Flying out to visit family for the holidays, as usual plenty early, so of course, I browse the bookstores at the airport.  And, bila shaka, don’t I see a book that I lazima 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 Alchemist.

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.

Alchemist 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 Alchemist, but yet it is, kwa ajili yangu.  The ujumbe 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.

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