& the songbirds keep singing like they know the score

Do you know that first shock of cold ocean water rushing over your feet? You feel it shudder through your entire self before it touches your toe and reverberates, pushing up and out; up and out.

I like to turn back and watch the waves wash away my footprints; depressions in the sand smoothed away without any effort; no sign to prove I walked this beach to stand where I stand; facing this ocean so huge.

—

I have stepped into the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, felt the water twist into my hair and wring out of my clothes. There can be no difference in the water; but yet, I stand in it and feel it in my bones. Like the coasts it is named for, the water must have its own depths of personality.

Scientists well-versed in oceans and their particular nuances will, no doubt, tell me that I’m mistaken; that my flights of fantasy are indicative of a Literature degree and no degree of substance… but I feel the electricity in my toes spread through my soul; and every toe-dip is charged differently.

—

Last Nite blares on in the background; it’s drizzling again and you can hear it pick up as the wind begins to swirl it around and throw little bits of spit at you. Before you know it; the rain is a sheet and the palm trees are bowing in the face of the wind’s wrath.

Water drips on my knee.

—

As in guesthouses and hostels filled with carefree- and usually young- travellers, the breakfast ‘how’s it?’s turn into an evening of drinking games and ‘never have I ever..’.

Someone, at some point, will turn to me and say, ‘You don’t sound Indian at all’

‘No?’

‘No, you sound American’.

Others ask where in the UK you’re from and then laugh when corrected- ‘do you get asked that a lot?’.

At this point; my reaction is a smile and a ‘hmmm’.

Either way, you learn something surprising- about accents; the inflections people pick up, or the things they’ve done.  Never have I ever.

—

Backpacker-y spaces are always great when they have excellent managers who are constantly teasing, laughing, starting a party…

The lovely manager introduced himself in his thick Basque Country accent.

‘We’ve e-mailed!’ I tell him, ‘I’m Rishita’.

‘!!!’ is an approximation of his expression.

‘I thought you were Japanese!’

‘Your name is Japanese!’, he protests as I begin to guffaw.

He calls me Japanese girl and we crack jokes of tsunamis; harakiri; and make generally culturally-inappropriate comments.

—

We met a French bloke from Cannes who embodied every French Lothario stereotype imaginable.

An upended hairband planted haphazardly on my hair made me his princess, and we somehow devolved into a story of porno-princesses and conversations that have no space in a restaurant filled with 6 year olds.

Without any irony; he told us in the middle of ‘Never have I ever’..

‘Never have I ever had sex….. the French always make love’.

—

Frenchie, a lovely young English girl and I traded banter all evening.

As we walked back, navigating the pitch-black beach by the light of my phone app; I jumped down an embankment, accidentally turning off the flashlight.

He grabs me as a I begin to apologise.

‘Mean Indian Princess picking on the poor Frenchman’, he says.

I laugh. One second a Japanese girl and in another, an Indian Princess.

—

I have learnt to part with my books now. Books I devour in a few hours as I bathe in the [now hiding] sun. Toasting, browning, turning ever so often.

Leaving books behind to start a mini English-language library in a space dominated by German and Norwegian.

The English manager grabs every proffered text with a mixture of relief-gratitude.

My fingers catch a little as I force myself to hand it over.

—

I scribble postcards and sometimes I forget to post them from the city i buy them in. I find them nestled in the book I carry through countries but never actually want to read… they’re too serious/dark/heavy no matter how good they might be.

They tumble out in countries long after I’ve left or they hide until I’m back in Manila, showing themselves much too late and much too stampless for me to appreciate it anymore.

—

The candles flicker and mosquitoes hover; I try not to stare too long at a chest tattoo on  nicely-browned man as he leans against the bar.

I’m never quite sure what my eyes betray or what they’re misconstrued as.

I’m never quite sure of anything anymore. Not even my silences.

—

When you hang out by yourself on your solo holiday; you learn a fair bit about your own silences.

There are different kinds of silences, and lately; I feel as though mine aren’t quite as full of quiet as they ought to be.

I wonder what others perceive of my silences- do they see it when it is a retreat into myself or when it is a silence of remonstration?

I wonder.

Perhaps I am the only one who feels these silence as full of unsaid words, words that stick in my throat instead of breathing this air…

Perhaps, to everyone else, it is just another silent girl in the corner. Nothing more, nothing less.

—

I can hear my own voice in my head and I tune myself out; certain that the words are superfluous and really quite unnecessary to say out loud. It isn’t needed to speak all the time, or to hear yourself all the time. Sometimes, silence is even for the way your brain never shuts up.

—

I wonder if I sometimes find offence where none is intended, take things personally when it is not about me.

Sometimes, silence isn’t the best strategy- sometimes I should really just ask.

Find the words, and ask.

—

It isn’t just about offence either. I should learn to ask. For phone numbers or if people are free for drinks or a chat or time.. or just begin to pose a question before assuming that the ‘No’ is a given.

I should learn to not be quite so afraid of a ‘No’.

—