writing

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

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Isn’t it wonderful to start a new book and find it to be much better than you expected? This is one of those books.

In a tiny Tokyo café, one can time-travel to the past or future to meet the person they’re in a relationship with. There are several rules – the most critical is that you must return before the coffee gets cold. Another is that whatever transpires in the visit cannot change the future.

This tenderly told novel contains four stories about pairs of “regulars” in the cafe – lovers, husband and wife, sisters, parent and child – who time travel to see, know, or share one more thing about/with the person they love.

I am both charmed and touched by Kawaguchi’s debut novel.

Reaching Out for Love

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It was a small shop in Easton, PA called The Nature Nook, maybe a decade or so ago. The beautiful craft items were all nature and wildlife themed, but the big attraction for me was the wide variety of lizards and reptiles in the store.

What I immediately liked about these people is how intensively they screened potential purchasers/adopters. They had no qualms about saying `no’ if they didn’t feel you’d be the right home.

I walked around the shop, admiring the incredible beauty of these animals. The shopkeeper walked with me, explaining what each one was, and a bit about them. I was not looking to bring one home, just admiring them, as I love animals.

We came to the cage of a stunning turquoise blue chameleon, and she took him out, handling him gently. I looked at him with soft amazement. He looked back at me, and reached his arms out to me, the universal gesture of wanting to be held.

Still unsure, I asked her, “What does he want?”

“He wants you to hold him,” she said. “He obviously really likes you.”

With some hesitation, I put out my hands, held him under his arms, and drew him closer. He curled up on my chest and closed his eyes. A few tears slid down my face. I was just so honored that this magnificent creature related to me that way.

I didn’t want to ever give him back; he was so sweet. Eventually, of course, I did, feeling terribly guilty that he would have to stay in a cage until a good person came along. But I will be forever grateful for that moment.

That gesture, so simple, reaching out for love with such trust and innocence. We, as humans, are supposed to be at the top of the chain here on Earth. But look at us. Can we not do better? Can we not reach out a little more?

Photo: Alex Cofaru / Shutterstock

“One Gorgeous Read”

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“Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.”

In 2001, long before many recent books about magical libraries, Carlos Ruiz Zafón had published this book, #1 in the series, The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. It was one of my Annual Library Sale picks. It’s a long read, nearly 500 pages, and I’m just past mid-way, but it’s so beautiful in the language and the writing, I thought to share a few quotes.

“In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.”

“One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn’t have to understand something to feel it. By the time the mind is able to comprehend what has happened, the wounds of the heart are already too deep.” 

“Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it’s an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.” 

“I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day.” 

p.s. The title of this post, was part of a review by Stephen King.

p.p.s. (Yes, yes, I know … I should have chosen a different mug.)

A Book for You?

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Please check out the last six of my April book purchases. While I managed to find six from my list of “hopefuls” at the Annual Library Book Sale, there were still quite a few I wanted. So I headed over to Thrift Books.

See anything you like?

We have two Japanese women authors, recommended through Instagram if the viewer liked Haruki Murakami:

Before the Coffee Gets Cold – Toshikazu Kawaguchi – a Tokyo café offering its customers a chance to travel back in time.

The Memory Police – Yoko Ogawa – “A surreal, provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss.” (goodreads)

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio – A possible murderer released after ten years, revisits the circumstances of young Shakespearean actors that led to one’s death.

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is a Pulitzer Prize Winner. “A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story” (goodreads) – a young man’s story told now, in the chaos of 1975 Saigon.

And now … The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker is exquisite historical fiction, taking place on the Lower East Side in 1899. It is one of my top favorite books of all time, and I bought it for my “permanent” bookcase for books I would read again.

The Hidden Palace is the sequel Wecker wrote seven years later, with the golem and the jinni still the main characters as their intertwined tale evolves. I bought this to read, and cannot wait.

Anything for you? Check your library and/or visit Thrift Books – what will keep you up into the night is there.  

It’s Just Change

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That makes change sound so simple, so casual, right? Yet just the word ‘change’ can have some of us already feeling anxious, because we so often associate change with something negative.

Photo: towfiqu-barbhuiya / unsplash

But what if we could look at change from a different angle, and consider that all change is ultimately good for us in some way. What if we could take that a step further, and consider that everything is always working out in our favor?

That’s a concept that I would have likely disagreed with a couple years ago. I’ve since changed my mind. However, it does take an intentional shift in perspective. Every experience we have contains within it the opportunity to grow, and to find/be something better.

We can sit and stew and whine and complain about something that’s happening or … we can step back and look at it, and say, `what’s here for me to learn? How can this change benefit me?’ You might be surprised at what you find.

Photo: Ellis Garvey / unsplash, Instagram @ellisgarvey

This doesn’t discount the fact that change is sometimes painful. There is no growth without discomfort or pain. But if we can make that shift in perspective, and be willing to look at the bigger picture?

We can grow and find more happiness, more contentment, in our lives. In whatever time it takes, in the end? It’s just change, and you and I are strong enough to handle it.