February 2026: A meeting, a cancelled ferry, a climb (Tamil Nadu)
The first image is of the dog who was our companion when we camped at the beach in the village of Chithiraipettai, Tamil Nadu. I remembered that we had peanut butter, and I remembered that you can feed a dog peanut butter, so we did.
The second image is our route through Tamil Nadu. I was just on Google Maps looking up the village I spelled out in the previous paragraph, and I realized that because I have been marking where we sleep on Google Maps, I can show you the route we took.
Previous monthly updates in this series:
January 2026
December 2025
November 2025
October 2025
September 2025
August 2025
February 2026
Start: Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India
End: Bodimettu, also in Tamil Nadu
Written date: March 15, 2026
Themes: A meeting, a cancelled ferry, a climb
A meeting
Brinda and her partner live beside Auroville which is a peculiar place in Tamil Nadu. She had invited me to pass through forever ago when we had a video call before I left for India. I almost didn't pass through, then I did. At Terrasen, I sat beside the same sparkling coloured windows that I'd seen on Google Meet. Not only was it great meeting Brinda, spending the whole afternoon in a thriving vegan café was very special for me (you could feel the care and attention in everything).
A cancelled ferry
South we went, zig-zagging through Tamil Nadu. Bound for Sri Lanka, by boat. Cycling, posing for selfies, eating idli and dosa and rice, sambar and rasam and poriyal and kootu and coconut chutney. Seeing Ambedkar on some wedding posters, Google Translating all wedding posters. We arrived in Nagapattinam. We did what we could have (should have) done before: actually stress-test the ferry plan. Now we learned, by chatting in-person and reading online: the ferry is unreliable; the ferry customs is worse than flying; the ferry social media marketing is unrepresentative; the ferry is almost certainly NOT running. Then we walked out of the market, towards a truly enormous Ganesh poking up above the skyline, from where a grandma ushered us into a temple because she wanted us to see the dancing that was happening for a Shiva festival. No more Sri Lanka, yes more Tamil Nadu.
A climb
New plan: cycle west to Kerala via Western Ghats, then fly to [somewhere]. No climbing at all for 4 months, then 1,000 metres of it, making all possible rookie mistakes. But: perfection isn't usually required. Many times it's okay to just do something, rookie mistakes and all (note to self).
A few pictures from this month
Mini linkies section
Hold Tight and Let Go: Laura Killingbeck does something powerful when she shares in this piece how her mom responds to her ALS diagnosis: grief and rage in the face of wanting to keep living but not being able to. I think this is powerful because it forced me to completely stop and face this person's experience, to see her suffering. Another reason I really value this piece of writing is because it shares (in beautiful, specific, sparse writing) the many dimensions of Laura's own experience with grief and love. And now I want to say: these aren't the same thing, but years ago I first heard "grief is the price of love," and this story shows how.
It's frustrating to me that I can't remember where the rabbit hole started. But I was in a rabbit hole (that definitely involved Winnie Lim's amazing blog). At some point in this process, I started thinking about starting a newsletter. I decided that it would be called, "Your Artifact My Artifact," and that it would be a space for sharing the physical and mental artifacts of life. Anyways, all this rabbit holing made me curious about who else was using this word artifact (or artefact) besides, you know, archaeologists. And so I Googled it, and that's how I discovered Artifacts, which is an online space that preserves the "history of the avant-garde, the arts, and queer culture." I will level with you I was mainly delighted because of the queer culture part. It is not often that a Google search of your chosen newsletter title leads you to something like a page devoted to Marsha P. Johnson, with video footage and not only that, a hand-drawn concept map of other people and projects she was connected to. Can't believe! Best! Check it out if it speaks to you!
My internet searches for artifacts also led me to Artefact Cards. Having a deck of physical cards reminds me of what Ryan Holiday does with index cards, using them to capture and organize ideas that culminate in a book or other project. The other day I was thinking about how when I sit down "to write a blog post," the hundreds of ideas that normally like to prance around my conscious all scurry out of view like deer. I literally feel like a deer in headlights and can't think of anything without a pre-existing prompt or container. (Like these monthly updates.) So for this reason I can really see the value of having different types of prompts. They serve as containers for surfacing ideas and connections that might might not otherwise. I am motivated to surface ideas and connections, and it's through this conviction that I've come to see tarot cards in a different light, having previously dismissed them out of hand as complete and utter woo nonsense. (I recommend kening zhu's tarot work diary.) Anyways, I am really going on tangents of tangents here. I haven't bought any of the Artefact Cards sets and I don't plan to, although they look interesting (especially the Obliquiscope!). So I guess I'm sharing this because I feel interested in my whimsical internet rabbit holes, but also, as a reminder to myself to create containers and prompts.