The Book I Couldn't Find in New York

Sometimes we sit and read a book, thinking we’re just going to enjoy the leisure of doing so.

And then we realize the book has the power to sit with us.

It moves us in ways we would have never expected. Perhaps as an escape. Perhaps as a form of connection to the characters—something that resonates within us.

You may have read The Wanderlust Homebody, the poem I have on my website. If you haven’t, that’s okay. It will be here when you need it.

Before summer began, I had been looking for Theo of Golden. I tried borrowing it from my local library, but there were hundreds of people ahead of me on the waitlist. I tried finding it at bookstores—gone.

So I purchased the audiobook.

But I’m an old soul who still craves having a book in hand. There is something about the physical presence of a book—the cover, the pages, the feeling of holding the story—that an audiobook simply can’t replace for me.

Eventually, though, I stopped searching for something tangible.

And then, while traveling in Puerto Rico, I found it.

The very book I had been searching for in New York was suddenly sitting on a shelf in Puerto Rico.

I couldn't help but think about how fitting that felt for a book called Theo of Golden—a story I had wanted to find, but ultimately found while wandering somewhere else.

And then I learned something about the author, Allen Levi, that made me want to hold onto the book even more.

He self-published his first novel when he was 67. Simon & Schuster re-released his novel when he was 69.

There was something about that detail that stayed with me.

Maybe because I took my first tennis lesson at 39.

Tennis had been something I had been drawn to since my twenties, but I didn't actually step onto the court and take that first lesson until I was 39.

There is something freeing about realizing that the things we are drawn to don't always have to happen on the timeline we imagined.

A book can be written when you’re 67.

You can pick up a racket at 39.

You can begin again.

You can finally make room for something you've carried with you for years.

Maybe it's never really too late.

Maybe sometimes we just have to wander long enough to arrive at the right moment.

And sometimes, what we've been searching for has been waiting for us somewhere we never thought to look.

Sandy