Chapter 4: Found

It's not "Snow", I have read that book, well half way through anyways, and I didn't like it. It's another book of his that is more famous.

I'm telling myself this as I'm looking at the row of books in a local bookshop in Pike Place Market. Pike Place Market is like Tajrish, if you've ever been to Seattle, or to Tehran you know what I'm talking about. It's a crowded market with everything that you might look for, mostly small shops with local products that makes the place unique. Unfortunately you don't find places like that a lot in US and that's what makes Pike Place Market a very dear place to me, it represents home.

Salim and I are walking to find a restroom for him and we pass this bookshop and I have to go inside a bookshop if I'm passing one (it's like an unwritten rule and everyone who knows me knows this) and he rolls his eyes and is like "seriously?". I tell him that it won't take that long and show him where the restrooms are and assure him that by the time he is back from the restroom, I'll be out of the bookshop. I get in and look around. It's a second hand bookstore and like any other second store, it's not organized. You have to look for what you want and find it among all the other things and that's what I love about these places. That longing to find something and go through rows and rows of books with just the hope of finding it is one of the best feelings in the world.

By the time Salim comes back, I have spotted the book "Snow" by "Orhan Pamuk" and I am looking for his other book, the one he got famous for. All I can see is a couple of "Snows" and a couple of "The Secrets of the Black Book" here and there. This book that I'm looking for is called "My Name is Red" and I can't see it in the row in front of me, but I notice there are a couple of books, placed horizontally on top of each other behind this row in the front. I ask Salim for an extra couple of minutes and he sits down and patiently waits. I get the books in the back, but those are more "Snow"s and "Black Book"s. I go to the next stack of books, more of those two books again. By now I must've assumed that this bookshop only has these two books of him, but no, I keep looking. Just like I did three years ago in Iran.

One of my fun things to do in Tehran was to go to a book city. Book cities are a chain of bookstores we have in many cities in Iran, they are like our version of Barnes and Noble. This one was right across from a park where me and a couple of my friends were hanging out at and we had just said goodbye, me on my way to the bus stop when I happened to see this book city. It was like finding a hidden treasure. There was always something new in each of these book cities and I would always go explore one when I found one.

I had watched "Perks of being a Wall Flower" recently and they talk about "To Kill a Mockingbird" in that movie (which I found out is based on a book later) a lot. As I entered this book city I told myself I would look for the book. This is another habit of mine, if there is a book they talk about in a movie or a show that I like, I have to get the book and read it. Just like I got "Moby Dick" after that episode of "Gilmore Girls" where Rory is caught reading it by Dean.

I go to the English section and look for it. I never ask the staff for a book, cause I love that game of adventure hunt. Looking for a book among all the other books is a game for me and I love it. Not only do I get to look at all these books, which is amazing, but I also get to see what is new, what I haven't read and what I might be interested to read. I look for "To Kill a Mockingbird" for a very long time and I'm tired at this point. So I decide to go ask a staff member after all and to see if they actually have it in that store or not. He looks at his computer and tells me that they have exactly one copy and comes with me to show me where it is but he can't find it. He looks a bit more and tells me that the system might be wrong and they might actually have sold that one copy as well. But I don't want to believe him. I want to believe that that one copy is there for me, lying around somewhere, waiting for me to find it. And that's when I notice the same thing as I noticed in the Pike Place Market's bookshop, there are more books behind the front row. So I pull out books from the front row and look at the back row and then put the books back in their place and do the same thing with the next couple of books. I did this again and again until I actually found it. It was amazing, it was an amazing feeling. I felt like accomplishing something really important. It felt great!

Finding "My Name is Red" reminded me of that time in Tehran, reminded me of how I can have small, simple pleasures any where in the world and how the definition of home changes over time. I guess home is where brings you small, simple pleasures... .