It’s not often you get to meet one of your heroes in person. It’s even less often that you meet them face-to-face while they are crawling around on the floor. But there she was, Elizabeth Gilbert, on her knees looking me straight in the eyes with her buzzcut hairdo, her sparkling baby blues, one ear pierced with half a dozen earrings all along the rim, and a huge mischievous grin dancing across her face.

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“So, what have you got?” she whispers conspiratorially. I’m so taken aback that I respond as though it’s a common occurrence for a world-famous author to crawl across the floor for a chat.

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This was Day 2 of a weekend workshop in which Elizabeth had been masterful at moving three hundred—mostly women—through a roller coaster of emotions in a large hotel conference room in downtown Vancouver. 

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Like many women my age, I first fell in love with Elizabeth when her Eat, Pray, Love book was published. In it, she describes the painful and conflicting emotions as she fled the end of a stultifying marriage. Along with millions of others, I reveled in the honesty of her journey: the inner confusion as she ended a relationship that was killing her inside and the seemingly reckless way she threw herself into a new life by spending a year travelling to Italy, India and Indonesia in search of her true self.

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I, along with my women friends, watched the Eat, Pray, Love film when it came out, and for a time, I truly believed that Julia Roberts was the epitome of the Elizabeth Gilbert I wanted to get to know.

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But then stories emerged about the real Elizabeth. How shocked we all were when she left her beloved, played by the sexy Javier Bardem in the film, for a lesbian relationship with her best friend who was dying of cancer. Then we heard she had switched camp again and was in a relationship with a man. Then he was gone. Her sexual fluidity and lack of embarrassment about it impressed me with her honesty. She was not afraid to be herself. She was not afraid to be shockingly honest in articles and interviews about her struggles with addictions, and the journey she embarked on in coming to terms with her demons.

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And now, here I am, sharing apiece of writing inspired by her exercise ‘what if our enchantment was our greatest purpose.’  This is from one of many antidotes Elizabeth has brought up in order to counter the paralyzing monsters of fear which show up as procrastination, self-doubt and fear of failure, to name a few. As I read to her from my brand-new journal purchased specifically for this weekend, Elizabeth is completely attentive. She is equally enthusiastic and supportive when I finish my share. As she turns to my partner, I notice in amazement how tiny Elizabeth is in person, her petite frame and chiseled face belying the huge energy she emits on stage. Giving us one of her room-electrifying smiles, she disappears on all fours to chat with other participants.

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Yes, Elizabeth Gilbert is a fine writer. She can craft a sentence like few others. She can toss out a delightful metaphor that makes truth sing from the pages. But Elizabeth’s writing is not the biggest reason I am in love with her. In truth, it’s her honesty about the human journey that I find the most interesting. She speaks from experience and is not afraid to share the twists and turns life has presented her with. Some might see her Eat, Pray, Love book and film as simply being a woman trying to get out of a bad marriage, but for her, and many readers, it was a spiritual trip in the lifelong journey of discovering who we are.

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Elizabeth is my hero precisely because she uses her fame and fortune to bring more light and love into the world. And she shows us exactly how we can do that in her books, her talks and her workshops. She inspires us to be more human and more vulnerable, to stretch ourselves and live a bigger life, which may, on occasion, be a creative one. And sometimes, as I shared with her in my writing, the greatest contribution to the world might simply be holding my grandson’s hand as we walk together to his nursery class. It’s precisely these simple moments of enchantment that Elizabeth reminds us are the key to living a rich life, as well as bringing us the gems we might use in being a writer.

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Michele Hall

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Michele Hall was a producer and director at Canada Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) radio and TV’s Arts & Entertainment segment in Halifax, and garnered awards for her work. She is now an author, book coach and podcast host of boomerbedtimestoryradio.com, as well as a co-facilitator of Wordflow Authentic Writing, the ongoing LIVE Zoom writing course for Victoria School of Writing.

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