While our family was together, we ate well. We also played well. Trivia questions, charades, crossword puzzles, card tricks and bowling all took turns as the centerpiece of our collective attention. 

 

One evening we dove into a White Elephant exchange.  Most of us were fuzzy on the details, but we made a pile of gaily wrapped gifts and took turns handing them to someone. There was discrepancy in the genres, which stretched from a hand made ornament to a three-month subscription to an audible library. Someone in their twenties opened a gum ball machine, with polite interest, but the youngest person's head popped up with unmasked coveting. Which was reason enough to trade, and begin the collective rummaging in pockets for pennies to retrieve said gumballs. 

 

I went home with the ornament made by my granddaughter, but there was a novel whose possession had bounced around between several players. I didn't quite keep track of where it landed, but The Alchemist itself was on the coffee table when I got up the next morning. Having heard about its reviews and popularity, I was curious. I started reading.

 

At first, I wanted to fall into the plot like I would with one by Jodi Picoult, but this one kept me at arms length. The main character never revealed his name, and the setting was as far as is possible to be from my Pennsylvania borough. A shepherd was traveling in the Egyptian desert in pursuit of his Personal Legend. I knew that others in the family would wake up soon, so I wanted to read quickly. But then I missed details, and felt more disconnected. I considered looking up Cliff Notes, to give me the gist, but in my heart I knew that hearing a review of the story was a poor substitute for absorbing it. I alternately sped up and slowed down, over the next days, as I returned to its pages between meals and conversation with actual people. 

 

The boy in the story was wrestling too with pace. Should he hurry up and earn money to buy sheep? Or settle into patience while they plodded across the sand? Months ebbed and flowed randomly, while he sold tea in crystal cups, and began to trust the messages of his own heart. Sometimes I wished I was finished, and could comment intelligently to others. In other moments I was in the dunes, too, slowing down as if the calendar had no sway. 

 

Then it was over. Having tried to wriggle my way out of turning each page, I arrived at the last one. My throat closed up, as the nameless boy came to rest, having endured swords at his neck, the whims of wealth slipping through his fingers and back again. He felt the kiss of his beloved carried on the wind, and understood that waiting and rushing are both illusions. 

 

I think I will read it again. More slowly.