Flying out to visit family for the holidays, as usual plenty early, so of course, I browse the bookstores at the airport.  And, claro, don’t I see a book that I should read, and of course I purchase it, and of course I read it and finish almost before I start.  That’s Paulo Coelho’s book O Alquimista.

The read wasn’t that fast, simply because I kept stopping to ponder a word or two that spoke to me as I did quickly read; in fact finished the book within a couple of days, while relaxing at my brother’s home with the winter storms blistering outside the den windows.

O Alquimista spoke words, different words, but words I’d already applied to my own life; a truth we’ve heard a million times before, but a truth that I, again needed to hear.  The key lesson for me is in line with a poster I’ve never forgotten – a solitary woman, back to you, standing staring across the vast expanse of the ocean…likely pondering, “what’s over there?” and the words written at the bottom of the poster, “Everywhere I go there I am.”

It’s not to say that is the exact message of O Alquimista, but yet it is, para min.  The message I received from that book was simply that all that I have, all that I need…well, it’s right here with me, and “everywhere I go, I am with me, as is all that I need,” for whatever purpose unfolds.

O Alquimista by Paulo Coelho is a good read, a quick read…with a lot of substance and food for thought in but a few pages.