Eat, Pray, Love
Photo credit @Erin Deborah Waks
By Erin Deborah Waks
In Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel Eat, Pray, Love, she describes her journey toward self-actualization after a year spent travelling following the breakdown of her marriage. In Italy, she learns to eat, in doing so finding a lost joy and zest for life. In India, she visits an Ashram and connects with religion and prayer. Finally, she finds love and balance in her life while living in Bali, Indonesia.
It occurred to me, while living in Morocco, that I might be having a similar ‘enlightenment’. Sure, I didn’t dine on Parma ham and pasta every night under the stars, meditate each day under the watchful eye of a guru, or fall in love, but I nonetheless identify with the eponymous mantra: Eat, Pray, Love.
As an individual somewhat obsessed with self-growth and constant personal education, I’m the first to want to reflect on an experience. How, everyone keeps asking me, was Morocco? How was it as a woman, really? What did I learn? How did I change? Sometimes these questions are easiest to answer with the benefit of hindsight. So naturally, I find myself getting to grips with, pardon my French, what the hell happened the last three months.
I ate a lot, and I mean a lot, of tagine. Of mint tea. Couscous. Zaalouk. Brouiates. Rfissa. If you don’t know what these things are, Google them – and try a recipe out while you’re at it, you’ll thank me later. It reminded me of the importance food holds in a culture. For Moroccans, eating a meal together is of vital significance, and recipes are indicative of family tradition and specific celebrations. Tasting food so vastly different from my usual diet reminded me how much I love to explore. And also, how much I absolutely have a comfort zone when it comes to my own (plant-based) diet…
Morocco is a Muslim country, and I am Jewish. I was unsure how I would find spending a long period of time in a country whose law is based on religion, least of all a religion that is not my own. And I loved it.
Seeing people openly proud of their culture, their heritage, made me realise how central my own religion is to my life. In Islam I found kindness, meaning, and peace, all of which reminded me of the presence of these things within my own Judaism. Watching people stop to pray in the middle of the day allowed me to reconsider how I practise belief and religion in my own life, in line with my Jewish values and upbringing which have made me the woman I am today.
As for love, that’s an entirely different question. I didn’t find romantic love in Morocco, but that’s because I wasn’t even thinking about it. Something about the religious differences and cultural dynamics at play between men and women seemed to take the option out of my mind. But not pursuing a romantic relationship, not even having giving myself the option to do so, was so much more peaceful and joyful than I had thought. Somewhere between the nights laughing with friends, the days spent exploring cities, and the peaceful moments alone in between, I realised that not thinking about the absence of romantic love in my life made me happier than being in constant, active pursual of it. It was as though taking the option off the table allowed me to be truly happy single.
The tagine, the mosques and the moments spent alone showed me the importance of the balanced, happy and peaceful relationship I have built with myself over the years. My relationship with eating, praying, and loving, have been profoundly changed after living in Morocco, and for that I am so grateful.
