"Is that Elizabeth Gilbert you 're reading? " she asks, nodding toward the author 's best-selling book, "Eat, Pray, Love, " sitting open on my tray table.

"Yes, " I reply, as I look up to notice the 30-something woman who 's examining my table as if looking for contraband.

"Do you like it? " she asks, her voice hovering between sincerity and skepticism.

"Yes, love it, " I reply honestly.

"Well, my girlfriends like the book, but I was wondering if a man would, " she says.

"You 're reading a chick book! " my wife observes in amazement from the seat next to mine.

"Eat, Pray, Love, " for the uninitiated, chronicles the journey of self-discovery of the writer as she searches for meaning in a life beset by divorce, depression, and a nondescript feeling of emptiness. The book was given to me by my sister in the midst of a conversation about our own search, as a treasure map for where to look.

And while it was written from a woman 's perspective, complete with intimate and honest descriptions of her sexual preoccupations, I find it equally and passionately universal.

I 'm not all that familiar with chick books or chick flicks, having cut my teeth on Arthur C. Clarke and the machismo exploits of space adventure.

But I suspect these books and films access emotions that men are supposedly immune, incapable, or unwilling to achieve, a 7-foot emotional high jump that man cannot clear without a considerable leap of faith.

Humans, territorial beings who have been known to employ military tactics from Desert Storm to claim a parking stall, seem more comfortable staking out their emotional and spiritual experiences as their own.

Faith can be divided into religions, sects, denominations, and congregations until the place you have sought or found seems as pedestrian as the Mall of America, with more franchises than you can count with the sweep of your eyes.

Sexual identity can be divided into clearly defined roles, and any deviation from the norm causes conservatives to lose sleep and lawmakers to make laws laden with long and arduous sentences.

Presidential elections are thus equally franchised, with pundits playing the sex card, the race card, or the religion card with equal self-righteousness, depending on whose dealing.

We want to claim our president as our very own; someone from the same territory who worships the same god, parts their hair on the same side, and who bowls as well as we do.

We are led to believe that the universal barriers we face as a people -- the economy, heath care, education -- can be better addressed according to what church we attend, to what sex we are aligned, to what race we are born, or what demographic we represent. Perhaps this election will teach us otherwise.

Flying at 30,000 feet above the land with a chick book in my hand, I see natural divisions below. Climatic divides cause visible changes in forestation, and continental divides cause water to flow to places where gravity takes it.

But human divisions alter the landscape. Roads twist their way through mountain passes and valley gulches to remote places, while country houses appear as island retreats to which their occupants gravitate.

As I return my eyes to my chick book, Elizabeth Gilbert finds another place, discovered while meditating in a monastery in India; but could just as easily be found in an American church -- pick your denomination and preacher -- or on a remote mountain top at the end of a long, remote road.

This place, as Gilbert tells it, "can 't be described like an earthly location Nor was it a place, nor was I technically standing there, nor was I exactly I ' anymore. "

As to her lost identity, she goes on to say, "I also felt mildly charmed by all my old ideas about who I am and what I 'm like. I 'm a woman, I come from America, I 'm talkative, I 'm a writer -- all this felt so cute and obsolete. "

Strangely, perhaps not so coincidentally, a stewardess enters this place and asks if I 'm enjoying it. "Yes, " I reply. I 'm not certain we 're talking about the same place, but I 'm pretty sure it 's in the same neighborhood.

Frydenlund lives in Prairie du Chien; efrydenlund@centurytel.net.