A three minute walk from our apartment, just before Praia da Gaivota, is our favorite Indian restaurant, Tandoori Flames.
It’s run by a group of people who come from the same town in India, and Sarab is always our server.
Sarab, whose name means mirage, greets us with a smile and a wave, and has a habit of telling us what to do in the form of a question.
“How are you, good?”
“You have the papadum for start and pakora, yes?”
“Medium spice for the lady, yes?”
While most of the time I would call this pushy, when Sarab tells me what to do, it’s endearing. She just wants me to have the best experience, and she happens to know exactly what that is.
She always wants to touch me, stroking my shoulder or touching my hair. Normally, this would be creepy, but somehow with Sarab, it isn’t. My partner sometimes refers to her as “my girlfriend.”
Somehow I struck up a friendship with Sarab. Once, I encountered her on the way to the beach. She was handing out flyers to attract tourists for the restaurant, wearing a visor to protect her eyes from the Portuguese sun.
“How are you, good?” she asked. “How long you here?”
Sarab smiles big and pets my shoulder.
I’m eager to get to the beach for my HIIT workout before the tourists show up, but it feels right to give Sarab my full attention. I tell her about my travels between here and the US.
“I have not been India for five years,” she says, gazing at the ocean with a faraway stare. “My brother is visit now and I try not to be mad at him.”
Sarab tells me how she likes the English customers best. They laugh and tell her about their travels. The Portuguese are “no good” because she can’t understand them. “They always complain, ‘Too spicy!’”
Her days are long and the evenings are longer in the busy summer season.
“I hope you get to visit India soon,” I tell her.
Sarab gives me a hug. “Beautiful lady.”
There’s a silent transmission between Sarab and me when we see each other. Maybe because I see a lonely woman doing what she knows to do to get through the day because it’s the only thing she thinks she can do.
I recognize that woman because that was me.
It was no one’s fault. I stepped into the roles that needed filling even before someone asked. I did what I thought I was supposed to do, and never once stopped to consider what I really wanted.
At 38 years–old, I finally started asking and exploring, “What do I want?” and it changed the course of my life forever.
It led me to leave the safety of my marriage, businesses and home in New York. Acknowledging what I want derailed my whole life, and gave me a new one, filled with rich adventures of love and loss.
Along the way, I finally came home to me.
I wish that for Sarab when I see her waving down tourists on the boardwalk, gazing at the sea with empty eyes.
I wish that for you.
Yours in love and play,
Steph
If you enjoyed this article, join my daily Wildspire emails list here for more playful and provocative musings on business, being gloriously human and changing the world.
