Weekend: Temptation

I am still feeling battered and bruised this morning. It's amazing the effect sensory overload can have on us.

Last night, memories flooded my mind while I drifted off to sleep in the silence. Geckos croaking in the night. The smell of heavy air in the morning. The light is pale like the color of warmed honey. Sitting on the balcony at S's house, cup of tea in hand, feeling like all was right in the world.

And it was slow motion. The quiet. A woman walks slowly down the street, headed most likely to the market. I smile and she smiles back. No words. None are necessary.

I fit so comfortably and know I could do this for the rest of my life. I'm learning how to weave here, falling easily into the slow, steady hand movements. The beautiful threads. The clicking of the loom as I move the handle back and forth. The bosom of this place is where I find my nourishment.

I was not born here and that surprises no one but me. The prevailing belief is that we reap the consequences of former lives, that we suffer for the sins of our past in a variety of ways.

Maybe even by being misplaced, born in the wrong skin at the wrong time.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a train in the distance. Probably filled with sacks of rice. Probably going to Bangkok. The season has just ended and people work feverishly to get it all processed, get it all bagged so that tired looking men can hook the bags, one by one, and throw them on the train.

It passes and I return to my strange thoughts, including a dismissal of the whole idea of karma. While I envy the coherence of the idea, it's too hard to imagine that acts from hundreds of years ago can come up and influence us now.

We have floods and snakes and malaria and mudslides here. That is enough of a threat. The idea of divine justice just pulls me down. To distract myself I go for a walk. People are beginning to rise, beginning to start their days and the talk filters out, into my hearing range. I understand very little of it, mostly the common phrases of people communicating in shorthand. "I'm going to the market." "Feed the chickens." "It's hot today."

I tune it out, thinking only that what Westerners call simplicity, I recognize as wisdom.

~*

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This....

This morning, we woke up to rain. I couldn't wait to get up, make a cup of tea and crawl right back into bed to listen for a while. Right outside my bedroom is wisteria. The aroma crept quietly in the open window.

For twenty minutes or half an hour, life was perfect.

I love rain. Absolutely love it! The sound of it, the smell of it, the color of the sky ~ and I love walking in it. It's a cool rain here this morning. At times it's rather heavy but mostly it's gentle.

One morning a long time ago, I took off for a walk. Dawn was perhaps an hour away. I was staying with my friend, R., and I could see that he was still asleep in his room. The rain was falling gently on the roof. After making a cup of tea as quietly as possible so as to not wake him, I poured it into a commuter cup and stepped outside to the balcony. The rain was warm. The scent of the rain on the plants and flowers surrounding his house was indescribable. To this day, I don't have the words.

The world was quiet. A few people meandered around but it might as well have been just the few of us, alone on the planet. There was a little path near R's house that I liked so much. It was lush and rich with frangipani. It was narrow. I imagined what it must have been like for the original humans, millions of years ago.

The rain got heavier. It pounded on the leaves. Within ten minutes, the wind came. It caused the flowers to sway back and forth. Some leaves fell. In the distance, I could hear frogs croaking. krawwwk krawk. In the far distance, a rooster. Morning was coming.

I continued along. Soon, my hair was drenched. My clothes were drenched. The water poured off my hands as I lifted the cup of tea to my mouth. My shoes were drenched as I walked in the puddles.

With the downpour, my past washed away into the Southeast Asian soil that so willingly accepted and embraced me. My feet took root and I breathed the air of home. The world seemed to shift on its axis. All that was wrong was made right. I continued walking and smiled at nothing ~ and everything.

And, oh yes, I remember the past. I can still draw lessons from it. Sometimes I even feel it. Sometimes it creeps into my consciousness like a malevolent poltergeist. But it rarely stays long enough to rattle its chains in the closet. No ghost can haunt us when we know where we belong.


Peace,


~Chani

Sweet Homesickness....

The past few days have left me with a "hangover". No, I have not been drinking. The hangover is a result of too much American culture, too much, too much. I feel burned out. It's sucking the energy out of me.

Every now and then, I need to escape it. Sometimes that can be difficult when, naturally, the TV, the radio, the Internet and the people who surround me are all quite saturated in it. Marinated might be a better word.

It's times like that when I transport myself to Khon Kaen. When I try hard enough, I can even recall some of the smells. That spicy, hot smell of chicken over an open grill. The scent of the plants that mingle with the cooking. There's something in the air.

I can almost taste the food. Although I have spent the past hour making curry chicken with rice, it's not the same. I can't quite re-create it.

When I turn on the music, it takes me to the waterfall. It was awe-inspiring and that day, it didn't matter if I died right on the spot. As far as I was concerned, I'd seen the greatest beauty this world had to offer.

But, of course, there is something far more important to recapture. Words escape me to describe it. It's the tether that binds me to that place, the earth that roots my feet.

And sometimes I know it could be the ugliest place on this planet and I'd feel the same. It's not just the geographic beauty that holds me. It's something much more.

The ease in everyday interactions. I miss the smiles. I miss the purposeful strides of people on the street who have no aggression. I miss the warm-hearted courtesy. I miss the Khon Kaen Night Market. Oh, I spent way too much money there and elsewhere, too many times. I wear some of the jewelry to this day.

One of the things I loved most are the small, spontaneous gatherings that would take place, especially near the university. There was usually food present. Someone would yell out, "come sit with us!" The open-hearted friendliness was breath-taking at times.

We would chat. There was always someone or two who spoke English and I can belch out a little Thai if it's absolutely necessary. Broken Thai. Grammatically incorrect Thai ~ but that and some good sign-language always works. Time would pass. We would share ideas, talking about all nature of things. No pretenses. These were probably people similar to me, the assorted oddballs and eccentrics. It didn't take long for us to get past our differences. I was no longer "farang". They were no longer "Thai". We were just people.

I loved all of them. I didn't even know their names but I can see their faces.

Hours would pass. And there was nothing else but that very moment ~ complete strangers discussing everything from the meaning of life to music to food to ....

It didn't matter. I was home. By then, I knew it.


Peace,

~Chani