The 'Eat Pray Love' author inspires millions. So who inspires Elizabeth Gilbert?
Elizabeth Gilbert is being honored Saturday by the Nashville Public Library Foundation.
The 'Eat Pray Love' author inspires millions. So who inspires Elizabeth Gilbert? Elizabeth Gilbert is being honored Saturday by the Nashville Public Library Foundation. Check out this story on Tennessean.com: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/11/09/eat-pray-love-author-inspires-millions-so-who-inspires-elizabeth-gilbert-person/823291001/
Holly Meyer, USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee Published 2:33 p.m. CT Nov. 9, 2017 | Updated 11:10 a.m. CT Nov. 10, 2017
The Nashville Public Library won the annual library of the year designation by the Library Journal and Gale, a Cengage company. Wochit
'Eat, Pray, Love' and 'Big Magic' author Elizabeth Gilbert is being honored Saturday by the Nashville Public Library Foundation.(Photo: Timothy Greenfield)
Author Elizabeth Gilbert, whose best-selling books have inspired countless readers, is finding her inspiration of late in her partner Rayya Elias, who is living with terminal cancer.
Elias, a writer and musician, is not taking any moment of her life for granted nor is she open to suggestions related to her illness, said Gilbert, who is being honored Saturday by the Nashville Public Library Foundation.
"She's doing exactly what she wants on her own terms and I think that's what I find inspiring about her and what I've always felt inspiring about her," Gilbert said in an interview with the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee. "Deciding that your life belongs to you is a pretty remarkable thing to see somebody doing."
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Elias, who has been Gilbert's friend for about 15 years, was diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer about a year and a half ago. Confronted with her friend's grave prognosis, Gilbert realized she was in love with her, which led Gilbert to split with her husband. Gilbert and Elias celebrated a "ceremony of love" in June.
Dear Ones: Over the last year, Rayya Elias and I have been through some really difficult days together — but not today. Today was precious and perfect. A simple and spontaneous ceremony of love, surrounded by a small handful of friends and family. Our ceremony was nothing legally binding (no need to alert the authorities, folks!)...just a quiet and private celebration of what we have long known to be true: We belong to each other. More difficult days are to come. It doesn't get easier from here. Her illness is grave. But our love is strong. We will walk together as far as we can go together. After that, it all gets turned over to God. Create beauty with every day you are given, Onward, LG (And thank you, @bindleandkeep, for putting a rush on @rayyaelias's suit, and for hand-delivering it yesterday. She looked beautiful. Thank you for the grace, the care, and the compassion. You are good people.)
A post shared by Elizabeth Gilbert (@elizabeth_gilbert_writer) on Jun 6, 2017 at 2:17pm PDT
The "Eat Pray Love" and "Big Magic" author is the recipient of the Nashville library's annual literary award and will be recognized Saturday evening at the library foundation's gala. Previous recipients include Margaret Atwood, John Lewis, Jon Meacham, Ann Patchett and John Updike. The foundation supports the Nashville Public Library.
Earlier Saturday, Gilbert will speak at a free, but ticketed public lecture at Montgomery Bell Academy. The 10 a.m. event will be a conversation with Patchett, a friend and fellow author who owns Parnassus Books in Nashville.
A visit to the book shop is on Gilbert and Elias' to-do list while they're in Nashville because their dog, Chunky, has been named an honorary employee at Parnassus, which is known for its shop dogs, Gilbert said.
"We have to go kind of check in at work and meet his colleagues," Gilbert said.
Has the inspiration from Elias turned into anything tangible? Have you found yourself creating anything that you feel you can link back to that inspiration?
"Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear" by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Photo: henry@henryhargreaves.com)
Gilbert: The two of us have been doing things together. We've been creating a lot of music actually. She's a musician and a songwriter and I'm a writer.
We started doing this actually before we came together as a couple just as a way of spending time together. We've done more of that in the last year and a half.
We made a video that we released back in the spring that was a song I wrote about this whole process that she's going through. We've been writing things together nothing that we've been releasing to anybody. It's all going into the hopper both her hopper and mind.
It sounds like you're creating for yourselves right now.
Gilbert: Yeah because it's also been a time of me not being public in a big way. This has been a season of a great deal of privacy and I think that that's part of the cycle and the generative aspect of creativity.
For me it's always been seasonal. It's almost on an agricultural, botanical schedule. There are seasons where you are really producing and there are seasons where you're gathering and there are seasons where you are fallow and there are quiet seasons.
There are seasons of my life where I've been on the road for two years and I've been doing nothing but promotion. This is not that kind of a time for me.
I cancelled pretty much everything in the last year except this.
Gilbert: I really wanted to come. I was honored by the recognition and I also wanted to come to Nashville to see my really good friend Ann Patchett.
Rayya and I have been using this trip as sort of a reward that we've both been 'Can we make it to Nashville? Can we make it to Nashville?' And it looks like we're going to make it to Nashville. It's really special for us.
How has living with Rayya's illness affected your relationship? How do you cope with that?
Gilbert: Oh too soon to tell. It's been a ride, but I will say with all authority that there's absolutely nowhere else in the world that I could have been or would have wanted to be over these last 18 months.
As one can imagine if one has any kind of imagination for this kind of thing, it's been the ride of a lifetime in all the ways that, that could be. But I can also say we're closer than ever and we're in a really good moment right now. She's doing pretty well.
Do you have any reading recommendations?
Gilbert: 'We Are Never Meeting In Real Life' by Samantha Irby
'A Gentleman in Moscow' by Amor Towles
'Lights On, Rats Out' by Cree LeFavour
Visit nplf.org for more details on the literary award and the public lecture.
Reach Holly Meyer at hmeyer@tennessean.com or 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.
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