Manuscript Monday: The dragonflies

This will be the last Manuscript Monday for a little while. I am changing directions, both geographically and in my writing. After three months of working on a non-fiction account of my experiences in India, I have realized the story I want to tell is better conveyed in fiction. The new year will bring a new start on page 1 of a new book.

It's discouraging to start from scratch again, but I expect my spirits will be bolstered by my upcoming trip to Hawaii. I'll be traveling around the islands for much of January. Perhaps there will be some new island tales for Fool's Compass. And, with luck, the first chapters of a new novel.

I want to thank everyone who has read and responded to Manuscript Mondays so far. I am sincerely grateful for your company and support while I try to cobble together my dreams, sitting at my desk in my pajamas. I wish you all a Happy New Year and the patience to trust that it is all happening as it should.

I leave you with another true tale of Goan magic.

With love and gratitude, Becca


I awoke ravenously hungry. The sun had barely risen. I doubted any cafes would be open, so I gobbled down the last of a package of biscuits I’d stashed in my purse and threw on my swimsuit.

I climbed down the hill and headed towards the beach. The first sun rays were just breaking over the mountains, illuminating the misty air. Even at this hour, there was plenty of life. Stray dogs chased each other into the waves. Indian men and women crossed the sand balancing large baskets of fruit and vegetables on their heads. Tourists saluted the sun on sandy yoga mats. In the middle of all this activity, the shorefront cafes remained resolutely closed. In some, waiters and cooks were still sleeping atop the tables.

If breakfast was impossible, it was time to swim. I dove into the warm waves, slipping under the white breakers to escape impact. I swam out as far as I dared, then flipped over to float on my back. I spread out like a starfish and opened my eyes to the blue sky. I saw hundreds of dragonflies zipping through the air overhead. I blinked to shake the last drops of saltwater from my lashes and looked again. They were really there.

The dragonflies dove and soared through the sky, flashes of light reflecting off their otherwise invisible wings. Some flew solo. Some spun together in a gravity-defying mating ritual. I’d never seen so many dragonflies in one place in my entire life. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. It was the sign I’d been looking for.

A month before my departure, after I’d burned my journals, given away my cat, and surrendered the keys to my apartment – after it was too late to turn back — I was hit with a huge wave of doubt about my decision to go to India. My friends in recovery had taught me the term “pulling a geographic” – essentially moving somewhere else and expecting your problems to disappear. It suddenly seemed like the whole India plan was yet another magic little story I’d made up in hopes that my life would get happy again.

I was supposed to be an adult, with a career and a home and a family of my own. I’d lost the first and I’d never even been close to having the rest. I was working two temp jobs in Sacramento and sleeping on a mattress in the yard of my boyfriend’s house because the open night sky was more comforting than his dismissive silence. My solution to getting my life back on track was to go sightseeing?

Once this doubt got hold of me, I simmered with anger and shame for most of the day. By evening, I was so desperate for the day to end that I decided to go sit on the porch and watch the California sun go down. Maybe by just breathing and focusing on something larger than myself, I could regain some vestige of inner calm.

I sat on the porch swing with a glass of iced tea and shuffled my deck of Medicine Cards. The Medicine Cards are like tarot cards based on Native American myths. Each one depicts an animal and a story about that animal's significance. A friend had given me the deck years ago, and I'd recently found it when I was packing up my apartment.

I held the deck tightly against my chest, closed my eyes and prayed to whatever Magic 8-ball wisdom governed the cards. “Oh Patron Saint of Laminated Animal Card Decks, oh Guru of Go Fish, please give me a clear idea of why I am supposed to go to India. Please give me faith to continue.”

I extracted one card from the deck and flipped it over. It was the swan. I opened the Medicine Cards book to the story of swan medicine.

In the tale, Swan is still in her ugly duckling phase and she is taking her first solo flight. As she soars over her homeland, she suddenly loses her bearings. Nothing looks familiar. All she can see is a swirling black hole... and a dragonfly.

Disoriented and afraid of losing herself in the black hole, Swan asks Dragonfly for help. Dragonfly explains that he is the guardian of the black hole, which is a gateway to other planes of imagination. To break the illusion of daily life and enter the other planes, one has to ask Dragonfly’s permission.

Swan is scared of the hole. Then she thinks about her frail, awkward body and her half-formed dreams and knows she needs to transform. She asks permission to enter. Dragonfly tells her that, in order to survive the black hole, she must surrender completely no matter what happens. She has to act with complete trust and never try to change Great Spirit’s plan.

Swan agrees. Dragonfly creates the magic that dispels the illusions of life and lets her enter the swirling, churning black hole. When Swan reemerges days later, she has a new graceful body with white feathers and a long neck. She tells Dragonfly that she surrendered completely to Great Spirit and was taken to “where the future lives.” Her faith has transformed her.

Reading this story as the sun set, I felt like a gong someone had just struck with a mallet. A single chime of knowing reverberated through my body. I, too, was an awkward, half-formed creation. I had lost my bearings and the comforting illusion of my daily life. My home, my pet, my work, my relationship, and my entire country were disappearing into a void. I was being asked to surrender to a plan I didn’t understand and literally fly into a new world.

It was terrifying, but Swan’s story seemed to promise that, if I trusted this process completely, I would return a creature of strength and grace. I wanted this more than anything.

In the weeks leading up to my departure, I clutched the story of Swan to my heart like a magic talisman. Whenever a dragonfly buzzed past me in the yard, I stopped and said a prayer of gratitude. When doubt settled on me, I'd go walking at a nearby lake and feel inspired by the sight of the flying insects. I hosted my going away party at Dragonfly Restaurant in Sacramento – although I didn’t tell anyone why I’d chosen that place.

Once I landed in India, I forgot about Swan and Dragonfly in the rush of culture shock. I’d certainly forgotten my commitment to trust the process. Instead I’d been begging for insight, worrying about where I should be, and complaining in my journals that I felt forsaken.

Now, floating on the Arabian Sea and watching the dragonflies’ aerial ballet, I realized I’d been guided all along. Before I left for India, I had definitely decided not to come to Goa. From the moment I stepped off the plane, everyone I met had pointed me here. Even after I'd surrendered and took a bus to this seaside village, I’d cluelessly walked miles in the wrong direction until my shoes literally fell off my feet. Finally, in a state of complete exhaustion and surrender, I was led to my perfect cliff-top room, where I slept deeply and awoke to a fleet of dragonflies. An impossible number. A miraculous number.

How could I have thought myself forsaken? I still didn’t have a plan, but for now, I had something more valuable. I had faith.