... let me tell you of something beautiful for a change.

It's funny how sometimes a simple story can be so true to the human spirit and move you so much. I love literature and after ploughing my way through a book which eventually I gave up (a very rare thing to happen), I started to read Anne Donovan's Buddha Da. I'd come across it while working in a book shop. For four weeks I helped out as a sales assistant in a university book shop, after completing my PhD, while teaching in real life, and job hunting for something more meaningful than my previous job of teaching undergraduates German (which incidentally I liked a lot). Some fancy notion in my head told me I might want to run my own bookshop. Because I like literature so much. So the ad at the university library came like a sign, the ideal opportunity to try it out, work in a bookshop for four weeks, no strings attached, for minimum wage. To cut a long story short, it was boring, the job consisted of working at the till, or stacking books, or doing sweet nothing. In the lunch break though, the staff all read books. I liked that. And we got a discount on books, not the same as the permanent staff, but still. In the times of few customers I browsed the small literature section and got intrigued by two books, Buddha Da and Seahorse. I bought Buddha Da and it's been lying about until recently, when I realised that the author was going to read for our Amnesty Group. Great opportunity to read it at last.

It's a very private story, of a father, a mother and a 13 year old daughter, who take turns in telling the story. It's all in Scots, and usually that to me means hands off because as a non native English speaker, it's usually a recipe for taking all enjoyment out of reading. Not this time, I suffered with the three people, with the Dad's exploration of spirituality and his aspiration of becoming a better person, Mum's desperation at the resulting estrangement of her husband, the separation, the daughter in the middle of it, finding her own life, Mum finding another aspect to herself too, and everyone learning equally from one another to come out the stronger and more mature from crisis. Lots of humanity, lots of spirit, lots of laughter, tears, anger, hope. I was mesmerised with the story, but it wasn't really the story as such that mattered, but the journey undertaken by the three people at it's centre, how it made them grow. I wish every book could be like this.

In the bookshop, where I deposited my dream of my own second hand foreign language/travel literature bookshop behind the stacks of law volumes, I met people whom I would otherwise not have met. I worked as a student at the age of 33, going out with my colleagues for Friday night pints and clubbing. Looking much younger, the day I answered the question about my age a bombshell dropped on my temporary colleagues. I sometimes wonder what they thought I was up to, but I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of underpaid, no responsibility work. I didn't enjoy the work, but the space it left to focus and enjoy the times you didn't work, the hour of reading at lunchtime, the pub and fun after 5pm. Now, I love my work but it takes over my life. I read so much less. I wouldn't want to change it though, working in a bookshop was good for a short while only. 

At the reading for our Amnesty Group, Anne Donovan selected a story for us told from the perspective of another teanager, who discovers glitter glue at a time when her father is dying of asbestosis. A dear friend, who spent his lifetime campaigning for justice, made the campaign to compensate those who died from asbestosis his last battle. He won it, but didn't win the battle his heart gave him. He passed away in April. I couldn't stop thinking of Ian when I heard the story, with his wife sitting right behind me. He too loved literature, and he was an indefatigable campaigner for those whose rights were taken by those in power. His learning and vigour was inspirational, and he didn't lose this mental vigour even as his physical strength packed in. Maybe I'll post one of his poems here to honour him, so far I felt it wasn't the right place, but maybe it is after all.