Thank you, Elizabeth, for eating, loving and praying.

Eat, Love, Pray.

It's the mp3 book I'm listening to on this Japan trip by Elizabeth...um...I don't remember her last name, which is ok with me at this moment. Right now I feel so connected to her, so like her, so "her" that her name and my name are quite irrelevant and superfluous. It's like taking the time to look in a guide book for the name of two flowers on the same bush when they're clearly the same flower. They are from the same cloth, the same spiritual genetics. Smell one and you can determine what the other smells like.

It's currently crossing my mind how many other people are reading her book right now and writing in little black notebooks how they too feel a connection with the author "Elizabeth". Perhaps if I take a stroll down the aisle of this plane, I'll see a couple of them, the copy of their Eat, Love, Pray books spread across their chest like a sleeping baby, as they themselves sleep with mouth agape.

Elizabeth Author has helped me remember where I'm going. Who can thank someone enough for that? "Don't take this train...take that one on the other platform," she said to me, repeatedly. So instead of going to Lame-land, I'm going to Chicago, Rome, the Moon, and Montreal, all on the same ticket. Who can thank a person enough for that? And how did she do it exactly? Especially since the last I checked trains don't go to Europe. But that's what she reminded me of...the magic of the possible.

At every turn in my life, I devour the question, "Do I really get exactly what I want?" Every time I ask the question, there is chaos and crowds and honking and traffic loud enough to ring in my ears for days, weeks, sometimes a life time. When I listen to them individually, they tell me their stories. They tell me why they married who they did and how much they didn't know, and how unhappy they are now. They tell me reasons why they don't and can't pursue their dream jobs. They tell me experts told them that their bodies will never heal from this or that ailment, so they're giving up. They tell me they're stuck, unlucky, bored, jealous, unhealthy or hopeless... and that's just their lot in life. So the best they can hope for is that it just won't get any worse.

And they tell me this to "help" me. This is their advice to make me feel better. They tell me, "No, you don't get everyone you want, because I didn't." They tell me to be content with satisfactory instead of extraordinary, because truly, that's as good as it gets in this "real world". They tell me that it's not a good idea to set my standards too high because I will miss opportunities. They tell me that I'll never find anything better, so I should should should should should...

It's a seductive philosophy, actually. It lures you in, making you a part of their noise, making you miss trains to the Moon because "that's just not possible", and making you honk and wheeze like the rest of them. Life can be exceptionally good sitting in the car, waiting for the next traffic light to turn green. (But shall I tell them that they missed an opportunity to go to the Moon because they were sitting in traffic?)

The lucky ones get out of the deafening noise of "can't". The lucky ones find someone like Elizabeth Author to remind them where they're going. And because I'm brave enough to really go there, I will continually be the one people are jealous of. "Does she really get everything she wants?" The next question assumably is "Why can't I?" And at this point, people like Elizabeth Author turn around from their well deserved paradise and say,

"You can."

Of course there are exceptions. Come on, does everyone really get what they want? What if a person really really really IS stuck? Stuck in a marriage they don't want, stuck with a terminal disease, stuck with a job they hate but it pays the bills. I haven't figured that one out yet. But I shutter with the thought that so many people are so eager to use the word "can't" first. Is it a safer word than "can"? Does it feel tastier rolling off the tongue?

Why do so many people say "I can't" all the time?

When I came to earth, I made a pact with God that I was going to give one message to the world. The only real difference my little life will make in the huge vastness of chaos and misery is to say "You can" to people who are determined to say "I can't."

So I'm reading Elizabeth Author's book at a critical moment where I temporarily got sucked into the noise and chaos of the "other side", and she sucked me right back out with a cosmically charged vacuum.

And it just occurred to me how long this chain truly is. There are many of us who made that pact with God. It's a generational chain of people turning around from their own paradises and reminding the "I can't" person behind them who they really are, and where they're really going with just two words...

"You can."