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In a second-hand bookshop, a quiet ritual of friendship
Whether it’s regular lunches with buddies, treks, museum visits or golf, ritual calms us and offers us comfort in an unsettled world.
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Ritual calms us, it offers us order in an unsettled world, it wards off loneliness and binds us in threads of anticipation, says the writer.
ST ILLUSTRATION: CEL GULAPA
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On tired shelves the books stand in crooked lines, as roughed up by time as we are. The piles are unruly, untidy, like life itself you could say. Nothing is in alphabetical order and yet this chaos is beautiful.
A ritual is unfolding. I’m in a second-hand bookshop with two friends and it feels like we’re entering a literary ark. Something precious is being preserved here. Every bookcase has promise, every shelf a treasure. It feels like I’m rummaging through my grandfather’s cupboard. What dusty surprise will emerge from the past?
