At her Austin, Texas, speaking engagement, Elizabeth Gilbert said a relative described her new memoir as “audacious.” 

“All the Way to the River” is a bestselling author’s vulnerable account of her life’s story. She took us broad (abroad) 20 years ago. This time, she takes us deep.

The Paramount Theatre

The Paramount Theatre is as legendary to Austin as the art scene it represents. This 110 year-old venue has seen the likes of Katherine Hepburn, Gladys Knight, and Charlie Pride. The nonprofit exists to bring an artistic heartbeat to downtown Austin, and does so by hosting over 550 events every year! Learn more about the history of The Paramount (one of only 20 theatres remaining in the U.S. that is over 100 years old!) here.

The Paramount was among Texas Lifestyle Magazine’s late editor-in-chief, Julie Tereshchhuk’s, favorite places. When Julie passed away on May 22, 2022, her celebration of life was hosted at The Paramount Theatre. Prior to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Austin book tour, it was the last time that I visited The Paramount.

Although cancer took Julie sooner than anyone who knew and loved her (and everyone at Texas Lifestyle Magazine) would have ever hoped, she left a legacy in many ways including contributions to the arts and The Paramount Theatre. Cancer also took Elizabeth Gilbert’s partner, Rayya Elias (January 4, 2018).

Rayya Elias’s life and legacy is among the stories in “All the Way to the River,” Gilbert’s latest memoir. Liz was at The Paramount Theatre on Thursday, September 26 promoting the book. If you missed her in Austin, here are other cities and dates on her book tour. (You can catch her in Dallas at the end of this month!)

All The Way to the River

The title of this book is something that Elizabeth Gilbert says Rayya Elias asked that it be called. To paraphrase, Liz wrote that Rayya said that in this life, we have 5th Avenue friends. Those are surface-level friends. Then she strolled through the neighborhoods of New York City. As the neighborhoods got dodgier, those metaphorical friends got closer. In this life, if you’re lucky, according to Elias, you have one “all the way to the river” friend. That’s the one that will romp through shenanigans and follow you to New York’s East River.

To put it in Austin terms, you have your Nike Training Studio friends. Those are the ones you’ll chum with while swinging kettlebells, but the relationship ends when the last sweat drop falls. Then you have your Mozart’s Coffee friends. Those are the ones you’ll sit with for two hours on a Saturday morning and laugh over the highs and lows of the week. You have your Pennybacker Bridge friends. Those are the ones that will drive through Austin’s worst traffic and risk a car window break-in at the crushed gravel lot off of 360 for a hike and heart-to-heart. They know your biggest wins, greatest regrets; they sat just behind the family at your mother’s funeral and brought casseroles for a month of Sundays. But you may have one “All the way to the San Gabriel River” friend. 

That’s the one that will commute to the north Austin suburb of Georgetown to join you for a 1.1 mile hike to a jump off a cliff to swim across Lake Georgetown (a reservoir on the north fork of the San Gabriel River), dodging ski boats and jet skis, to trail run another 10 miles through rocks and overgrown brush to get back to the Cedar Breaks Trailhead where you started. Why? Because you want to and they’re that friend. This one knows you inside and out; they are for you; they will stand by you when jumping off the cliff and when you’re falling off the cliff of life. There is literally nothing you can do to earn nor lose their love. 

Gilbert ponders through this memoir whether we are even meant to have a human All the Way to the River friend. That role may be spiritual. It may be self (as Whitney Houston famously sang, “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all!”). For Rayya Elias, Elizabeth Gilbert was her All the Way to the River.

Like Schitt’s Creek

Nobody wanted to like Schitt’s Creek. (Schitt’s Creek is a sitcom about a wealthy family who lost all their money and relocated two spoiled children, a whiny husband and prima donna wife to the boondocks.) The first few episodes were hard to watch. There was not a single likeable or remotely relatable cast member. But there was so much buzz about the show that we all kept watching. By the end of the series, we were captivated by every single star on the show, including David’s partner, Patrick Brewer. (When Patrick serenaded David to Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best,” even the most evangelistic Southern Baptists went weak in the knees.) There is no better simile for “All the Way to the River.” It is like Schitt’s Creek.

