One morning, about a year and a half into my stay in the sunny Recife, I arrived to a book sale at work. A strange colorful book in the very corner of the table caught my eye.
Figure 1
‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho
The curious symbolic shapes on the cover piqued my interest. Thinking back now, it was just a book with a nice cover. Yet, I distinctly remember an indescribable realization of some kind of novelty entering my life. I set the book down and went upstairs, logged into Facebook, and accepted a friend request from a girl named Mireille, whom I had just met that day in Portuguese class – the first other Canadian I encountered. Looking at
her profile page, what jumped out at me immediately was her favorite book, ‘The Alchemist’ and exactly the same cover! Without trying to rationalize the mysterious feeling, I realized the book had something to tell me, so I practically ran back downstairs and bought the book.
I read the whole book in 2 days, partly because Coelho uses simple eloquent language, but mostly because the messages in the book were profoundly relatable. Although, I had made many friends and fun memories in Brazil, I was also hit with the difficulties of culture shock and flashbacks from hurtful experiences in my past. This tale of following signs from the universe in search of your dream, which also arrived to me as a sign, brought me hope and wisdom that an innate part of me had been craving. I remember walking home that day and looking up at the sky, feeling the vastness of it, and seriously for the first time in my life wondering if some kind of higher power was real.
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