Sometimes you come across certain places that feel like they were created specifically for you. I have written about Deju Lu, the second hand bookstore in Cascais and how quaint and gorgeous it was. When I entered Deja Lu, I was trying to escape the 3 PM summer sun and in a way also tick something off my "must do" list for Lisbon. But as soon as I entered the shop, i was transported. Bookshops have that effect on you, or at least they do on me. I forget where I am, who I am with, what time of day it is and i'm lost. In a world of words and print, the mixed smell of old books, new books, of old well-known authors i love and authors who are beginning to discover their words. Some of them speak slowly softly, you almost have to search for what they were actually trying to say. And some scream, and you have to put the book down once in a while to get away from all the noise. Some books whack you in the face with hard truths about the world we live in and some that take you to far away distant magical lands, which in no way resembles our worlds.
Deja Lu consumed me. Totally and utterly. I spent a long time browsing the whole store - going from the english section to the french section to the dutch section, and then finally to the big Portuguese area. And then going back to the English section where I picked up two gorgeous books - on called Thoughts and the other was Gulbadan. Both had hand written notes on the front page and they were both gifts meant for people, one of the notes was from 1987 ! I know that is not crazy long back, but it was the year before I was born and it was a gorgeous note and so it felt extra special.
I then sauntered around the store and discovered this section that had all these small notes and pictures stuck on the wall. You know in life when you suddenly find stuff - whether its an article or a friend or a call or a picture or some words that hits you exactly where you need it. That happened to me a million times while I was browsing this wall.
One of those was : "Kiss me with a paragraph and I'll reply with a novel" which Google tells me is attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald. That is me. My friends hate me for it. They tell me i will ruin myself with that attitude whether in what i love doing as hobbies or in my career or in love. I only know how to do that - its the only way I know how to be. To dive in and then to resurface and then to be rational and wonder about what I have done. Sadly, it has not always helped. But I have a firm belief that Im being guided or asked to follow a certain path, and I listen to that inner voice and tread on. That is not to say i am not rational. In some situations I do take stock of reality and analyse rational scenarios before deciding whether to go ahead with some decision or not. But that is in rare rare cases. And sometimes, in the process of rationalising my thoughts, I stumble upon a hitherto unthought of emotion/feeling. And that then changes my entire perspective. That too I take as a divine intervention - like my spiritual guide is telling me "here did you know this was another way to think about it" or "this may not be what you were thinking of, lets spend a few minutes considering it in this new light"
Speaking of spirituality, I saw the Portuguese copy of the Alchemist in this bookstore - I need to re-read that book.
Although, as I typed that sentence out, I thought to myself "when I am home in India...", but my copy of the alchemist is now lost. As are all my books I collected over the years. With all this talk of books and the alchemist, I now remember that the moving company lost all my book boxes - everything else of my life in Bali/Singapore arrived perfectly safely in Bangalore. Except my books. All of them. and all my sketches and paintings I had bought from all my travels that I hadn't framed yet. All of it. Gone. It suddenly makes me very sad. It's another of those things I try not to think about because it will bring me immense pain. There is nothing i can do about it - except accept that loss. and move on. to other books, to writing about books, to discovering second hand books in hidden bookstores around the world. To reconnect with words of my favourite authors or to get lost in my favourite books again, as I rebuild my book collection.
In some way i look at that loss symbolic of a life I have left behind, a life I have lost - although lost is not exactly the feeling I associate with leaving my life in Singapore. But here i have a chance to start afresh, to read other new books, to stare at an empty bookshelf and fill it again, one book at a time - each book hand selected either by me or by someone who contributes to and understands my madness, each book with a special meaning - adding to the kaleidoscope of life This is my chance.
Paulo Coelho said in The Alchemist:
"it is the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."
I will end this post with another quote from the picture above from the wall at Deja Lu, this one attributed to Charles Bukowski :
"we are here
to laugh
at the odds
and live our lives
so well that
death
will tremble
to take us."
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