The Smell of Serendipity
Through a Narrow Stair
Unknowingly I made my way (today)
to the place of Traveling
in Time, landscape, in mind
for Self: to weigh, consider, strengthen - find
What I wrote about the place last year
Curled up in my parents' bed with a good book and a comfy mouth, I walked in forests in the Amazon and went looking for love in Italy. Salon.Com's Wanderlust. A great and smiling land lady from one of the stories reminded me of my own grandmother who I will call later tonight. I'll tell her that I'm reading books about traveling and that I look forward to visiting her in Buenos Aires next year. My spirits, often fickle and adolescent, are calmed and reassured that great things will be revealed to me in time. 'If only, if only', the woodpecker sighed.
The antidote to my gloomy, dehydrated day came in the form of a tiny bookstore - a closet of a room, perched atop a pandesal bakery. By a narrow, uneven stair is a handwritten sign in blue pentel pen: 2nd hand books and DVDs upstairs. Upon entering this treasure, I smile at the bespectacled old man (or young old man, not, I realized, out of practiced politesse, but of a simple and happy knowledge that comes from being exactly where you ought and want to be. I was with Ate Ping, Ic's sister. We spent an hour going through the selections and so absorbed were we that words barely passed between us. There is something about picking out old, previously owned books that is charming, and more - portentuous. Serendipity smells like an old, yellowed book.
The books could have come from anywhere - who knows which seas they've crossed - to whom they've belonged. These books were waiting in the store - to be read, cried over, laughed and sighed at. After whatever life they've had, they made their way to the small bookshop on the second floor of a bakery in the biggest university in the Philippines. There was nothing but the books and myslef who loved them, who fondly fingered nearly all their cracked spines. Myself, pulling out, examining, reading dozens of first pages. Myself, leaving with books that have made their way to me.
We picked up some fruit on the way home.
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Days later, I returned with my mother and dropped off the xerox copy I had made of the forward of Wanderlust. Hopefully the bespectacled one will appreciate and enjoy it.
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This time the man with the glasses was in a shabby mood, which registered in the time it took to straighten my back from crouching up the stairs. The books were the same as always. The shelves disappeared under them - pages, chapters and acts holding each other up.
If a beginning must be established - the start of a story - then it is a book. How to Read and Why, and it made more sense than a full day at school, where I brought it with me on a fresh page of notebook: fully brewed, color-coded. The class that I shouldn't be taking that I absolutely must take is one big serendipity in itself, giving birth to many others. The enthusiasm carries over. Para kang nagsusungka.
So if inspiration and it's energy are carried over points in time, then
A: Book: How to Read an Why
B: The Lit Class
C: The Lunch
D: The Lobby
E: The Prof
F: The Neighbor
G: The copy place
H: The Bookstore
Z: Book
That is symmetry!
Unknowingly I made my way (today)
to the place of Traveling
in Time, landscape, in mind
for Self: to weigh, consider, strengthen - find
What I wrote about the place last year
Curled up in my parents' bed with a good book and a comfy mouth, I walked in forests in the Amazon and went looking for love in Italy. Salon.Com's Wanderlust. A great and smiling land lady from one of the stories reminded me of my own grandmother who I will call later tonight. I'll tell her that I'm reading books about traveling and that I look forward to visiting her in Buenos Aires next year. My spirits, often fickle and adolescent, are calmed and reassured that great things will be revealed to me in time. 'If only, if only', the woodpecker sighed.
The antidote to my gloomy, dehydrated day came in the form of a tiny bookstore - a closet of a room, perched atop a pandesal bakery. By a narrow, uneven stair is a handwritten sign in blue pentel pen: 2nd hand books and DVDs upstairs. Upon entering this treasure, I smile at the bespectacled old man (or young old man, not, I realized, out of practiced politesse, but of a simple and happy knowledge that comes from being exactly where you ought and want to be. I was with Ate Ping, Ic's sister. We spent an hour going through the selections and so absorbed were we that words barely passed between us. There is something about picking out old, previously owned books that is charming, and more - portentuous. Serendipity smells like an old, yellowed book.
The books could have come from anywhere - who knows which seas they've crossed - to whom they've belonged. These books were waiting in the store - to be read, cried over, laughed and sighed at. After whatever life they've had, they made their way to the small bookshop on the second floor of a bakery in the biggest university in the Philippines. There was nothing but the books and myslef who loved them, who fondly fingered nearly all their cracked spines. Myself, pulling out, examining, reading dozens of first pages. Myself, leaving with books that have made their way to me.
We picked up some fruit on the way home.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Days later, I returned with my mother and dropped off the xerox copy I had made of the forward of Wanderlust. Hopefully the bespectacled one will appreciate and enjoy it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This time the man with the glasses was in a shabby mood, which registered in the time it took to straighten my back from crouching up the stairs. The books were the same as always. The shelves disappeared under them - pages, chapters and acts holding each other up.
If a beginning must be established - the start of a story - then it is a book. How to Read and Why, and it made more sense than a full day at school, where I brought it with me on a fresh page of notebook: fully brewed, color-coded. The class that I shouldn't be taking that I absolutely must take is one big serendipity in itself, giving birth to many others. The enthusiasm carries over. Para kang nagsusungka.
So if inspiration and it's energy are carried over points in time, then
A: Book: How to Read an Why
B: The Lit Class
C: The Lunch
D: The Lobby
E: The Prof
F: The Neighbor
G: The copy place
H: The Bookstore
Z: Book
That is symmetry!