I believe in non-random encounters. Not fully understanding what causes the unbelievable circumstance to happen, but certainly it involves at least two elements. You and me.
Every day, I walk to supermarket to get fresh strawberry lemonade, fruit and salad to extinguish my thirst and hunger. Well, this is supposedly the conscious, voluntary movement of my thoughts, but walking and wondering is a secondary satisfaction to it. For years, working in NYC at the Upper West Side, I see and walk around outside book vendors, stopping by, rummaging through books, enjoying the use-ness of the books, pondering about the story how did the books ended up at the street. I come to the book collection, making quick eye contact with the vendors, not ready at all to converse. But last Wednesday one of the vendors, which I have seen as a vendor for a long long time, has approached me. A man, probably 50 years old (although he might have just seem that way judging from his baldness and spare tooth-ness), shorter, grey hair, thick glasses, sharp, almost wolf-like teeth. I knew from the start that the conversation will not be short. And it wasnt.
I bought Siddharta, and wanted to buy second book, revealing : " A small book obsession, OCD". And here we started. He commenced by talking about his passion for books and his job allowing him reading time, giving him the opportunity to intereact with the people, with the world, but at the same time easily being detached, by separating the glance of the street, being sucked into the world of books. This man writes, I learned. He has published two books, some stories, some poetry. Well, interesting. He takes out his old, rusty, yellow paged notebook and with immense, he puts me right into his world, not little one. He reads passages of his observations, of human condition, he shares stories of everyday life. After reading several stories, I, realizing of how much has been going on in my head, and how much I have absorbed, have detached myself from the conversation thinking : " This man is writing one story right now, about our encouter."
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