La memoria

Santiago, Chile

It is a bright, beautiful, sunny day.  The smog took the afternoon off and parque forestal is teeming with families and young couples enjoying one another's company. All in all, it looks like a great moment to be a santaguinero.

It was a little more than two weeks ago I first arrived. This morning, I passed the small cafe where I initially stopped after getting off my flight and initial metro ride to order a cappuccino and check the guide book to make sure I was headed in the right direction (I was).  Like most businesses on Sunday, that little cafe was closed today. I didn't need a map this morning or afternoon and not only because I am pleasantly killing a nine-hour layover; I also just know my way around.

It is pretty incredible how far one can travel in two weeks' time. Sure, I've notched some kilometers, but that's not what I mean. It is remarkable how the foreign becomes familiar in such a small period of time. There's no amount of reading or research that can simulate this familiarity as the experience of just jumping right in.

I've been thinking about a lot of things of late. One constant of this trip to a place I've never been is its familiarity and the memories it has stirred. Up north, meandering around San Pedro de Atacama, I felt like I was back in Peru from my trip ten years ago. The sights, sounds, smells, all of it conjured a wonderful trip, even if it was with someone with whom I no longer share everything. Or, really, much of anything. I hope and believe time has healed those wounds on both sides and hope she would receive as warmly the reminders this past week has given me.

And I also strongly feel the tug on the heartstrings first pulled by Buenos Aires. These countries are so parallel, literally parallel, it's not even worth diving that granular to find the details for comparison.  I could make some commentary, but it's been nine years so my observations may be more rooted in time than space anyway.

And I guess that's where this all leads anyway: time and space. In own appreciation, I believe I've used both well, these past two weeks and in my adult life as well. That is really all that matters: our own honest, heartfelt assessment of how we use our one opportunity at life.

Whatever problems I left at home will be there when I arrive tomorrow morning.  Same too for assets and/or the proverbial things going for me.  I will have time to take a taxi and a shower before hitting the office tomorrow morning for a full day. I have a full day of meetings on Wednesday and an important meeting to lead on Thursday morning. I've got tickets to a show Friday and some old friends in town next weekend. I will not have much time to process this trip and it'll likely be a quick merge back on to the highway of life.

But I showed myself a few things. I can make the transfer from train to bus in Chillán, even in the cold rain. I can find lodging and book excursions in San Pedro without much guidance. I can push back my plans because of fresh powder and I can do just fine in a Spanish speaking country without a dictionary or translator. I can give myself two weeks away from whatever identity I've built at home and indulge my fancy to wander because I've found that is what I like and do best.

I don't know what legacy this trip will leave; I'm still the same person. I guess that's the overarching takeaway: for however I've felt of late and whatever experiences I've been through the past several years, I'm still me. There are good and bad days ahead and more mundanity to traverse. But if I remember to keep my head and heart open and stay true to who I've been thus far, more adventures await. So I'll keep going. I would anyway, but maybe these next steps will have just a little more pep. 

Sleeping dogs & cemetery cats

Valparaíso, Chile

Dogs and cats, in addition to measuring precipitation, serve as semaphores for the worlds within our own. They hear the noises we cannot hear, perceive the threats we cannot see, demarcate the boundaries of which we are unaware. Even for those unafraid, there is a certain caution or wariness one must abide when present in their domain.  In Valparaíso, though there are many strays scattered throughout, I never felt anything other than welcome or safe passage by these friends. That in itself may be as apt an indicator of the intriguing city. 

Though founded before, Valparaíso entered its epoca de oro with the San Francisco gold rush of 1848. Europeans looking to cast out in search of treasure sailed around the cape and the port city was well-positioned as a decent halfway point. With enough offerings and opportunity of its own, a good many decided to stay. Until the completion of the Panama Canal, Valparaíso was a hub of great significance on the world stage. 

The vibe persists. Valparaíso feels like the gathering grounds of generations of diverse individuals who had a third gear to their slakeable ambitions. These are a people who set out with to conquer the moon and sun only to ultimately settle on a fine place where they coukd say, "this'll do just fine."  It's as if a caravel of pirate ships ran aground and instead of attending to repairs, each foreswore the life of the seas to indulge their secret passion to become art students. 

The natural harbor and flatness of el plan, the commercial stretch adjacent to the water, lent themselves to the development of a rich maritime trade. The forty-something hills rising just behind el plan do not seem hospitable to much of anything.   So all these generations of recien llegados had to do something if they were not sailors or stevedores or prostitutes, etc. (and this is where I'm offering conjecture with no historical knowledge whatsoever), so there had to be some sense of communal solidarity to arise, right? Steep, rising hills and congested living do not accommodate a Walden pond-type existence, so surely that is how this undetectable but omnipresent sense of community must have arisen. Again, I took a walking tour and not much more, but I'm pretty confident in this diagnosis despite a small sample size of observations. 

