Finding the Words

"The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read." Abraham Lincoln

I have always loved books and I love to read. One of my favorite places when I was a child was our small town's library. The adult part of the library was on the main floor, and I climbed the stairs to the children's area on the second floor. I recall the library being a newly constructed facility, and it seemed very modern at the time. It was even air conditioned! It smelled new...fresh paint, that new carpet smell, mingled with the distinctive aroma of books. The books were filled with words, and I understood at a young age that words were very powerful things. I also read dictionaries, to discover new words and their meanings. I still love it when someone uses a word that is unfamiliar to me. It is a wonderful new discovery.

Recently I was trying to articulate the thoughts and emotions about something I was experiencing, and it was one of those times where words seemed to fail me. A few days later at a second hand store, I picked up a fiction paperback for 25 cents. I was simply looking for something to read. I had not heard of the author or the book before. I was on my way to work, didn't have a lot of time and it was hard to beat the price. So I bought the book.

Later that day, I sat down to read it. It was published originally in 1993. The book was written in the first person, and was about a woman in the 1930's who had returned to her home in England. Her circumstances were far removed from my own, but in the first chapter as she described her emotions and feelings, it was as though she was describing what I have been experiencing. I read and re-read and re-read the passage, and almost shouted out loud, "That is exactly how I feel!"

So I did find the words I was looking for. They had been written seventeen years earlier by another woman named Susan, and had somehow ended up in a thrift store. Waiting for me. The words had been waiting for me.

Susan