The Game

In 2006 I read the book Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Loved it, as so many people who have read it, have. Was very taken with an exchange the author had with the husband of a friend during the "Eat" part of the book, which took place – appropriately – in Italy. Gilbert was saying that she really loved Rome, of course, but some-how it was "not her city." And the friend's husband said, "Maybe you and Rome just have different words."*

He went on to explain that every place has a word that sums it up. The word for Rome, he said, was Sex. He asked her what she thought the word for New York – where she lived and worked back in the States – was. "Achieve," she decided. And the word for Los Angeles was Succeed (as she says, there is a subtle but important difference.) Although Gilbert thought at the time her word might be Seek, she finally concluded this year-long journey that she was in the midst of was actually a kind of attempt to find her "word." The one thing she was sure of was that her word was not sex.

I fell in love with this idea of A Word. So what was my word?. The very first thought that sprang to mind was Tell. Because, let's face it, I like to tell people things. Either in my writing, or verbally. But immediately I began having second and third thoughts. I was obsessed with accomplishing something, in my life in general, and even on every weekend. So maybe my word was Achieve? More hemming and hawing. No, I decided, Achieve really did not sum me up.

So then, what about Write? Or Travel? Two activities I am passionate about. I was by this time having a back and forth email discussion on the topic with an ex-college roommate, who was as fascinated as I by what we were now referring to as The Game. Interestingly, Susan's husband had announced that his word was Play, which both Sue and I concurred with completely – and I had decided that my husband's word had been Enjoy, since what he was most concerned with in life was just enjoying whatever came his way – but Sue and I were both vacillating on our own words. Did that mean we were both more complicated, more multi-dimensional, than our respective spouses, making it more difficult to reduce us to one word, or did it just mean we didn't have a clear grasp on what was most important to us, or what really drove us?

Susan finally announced that her word was Spirit – which I didn't completely see – and I finally concluded that my word was Connect, with lots of fancy footwork to support this. For example, it has always been very important to me to stay connected to people, even with all the moving around I've done in my life. My oldest friends go back to sophomore year in high school, despite having lived, only briefly, in even the same state with some of those friends in the intervening years. Likewise I have remained connected to most of the people I was friends with in college, though we are also spread all over the map. I have remained friends with several ex-lovers.

In my writing, it has always been important to me to connect the people I was writing for with what I was writing about. This was, naturally enough, especially true in my travel writings – I want people to see what I'm seeing, understand what I'm feeling about wherever I am – but in everything else I write as well. And as I said to Sue, even my interest in genealogy seemed to spring from this desire to connect, in this case the past with the present with the future (and one of the regrets of my life is that, since I have no children, the connection ends with me).

But now I've come full circle. I think my word is Tell. Because – just look at this blog – I like to tell people things.

*Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.