The Note I Found in a Bookstore That I Never Forgot
Words by Georgia Parsons
A forgotten note hidden inside a used copy of Chelsea Girls found on E 59th St became the quiet message I didn’t know I needed, and one I still carry with me.
It was a late afternoon in the city, the kind where golden light filters through fire escapes and spills onto cracked sidewalks. I had slipped into a small secondhand bookstore tucked between a busy deli and a narrow brownstone stoop on E 59th Street, one of those quiet refuges where the scent of old paper mingles with the distant hum of traffic and the occasional shout from the street. The walls were filled with carefully curated artwork, crowded with books that carried the weight of many hands, and I was lost among the poetry section when something fragile caught my eye.
Between the pages of a thin, worn volume of Chelsea Girls, I found a small folded note, handwritten in pencil, its edges softened by time. The paper was yellowed and slightly curled, like it had lived inside that book for years. The handwriting leaned left, unpolished and human. I opened it carefully and read the words:
It was always the light through the leaves
at 4:12 p.m.
that made me feel like I was still here.
If you find this, I hope you’re okay too.
I stared at it for a long time. It was only four lines, but something about it made my chest ache. It felt like someone had tried to pin a fleeting emotion to the page; something so delicate and small, it could only be captured in a whisper. I wondered who they were and if they ever imagined someone else would find their note and carry it home.
At the time, I was quietly unraveling in ways I couldn’t explain out loud. I had just left something I thought would last: love, routine, a version of the life I was trying to hold onto. The days felt gray and too still. Even beauty, when it came, didn’t quite land. But something in those words, that specific time of day, the idea of being tethered to the world by something as small as light in the leaves; met me right where I was. It didn’t tell me to move on or be strong or stay grateful. It just understood.
Without hesitation, I bought the book. I already owned it. That evening, back in my apartment where the soft glow of a streetlamp filtered through the window blinds, I read those lines over and over until they became a rhythm I could carry inside me. I memorized the loops of the handwriting, the texture of the paper, and the faint scent of ink mixed with dust. It became a quiet charm, a secret whispered across time and space.
I kept the note taped inside the front cover. Some days I would open the book just to reread it. There was no instruction, no deeper philosophy, just the gentle reminder that noticing a moment could be enough. That light, ordinary and late-afternoon and entirely unremarkable, might still anchor you when nothing else can. That if you are paying attention, the smallest detail can remind you that you are still here.
I think about the person who wrote it and how they might have felt when they tucked it inside that book. Maybe they were hoping someone would understand. Maybe they just needed to write it down. Now, whenever someone tells me they feel lost or like they’re floating too far from themselves, I think of that note. And I tell them, gently, to look for the light through the leaves at 4:12 p.m.