizza with double cheese in the old cafe.   Then her writing will switch suddenly to bare and basic, like an unedited journal entry.

I awoke this morning with an urge to walk.  Usually I awake with an urge to write, but today walking was more magnetic than writing.  It was like universe was pulling me outside to tell me something.  I read a few pages of my book while on hold with a service company delayed from my journey into the rainy morning.

By the time I stepped outside I was thinking enviously of Elizabeth Gilbert getting a book advance to travel the world and write, while she indulged herself in every savoury Italian food created and then poured the descriptions onto the page in a way that had me tasting the gourmet indulgences and gaining the pounds for her.

Finally my 90 minutes of on-hold time waiting for service finally ended (not well) and I headed out into the rain soaked street.  I breathed in that cool wet air with a smile.  I enjoyed every step down my new driveway (having just moved to this house four months ago).  I have always loved where I lived.  I have always loved the view, the land, my surroundings.  But this time I have fallen hard for every part of my new home.

On my new street I am greeted with the sound of children playing.  I see my new neighbour.  Then I laugh to myself because I am the new neighbour, not her.  She is busy sorting out children and dogs and I cannot catch her eye to say good morning, but I try.

I had planned to stick to the raodways on this walk.  It will be too wet to walk on the fields, but my feet take me to the fields anyway.  Either my dog or the universe pulled me there.  Either way I didn’t seem to have a choice.  In the field I was completely moved to presence.  I inhaled the smell of the wet grass fields, which resembled the smells of my childhood. I was surrounded by golden tall wild grass that was dancing ever so gently in the post rain breeze.  I was taken by how the sun baked yellow grass had turned so golden in the rainfall.  The freshnes of it was like a wake up call to my brain.  Everywhere I looked I could see images as if through a camera lens.  My eyes recorded each snapshot in four directions of mesmerizing beauty.  My brain flowed with words recording the descriptions of the sites and smells with no paper or pen only my thoughts.

At the top of the first hill crest I paused and turned clockwise in all directions.  I breathed and said my thanks to the creator for the beauty the universe was sharing with me at that moment, and thanks for all that I hold close to my heart in this world. I asked for a blessing of strength to be strong and successful for my family.  My dog ran by and interupted my thoughts.  His short cocker legs bounced gleefully in that wet grass.  He was completely camaflauged in the golden grass of this rain soaked morning.

My brain felt alive and I wanted to stay out there and just be alive.  I lost my envy for Elizabeth Gilbert at that moment.  For while she can write about pizza in Naples in a way that I can taste each bite and feel the cheesy dough on my palate, I had to wonder if this worldy New Yorker had ever stood in a Canadian field and breathed in the landscape that provided a view in every direction your turned.  I wondered at that moment if a publisher existed that would give me a book deal to travel write at home.  For aren’t we all guilty of missing the pleasures of what is right in front of us each day?

Here I am.  It’s day ten of my commitment to blog for 30 days straight.  I thought that this would be so easy.  I love to write.  How hard can it be.  I love skinny jeans too, but that is harder than hard.  Day ten and I’ve published two blogs, drafted two blogs and received no comments.  Day ten and I’ve already failed at this comitment to blogging.

How hard can it be really? Follow the rules.  Blog daily and don’t eat anything that isn’t green and leafy or colorful and bursting with good for you ingredients.  How hard can it be?