Initially, Gilbert introduces us to her foul-mouthed, hard as nails on the outside, Nothing Bundt Cake on the inside, ex-lover, Rayya Elias. She was a musician, writer, wine drinker, cocaine user, heroine shooter, opiod-taker… many readers (myself included) have never even smoked a joint. Later, she explains her own codependency and sex and love addiction. The closest most of us can relate is that we fangirl out over Taylor Swift songs. That’s not love addiction. Still, with wordsmith superpowers of the one and only Elizabeth Gilbert, we find the book unputdownable.

It’s Not Rayya and Liz. It’s You and Me.

Eventually, we recognize ourselves in the story. The means may be different (probably are), but looking for love in all the wrong places – we’ve all done that. We can all see times and ways we’ve foolishly pursued feeling good and sacrificed feeling well. Plenty of things in life can take us on the clickity clack upward ascent of the rollercoaster: shopping, alcohol, fatty + sugary + savory foods, gambling, digital devices, pornography, partying, sex, drugs, avoidance, workaholism, greed, martyrism, and the list goes on. But the joy doesn’t last. It creates a fiend for more and more of itself, even as the deleterious effects mound. When we finally get off the ride and get our bearings straight, we realize that we don’t even like rollercoasters. (In the emotional sense. No offense, Six Flags.)

But how do we do this thing? How do we flourish in what Elizabeth Gilbert calls “Earth School?” How do we take the greater good of well-being and break from the slippery slope of strongholds? We do it by listening to that voice inside of us (we all have it) that guards us from danger. We become fierce protectors of our peace. We know our values and honor those with all we have. 

{Another just-released book that explores strongholds and breaking free of them is called “The Biology of Trauma” by Dr. Aimee Aimee Apigian. Highly recommended!}

How Liz and I Became Protective Mothers (to Ourselves!)

Elizabeth Gilbert came to realize over time – and with the help of twelve steps – that she was outsourcing her need for comfort and love to other people. She knows now that that’s an inside job. She quit dying her hair – in fact, she shaved it all off. She stopped caring so much about her outward appearance. She hasn’t had sex in half a decade. She recognizes the inner child inside herself (whom she calls Lizzy), and builds a home where Lizzy feels safe, secure, sturdy and loved.

I, too, walk this walk. As a highly sensitive person, my hypervigilant nervous system can bring fisticuffs to Thanksgiving supper. I protect the inside me that needs extra assurance that she’s safe. Here are a few ways how. I haven’t consumed an alcoholic beverage in almost three years. I eat a diet rich in fiber from the earth and protein. I rest in a cool, dark room with a weighted blanket and prioritize sleep. I spend most of my time outside. I took the Facebook app off of my phone. Most of all, I feel my feelings. Chronic pain and anxiety, not surprisingly, went “poof.”

Elizabeth Gilbert had a history of romantic partner-hopping, willing each rendezvous or flawed human being to fill the emptiness inside of her. That never worked, so she would try another. I went through an avoidant stage where I consumed a diet of carbs, marshmallows, chardonnay and regret.

We give these zero out of five stars. Not recommended. The good life is the well life. The well life is the one that nurtures inner Lizzy, inner BB, or inner YOU. Fiercely love yourself like a doting and protective mother.

But What About Eat Pray Love

Elizabeth Gilbert didn’t spare her reputation or fear our judgement. She opened up the dark corners of where her mind and actions have taken her. Some will read it as a character abomination. (The Guardian threw darts so sharp they’d puncture a tin roof.) Gilbert wasn’t aiming to win the popularity contest she didn’t even know she entered with “Eat Pray Love.” She typed the truth. The truth has legs. It’s the only thing left standing when everything else falls. (Rayya Elias’s words.) 

Elizabeth Gilbert is not “the Eat Pray Love lady.” She’s a human, having a real human experience. James Truslow Adams wrote, “There’s so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly behooves any of us to find fault with the rest of us.” May we receive the words of “All the Way to the River” as another example of Gilbert’s extraordinary gift with words and give back the gift we’re fully capable of giving: grace.

“You live,

you learn.

You love,

you learn.

You cry,

you learn.

You lose,

you learn.”

-Alanis Morissette

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Cover Photo Brook Benten

Brook Benten is the author of three books, including a memoir, “SWEAT with Brook Benten.” The dedication in Brook’s memoir is a quote by Elizabeth Gilbert: “The women I admire for their strength and grace did not get that way because things went right. They got that way because things went wrong and they handled it. They handled it a thousand different ways on a thousand different days, but they handled it. Those women are my superheroes.”