pt.1: "doing it wrong"

caption: esther sitting in a cave at jain hills

hello and welcome! :)

the purpose of this blog to help me slow down, enjoy the process of, and reflect on my journey to publishing my first book, light soup.

i remember going to speak with one of my professors when i studied abroad in india because i felt i was "doing it wrong.” i wasn’t “finding myself” (i low key thought my life goals and morals would change and was afraid that if they didn’t then i'd wasted time and money traveling thousands of miles around the world).

he listened patiently and then said to me,"if you ‘find’ yourself within the short time you’re here, there wasn’t much to find to begin with.”

in retrospect, that moment helped me breathe and walk a little easier because i was no longer trying to reach arbitrary goals.

caption: esther with one of her professors in india

afterward, i shared the reflection below with my friends. through this reflection, i began identifying experiences that influenced my expectations of what my semester would be like.

1. India has not made me realize that my problems are trivial. If anything, being here has helped me understand that the struggle is real across the board.

2. I haven't "found myself" and that's okay. Someone here told me that if you "find" yourself within the short time you're here there wasn't much to find to begin with.

3. The culture shock wasn't too bad. America prepared me for people touching my hair and commenting on my skin. The black body is forever in question.

4. I brought the guilt I had when I went to college....I tucked it right between my journal and my first aid kit...

5. I am not having the time of my life. India is beautiful and the food is great. I LOVE my host family and I'm learning a lot but this is not the most fun I've had in my life. This bothered me for a while because I thought there was something wrong with me and the way I was (or was not) experiencing India.

due to some unforeseen circumstances, there was only one other student in the program during my semester abroad (there are usually 10-15). as such, our semester was redesigned to help us make the most of the program. part of the adjustment was a community engagement portion where i i co-created and participated in cultural programs as an intern for the international study center at lady doak college (ldc). when it came time to choose a research topic for my independent study project, i decided to look at tamil oral traditions (i ended up writing about spoken word performance in madurai). as part of my research, i conducted my first international spoken word workshops.

i have been writing since i was four but i decided to begin my journey to light soup with my semester in india because in those few months, i got into into the practice of intentionally documenting my experiences and responses to the world around me in verse. when i began college one of my mentors suggested i attach poems to my projects/papers. i wrote poems whenever i was inspired, regardless of the class (seriously - i wrote a poem for my "data driven societies" class 😩).writing has always been important to me, but the workshops asked me to take my writing more seriously.

i'm so excited to share this experience with my community. thank you for joining me!

until next time,

esther

there’s a poem in me

until i stop interrupting her

i’ll never speak

-dedication

caption: esther standing at a bus stop in india

#india #poetry #spokenword #journaling #jainhills #tamil