I'm Filipino and I Cried While Reading in an English Bookshop

crying in public. that is NOT the done thing in the country where i currently live. the brits are astonishingly reserved. foreigners mistake their utter respect for personal privacy and utter shyness for coldness and aloofness. trust me - many of them are wonderful, warm, kind and sincere. you just have to understand that to be british means very careful observance of, avoiding intrusion and utter consideration of personal space. its the total opposite of us filipinos who think nothing of smiling at and chatting with completely random strangers and telling them about the inner workings of our lives at the drop of a hat.

anyways, i am in a certain life state. if you say AGAIN it means you either know me very well and you understand OR you don't know me very well but you have been reading my blog postings IN SPITE OF.

i needed to clear my head so i went out for a walk. i went into my neighborhood bookshop and as i am always wont to do, was browsing around reading random chapters of several books.

for some strange reason, i picked up the alchemist by paolo coelho. i had read that book early when it came out and i LOVED it. i loved it so much, i re-read it a dozen times in three days and i think in that space in time, i internalized it.

i sat down in a corner of the shop and started reading it. at his opening message, i started to cry and before i knew it, i was sniffing away while turning the pages.

the alchemist is an incredibly easy read. you can read it within an hour and a half. the beauty of the book though is hidden within the deceptively conversational writing are deep messages about personal destiny,    personal prophecy, love and conversing with God.

i realized while re-reading it, how much actually my life has been like that of the shepherd who, on the basis of a dream he had one night, found the courage within him to meet a king, sell his flock, lose his money to a robber,  sell crystal and tea, cross the dessert with an englishman, fall in love, meet the alchemist, predict an invasion, turn himself into the wind, have his money stolen from him and beaten to within an inch of his life, return to where he always was and find his treasure and fulfill his promise to his Fatima.

strangely, the same things i found resonant then were the same things that made me cry.

the shepherd's father, giving him money and his blessings to sell his flock in order for his son to fulfill his dream of travelling - and seeing in his father's eyes the dream that continued to burn. it was the dream of travelling which he had all those years buried because he was concerned with food, water and shelter for his family.

the crystal shop owner who told the shepherd - 'you know i will never go to mecca even if it has been my dream. some people are only meant to continue dreaming of what they want and that is enough. for me that is enough. you on the other hand are made to realize your dream and that is why i know, that you are not going back to your sheep,  you are going to the pyramids. you may go, you have my blessing'

the shepherd, when he falls in love for the first time, realizes, it is the first time he ever wanted to live in one place forever.

the alchemist telling the shepherd, when he was wavering in his decision to leave his Fatima, tells him if you have found something truly lasting, it will still be there waiting for you when you get back. if it was nothing but a spark, it will be gone when you get back therefore it would have meant nothing to go back for anyway. and love, said the alchemist, does not stand in the way of personal destiny. it is love that will bring you to it.

too many beautiful things in that book. too many that were too resonant in my life...too many parallels.
if you don't know anything about it, the alchemist is a fable about following your dream.

 i cried silently for the hour and a half that i re-read the book.

i'm filipino and i cried while reading in an english bookshop.