Today I'd like to tell you a little story.
Time: A couple years ago, back when I was still a teenager.
The setting: Vacation with my parents, on a beach somewhere in Greece (doesn't narrow it down much, but I can't remember where we were exactly). There's a very high, very old staircase that leads to a tavern, about fifty feet from the shoreline.
The story: As is the norm during my teenage years, I'm in another one of my angsty, nobody-understands-me-and-my-problems moods. My family and I are eating lunch at said tavern, and when I'm done I decide to ditch them and take a stroll down by the water. Most of the swimmers have already left by now, so I have the tiny beach all to myself.
So I'm walking back and forth along the shoreline, grumbling about the unfairness of it all, and all too soon my parents are calling to me from a distance, because it's time to go. I pick my moody myself up and make my way back up the beach, anticipating the very gloomy ride home, when something in the sand catches my eye.
A book.
My heart picks up, because it's a book. A lone book. I'm starting to drool like a wolf in sight of an unsuspecting rabbit. I quickly look up, around, just in case it actually belongs to somebody. But there are no towels around. No one in the water. Everyone is eating up at the tavern, or just gone. I look left. Right.
Nobody.
I grab the book and try my best to look like it actually belongs to me, and scurry the rest of the way to the car, and from then on home. Though I can barely remember the rest, I vividly remember the change in my mood. I went from crabby and irritable to smiling and light-hearted in a matter of seconds, and all because of a book lying in the sand.
It doesn't matter that it turned out to be a legal thriller, the kind of story I never read, or that when I finished it it was only an okay read--what stayed with me then and remains now is that feeling of possibility, of cracking open that hardcover and diving into a whole new world, of forgetting all of my so-called problems and going on a journey in the book's pages.
There are countless movies and books out there, stories about people discovering treasure chests in the sand, full of riches and gold. And on that day, that unexpected book became my treasure chest.
Anyone else have any similar stories? Have you ever stumbled across an orphaned book? Tell me all about it!
Time: A couple years ago, back when I was still a teenager.
The setting: Vacation with my parents, on a beach somewhere in Greece (doesn't narrow it down much, but I can't remember where we were exactly). There's a very high, very old staircase that leads to a tavern, about fifty feet from the shoreline.
The story: As is the norm during my teenage years, I'm in another one of my angsty, nobody-understands-me-and-my-problems moods. My family and I are eating lunch at said tavern, and when I'm done I decide to ditch them and take a stroll down by the water. Most of the swimmers have already left by now, so I have the tiny beach all to myself.
So I'm walking back and forth along the shoreline, grumbling about the unfairness of it all, and all too soon my parents are calling to me from a distance, because it's time to go. I pick my moody myself up and make my way back up the beach, anticipating the very gloomy ride home, when something in the sand catches my eye.
A book.
My heart picks up, because it's a book. A lone book. I'm starting to drool like a wolf in sight of an unsuspecting rabbit. I quickly look up, around, just in case it actually belongs to somebody. But there are no towels around. No one in the water. Everyone is eating up at the tavern, or just gone. I look left. Right.
Nobody.
I grab the book and try my best to look like it actually belongs to me, and scurry the rest of the way to the car, and from then on home. Though I can barely remember the rest, I vividly remember the change in my mood. I went from crabby and irritable to smiling and light-hearted in a matter of seconds, and all because of a book lying in the sand.
It doesn't matter that it turned out to be a legal thriller, the kind of story I never read, or that when I finished it it was only an okay read--what stayed with me then and remains now is that feeling of possibility, of cracking open that hardcover and diving into a whole new world, of forgetting all of my so-called problems and going on a journey in the book's pages.
There are countless movies and books out there, stories about people discovering treasure chests in the sand, full of riches and gold. And on that day, that unexpected book became my treasure chest.
Anyone else have any similar stories? Have you ever stumbled across an orphaned book? Tell me all about it!
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