Lost in the Fold

It's so easy to melt into Arambol like butter on thick, hot toast--absorbing into the crevasses, never again finding yourself in that solid, separate state that you once were. I can see why people end up here and never leave. Life is easy and affordable, and time is only measured by the rising and setting of the sun.

No one seems to know how long they've been here. I asked a girl from England who sat with me at breakfast one morning how long she had been in Arambol. She shrugged, I don't know, five months, maybe. She didn't seem all that concerned about it.

People fold into this place and become indistinguishable from it. Everyone kind of looks like they went to a music festival about 4 days ago--the festival ended, but no one went back to the life they came from.

I'm careful of these sorts of things--folding into places and people, losing the edges that make me who I am. This place has worn on the jagged edges I left Santa Cruz with, but I'm still intact--my edges softened, but still distinct and my own.

I wander the beach front and market streets and dusty, jungle paths. Around every corner seems a delightful and sometimes magical surprise--like the Kundalini Yoga classes I stumbled across at a place called--appropriately enough--Magic Park. Or the barefoot kids with dreadlocks and unidentifiable accents that I followed along a rugged jungle path--up to the Banyan Tree where the Old Man lives who invites everyone to his home under the tree to play music and chat with him.

I feel the free spirit attitude soaring through the atmosphere at one end of the beach. Turn a market corner at the other end and I see sketched out hippie kids who fit snug into this place, the laces pulled tight--there's no going back to anywhere for them.

There is no rhythm to living here, no solid foundation to build from or climb onto. There is no purpose other than turning your cheek to the world you were born into and disappearing into the chasm that is Arambol, Goa, India.

How much does place play into who you are? Do you get lost into the fold your environment or rub against it without ever sinking in? How has moving changed who you are (if at all)? Tell me your stories.