After three weeks in Kerala, when she only had one week left at the yoga and meditation retreat, Amber found herself in what passed for the center’s head office, examining ways to extend her stay.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” A whisper came from behind her.

Amber didn’t even have to turn around to know it was Linda, the woman who had arrived a week after her and whom she had instantly befriended.

“I just don’t feel ready to go back,” Amber said, which wasn’t entirely true, but expressed her sentiments accurately enough.

“Then stay longer,” Linda said.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Because of your job?” Linda cocked her head. “They can only benefit from you becoming better at what you do.”

“Because of the commitment I made. I said I would be gone for four weeks. That’s the deal we made. I can’t tack on more time. Not now, a week before I’m supposed to go back.”

“Why not?”

Amber narrowed her eyes and looked into Linda’s serene face. She knew she would keep on asking annoying questions until Amber came to a pleasing conclusion. Amber could easily have this conversation in her head, on her own, while looking into the jungle that backed up onto the room she was staying in. She didn’t need Linda to ask her these questions, yet she welcomed them. Sometimes it was easier to reach a conclusion with someone else, to have a witness to the process, to validate it more than a few thoughts in her head ever could.

“It would make me feel as though I’m letting people down.”

“I hate to say it, Amber, but you’re not irreplaceable. Someone’s been filling in for you for the past three weeks. There’s no reason why they couldn’t do the same for a few weeks longer. None of us are needed as much as we like to make ourselves believe.”

Amber remembered the last email she had received from Micky. It was a litany of loved-up sentences raving about Robin. Not even her best friend needed her the way she had always done. The only one regularly asking her when exactly she was coming back was her goddaughter Olivia. Because people went on with their lives and Amber had friends and acquaintances and students and neighbors, but none of their lives were drastically altered by Amber going away for a few weeks. It was a thought at the same time so comforting and distressing it constricted something in her throat—maybe it was more distressing than comforting, after all.

“Thank you for your endless wisdom, yogini Linda.” Amber tried to plaster on a smile.

Linda shrugged. “We’re all here for one reason only. Well, most of us.”

“To lose the importance of the self,” they said in unison.

The truth was that most people at the retreat were there for many different reasons, but the program both Linda and Amber were in promoted selflessness and letting go of the ego specifically.

There was another reason Amber wanted to go back. The memory of meeting Martha both elated and terrified her. It was exhilarating because of the promise that had crackled in the air between them. But it was frightening in equal measure because of a past heartache that Amber should be over by now, she really should, but that always came back to haunt her when she met someone interesting—someone interesting enough to contemplate truly getting to know them better.

Amber wanted this to happen with Martha, but at the same time she couldn’t shake off the prospect of possible repercussions if she allowed herself to do so. She couldn’t talk about this with Micky, because despite Micky knowing her through and through, she would only try to push her brusquely past a point of no return.

Micky would tell her she was scared. And she would be bang on the money. But Amber felt that if she could stay here in this safe space for a few weeks longer, before she had to face regular life and all its responsibilities again, she would be more ready. She could reach that point herself without Micky having to push her too brutally toward it.

“I think I’ll send an email to the studio. Tell them my work here is not done,” Amber said. She felt a twinge of discomfort about saying this, as the depth her practice would reach if she stayed here a few weeks longer wouldn’t only benefit the studio she worked at now but it would also be beneficial to any future studio she started herself.

“Good for you.” Linda shot her a smile. “Care to cross the river after the afternoon session?” Linda asked.

“Sure.” Amber had planned to get a massage, but a stroll into the nearby village with Linda sounded more tempting. “I’ll see you then.”

“It’s not just the yoga and the retreat, it’s this place,” Amber said. “There’s something almost magical about it. Everything is different here and when you stay here a while, it seeps into you. The atmosphere becomes a part of you and makes you reframe most of our western values.”

“Don’t tell me you want to make a new life here and never go back to Australia again.” Linda didn’t look up when she spoke. They had been on many of these strolls before and she had the uncanny habit of always staring at the ground when she walked. Amber always had to point out when she saw a stunning bird or when the sky turned a particular hue of dark pink near sunset. Then again, Linda knew all about the bumps in the road.

Amber shook her head, then added, “No,” because Linda couldn’t see. “I’m just afraid that if I go back now the spirit of this place will leave me too quickly. That I won’t be able to hold onto it. That everyday life will erase everything I’ve learned, experienced and witnessed here.”

“And what is that, if I may ask?”

Amber could so easily have predicted Linda’s question. She chuckled and gave herself some time to think. Some of the things she had felt here were difficult to put into words. Linda, a trained grief counselor in her home city of Birmingham, wasn’t one to let the opportunity of a deeper question pass her by.

“That our lives are filled with worrying about things that don’t really matter. Not in the grand scheme of things. The people in this village have no luxuries. No Netflix. No high-speed internet. Some of them don’t even have a refrigerator, yet they seem to inhabit a different plane of happiness. The here and now. Not the past, when a monsoon washed their crops away, or the future, when their rickety bike might break down.” Amber sighed. “I don’t really know how to say it yet. That’s why I think I should stay longer. It’s not part of me yet.”

“Life is simple here. It’s not easy, but it’s simple. That’s the difference.” To Amber’s surprise, Linda looked up. “And all the colors and the vibrancy of the green leaves on the trees and the easily-given smiles, because a smile is, in fact, really easy to give. I know exactly what you mean. Yet, I will be leaving in two weeks’ time and I’m not sure I’ll be ready, but we can’t hide out here forever, can we?”

Amber nodded and they walked on the dirt road in silence for a while, contemplating the words they had just spoken. Despite the yoga resort being across the river, the people of this village didn’t cater to tourists the way Amber had seen in other villages she had visited in India. There was a pureness about the place she would always miss elsewhere, and that was why she needed to stay here a while longer. Not because she was so afraid, even though she was; or because Martha had been intended for Micky, even though Micky was head-over-heels in love with Robin. But because this place nourished her soul in a way no other place could. Deepening her practice and looking more inward into herself—until there was nothing left to see and her ego revealed itself as exactly what it was—were just side effects of this magical place she was privileged to be able to visit.

Amber looked at the big orange sun as it was setting quickly on the horizon. It still amazed her every single night how, like with the flick of a switch, it could become so dark. Every evening, it felt like a curtain of darkness was pulled over the sky, revealing the most brilliant stars.

When her time came to leave, she would know. And when she did, she would ask Martha out. Maybe it wouldn’t be easy, but it would be simple enough.