As excited as I am to explore seven countries in six weeks, I also wanted to give this trip a purpose to ground me in the midst of so much moving around. And that’s exactly what I’d like to introduce you to today.
Now I can say there was that time in Dharamsala, when a people cut off from their country and their families marched for two hours in protest, demanding action, dreaming of home.
It was to this view I returned on Sunday afternoon. With the Tibetans’ chants still ringing in my ears (What we want? We want freedom!), I sat down on the ledge, opened up my sketchbook, and turned to the valley below me for inspiration.
Last week I realized what exactly these last four weeks have been for me – a kind of do-it-yourself writing retreat. I didn’t need to wait for an official fellowship; all it took was me carving out the time to come to Goa and get to work.
What if – there were those two words again, the harbingers of regret. Because as much as I love my home here in Goa, I also knew that three months from now, I didn’t want to be asking myself – what if I’d gone with them to Dharamsala?
Writing a book proposal requires a different part of your brain – not the fun part that concerns itself with creating prose as pretty as poetry. Rather, it’s all about wrangling the many parts of your book into a whole.
And usually it’s right then – as my face is turned to the sun and my arms and legs are moving in great big circles through the Arabian Sea – that it hits me, every day: This is my life.
One of my favorite restaurants here in Goa is called Magic View, and no matter if you’re sat in the front section looking towards Patnem Beach or at a few tables out back overlooking Colomb Bay, the view is indeed, well, magic.