The last couple of days have been sunny, even if quite cold. I love these days of course. Who doesn’t? I get to do long walks and explore. I am still new to this place. Grabbing whatever sunshine you can when it happens is a strange shift in mindset.

And when the light is gorgeous, I get to take pictures – they add to my conversations with the world, when people encounters are not only sporadic but mostly absent.

Day before, I came across a thrift store. This is another kind of a curio shop experience. I love browsing and have occasionally found some very interesting objects.

On this occasion, I found an entire section of books. Hardbacks for under $2, paperbacks even cheaper. I believe Kurt Vonnegut, once said something about straw hats being so cheap, you could pass them through your horses and drop them on your roses.

I do not need any more books in my life – as in, I don’t want those that occupy physical spaces and make me particularly conscious of their gravity. But, I spot two books by Edward Tufte. Hmm – if you know Tufte – there is no better way to experience their visuality except through their tactile beings.

I pick one – “Beautiful Evidence” – much pertinent to design research. I am struggling as you can imagine, as I leave the other behind. As I check out and walk home, I am also congratulating myself for my resolve and discipline.

The resolve only lasts a few hours, as I bring down the other Tufte from my bookshelf and start scanning and refreshing my memories. As you can probably predict, I decide, that the next time it is sunny again, I will need to go back and bring the other book too. I am pretty confident, none of the store’s usual visitors would be interested in that particular book – ‘Envisioning Information’.

Yesterday was sunny again. I decide, being Sunday, I will go after lunch, just in case the store only opens then, if at all. Lovely light, and quite warm, I take another route and am happy I do. Except, I land up nearer a fast food place – the store is a couple of blocks away. I am hungry, and am thinking a quick burger might not be a bad idea if indulgent.

But then, one of those neuronal misfirings, or whatever, I decide to go pick up the book first. As I enter the store and go past the crowded narrow aisles, still pretty confident that the book would still be there, I spot a lady with a cart, picking up precisely my book and scanning it on her phone. She probably has a side gig selling used books.

My heart sinks – more like a deep disappointment. I mean what is the chance?

She was a young woman and not forbidding looking either. I tell her that I had come for precisely that book. We exchange a few sentences along those lines – how I had been there the day before, and how I thought no one would want that book. She looks at me again – through my hat and masks and heavy clothes, I am not sure what she saw, but she handed the book over to me.

I thank her profusely, and already the generosity of her gesture was taking over my emotions. Later, she was in the checkout line and I told her so again and offered to buy her something else in return.

She did not want anything. She did have a side gig – and also fond of Dictionaries – she had found one from the 60’s. In these days anyone who cares about a dictionary is special – she has her 12-year old daughter interested in them too.

As I walk out of the store, this single book under my arms, I cannot get over the unique specialness of this encounter. What made me go to the store first? What was the chance that someone would pick up precisely the book I was there for. What is the likelihood of that person being so generous as to hand it over without second thought.

If you think this kind of serendipity is what make life worth living and precious, take those glasses off. It can only happen in the real world