My First Entry
22.02.2024, near Sangolda, Goa
“with this Aum, I send my prayers to the universe, to those who need them”
It doesn’t feel real.1 I am so blessed and grateful.2 The sun hits my face over the lake and I am okay by myself again.3 I am not pulled down by those pulling energy towards them.4 I allow it all to happen as it happens.5 I am in control of myself.6 I listen to me, and to others.7 I make space for others to grow.8 The sun says goodbye again, the moon is nearly full.9 I cried when I danced and I still need to think about why.10 There is a nice breeze now.11 I will take another picture. I put a flower in P’s hair and I will carry this white one home.12 I organised the office and D said I did a good job.13 It’s getting darker now and so I have to leave.14 I wonder what I will say about this time.15 The constant flow of creative energy16 - let it flow - leave it behind - I am new here - I am loved - the best is yet to come.17
I made it! I was eating the dust and smelling the palm trees. My cheeks were burning under the sun. This was nothing like Dublin in February.
It’s funny how things always work out. One week you are crying because you can’t finish the last essay of your Erasmus, deep in the archives of Weimar Republic abortion law, the next week you are here. How you are always where you are supposed to be. How you’re always on the path to somewhere!
I went on a walk that day. To clear my head I think. I went to a viewpoint on the map where it said I could see birds. I saw a lot of rubbish, a few cows, and not many birds. I was looking for a nice sunset spot, the sun came down nicely on the lake. It smelt like warm algae and rot and bird poo. I wanted so badly to not need anyone else.
You’re not going to love everyone you meet. Not everyone you meet will love you. Sometimes it is just the wrong time. Sometimes you are individually bright and loving but something is wrong and you don’t bring it out in each other. I think it could be different, if we met now.
“I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way”. I really had no plans except where the road would take me. This was an exercise in faith and maybe naivety. It worked for me because I could wake up and decide where I was going. It didn’t work when I had somewhere to be. I learnt to not make plans, they always went wrong.
There was no one telling me where I need to go or what I need to do. This is really scary when you’re on your own on the other side of the world. I was teaching myself not to be scared.
Somewhere along the way, I began to find it so hard to know what I really wanted. I had to believe I could do it, before I really could. I still looked to others, even when I wanted to look to myself. Like when at the start I would be so happy to be with anyone or do anything. By the end I was happier listening to myself and learning to say no.
This was after we talked about it. How we didn’t work well together. I think I also hold onto images of people from before. But I think [and hope] they could have changed as much as I have.
Sunsets are very important to me. I love saying goodbye to the sun. I try to see it as often as I can. The sunsets in Goa were like nothing I had seen before. That full moon turned orange before she glowed bright. I remember that moon because of the clarity I felt with her. I think I sat under her in the old ruins next to the paddy fields - I remember riding on Y’s bike with the wind in my hair and in my scarf, which I’ve since lost.
We had been to ecstatic dance that week, or maybe it was the day before. Ecstatic dance is like going to the club but for sober hippies. Every muscle feels an emotion. I can’t really remember why I cried, but I know it felt good. I remember all the Russians in Goa that night; how the posters were all in Russian and how I can still hear “Arambol” in the Russian lilt. S talked about H and how she had to dance away the war. I’ve thought about that since, I don’t know what else.
It was so unbelievably hot in Goa. It didn’t cool down over the following months, if anything it got hotter. But there the sweat was still new, and I had to remind myself I was not on a beach in Spain - I hadn’t yet figured out how good it feels to be covered.
I love collecting flowers from the places I’ve been. My favourite way to keep them is in the back of my phone. The heat of the phone and the pressure of the case means they press and dry quickly. In India they dried quickly if I stuck them fresh into my journal - the heat stopped them from rotting.
The woman who ran the place I volunteered at was so cool, she didn’t mind what we did as long as we spent our 4 hours doing something for the space. This day I spent clearing and cleaning I was listening to the Joni Mitchell album “Stars to Read (Live 1995)”, and Patti Smith, “Live at Electric Lady”. I was thinking about how one day I would have my own boxes to clear, and dust to sweep.
I couldn’t be outside in the dark, not yet. The darkness was too unfamiliar, the animals were unknown and I wasn’t sure if I would really be by myself. Sunset was always the worst time for mosquitos. I would come up in itchy red lumps, just in time for dinner, gone before I lay under my net, between my sheet and my mattress near the floor, sleeping to the hum of crickets, and a quiet snoring from the bed next to me.
I struggle with how to choose to remember things. People say it to me, now that I’m back - don’t forget it ! Don’t forget that time you spent ! But I think even as the details go and memories fall away to feelings, it will always be inside of me. My body was there and she remembers even if I don’t. I remember kindness before I remember names. I remember the smell of a place before I remember the bedroom. I think I have so many stories to tell but I’m not exactly sure what they mean.
Saraya; sanskrit word, the name of the place I was staying. Ryhmes with Maya, also a sanskrit word, the illusion of the world we live in.
This is the first entry I wrote in my journal after arriving in India. It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say for the first week, it’s that I hadn’t bought a journal. This is the first entry of my blog. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say, it’s that I didn’t know how best to keep my words. Subscribe and I’ll arrive in your inbox with words and reflections on the path. Lots of love !!