Community and history is great and all that, but what I really found endearing was the independence of the people, their confidence in themselves, and, for me, importantly, the lack of need to demonstrate said independence or confidence ad nauseum. There are plenty of tourists and plenty of souvenirs to be bought and sold, but very little in the way of Keep Valpo Weird. It seems some of our most charming cities have decided to continually cash in on their charm to the point their balances are depleting. Rapidly. The protectiveness of a place's charm leads to an inveterate defensiveness among its inhabitants to the point where a visitor can feel like there's no enchantment left to protect. Living in New Orleans (we can insert Austin, Boulder, Portland, and many other places here) I am only growing more tired of the banner people carry, as if the city's eccentricity needs to be continually reinforced for our own preservation. Are we weird? Then let's just be weird. We can be fierce and proud of our independence without always taking to Facebook or wearing the t-shirt. And that's what I feel Valparaíso does very well. 

In my brief impressions, I saw art students sketching landscapes, businessmen having Important Discussions over pisco sours, artisans peddling their beautiful and intricate wares, taxi drivers with their lanyards for the Santiago Wanderers, old men working at newspaper kiosks listening to milongas, young folks rolling and smoking joints in the darkened stairwells, and more than a few Willie Loman-types commuting home after a long day's work. There was diversity, there was character, there were sleeping dogs and cemetery cats and nothing about it had to be advertised or shouted through the bullhorn. It was, and that was more than appreciated. 

Fire on the Mountain

Valle las Trancas, Chile

It took long enough to pair my twin loves of travel and skiing, but this jaunt to the lower vertebrae of South America was well worth the wait. It is exactly what I would have expected had I been cruel enough to set expectations.

Heard your news report, you knew you're falling short
Pretty soon won't trust you for the weather
When that ship comes in, you won't know where it's been 
You got to try to see a little further

I made a one week reservation back in April, which may as well have been a dart at the calendar as far as conditions go. There's no guarantee of fresh snow and even, so I've learned, the mountain open and lifts running. As was my great fortune, after confinement to the slushy, lower pockets on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday's storm brought about a foot of fresh powder.  Wind speeds died down Thursday night, allowing the upper lifts to open and the patient and fortunate among us to access the great fields of snow just below the volcanoes at Nevados de Chillán.  My decision to extend my stay was very well rewarded.

My time coming any day, don't worry about me, no 
Gonna be just like they say, them voices tell me so 
Seems so long I've felt this way and time's sure passing slow
Still I know I lead the way, they tell me where I go

So, yeah, sure, the snow fell.  That made a lot of us happy and my own contentment was probably the least tied to the climate among those I met.  At the hostel, in the lift lines, at the bar, the other voices belonged to some serious powderhounds.  It seemed like everyone was trying to find some new line yet untouched or get even further away from what was not a very considerable crowd. This could have been insufferable, and some sailed pretty close to those rocks, but nobody was a dick.  Instead, the general onda was one of some very simple people with one particularly high standard, but even if that was unsatisfied, life still marched on and was, in fact, pretty good.

Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers aplenty in the bye and bye
Talk about your plenty and talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills

And the accoutrements, did I mention them? The cute shops lining the faux-Bavarian village at the bottom of the mountain? The high speed chair lifts and gondolas outfitted with wifi access and television screens? Cause there was none of that.  There was a mountain outfitted with orange chairlifts that, though lacking in padding and having a few squeaky wheels, offered more assurance than a cheap import from a former war torn Soviet backwater. Skiers and riders were outfitted for performance, not as ostentatious reflections of purchasing power.

Got to settle one old score
And one small point of pride

As for me, well, I believe I fit right in there. I was a very tall man in a yellow jacket cutting some
tight turns on the groomers and traversing the thick stuff when the visibility got too low or couldn't
trust myself or the rental equipment. I was in my own space and time.

Gonna get there I don't know
Seems a common way to go, get out and row row row row row

And if I'm getting back to any overarching theme here, and I'm not sure I ever was but at this point
the omission doesn't particularly matter, it is that I discovered I really like to shred some
fresh pow pow while listening to the Grateful Dead Live at Barton Hall (5.8.1977). I'm a casual fan, not a purist, but there's just something soothing about the artistry, the improvisation, the rhythms, the synchronicity, and the graceful elision of these musical giants. It fits the terrain.

Come to daddy on the inside straight
I've got no chance of losin' this time

I did not exactly have the best of years recently, though extraordinary in several respects, and have really just been looking for ways to free my thoughts and pivot my perspective from rear view to windshield for the next. I've been so careful not to put too much pressure on this trip; no epiphanies, no need to return with some new frame of mind or perspective or grandiose self-improvement projects. I really just needed to work on my Spanish, smell some trees, seize the occasional laugh, and point my skis down a goddamn mountain so I can free myself to move a bit more forward a bit more quickly once I get back.  There are no elevators or quick fixes toward a restorative space of self,  but there are the simple realizations, their sudden seizure, and a handful of healthy moments to get you back on track.

Long distance runner what you standin there for?

It's a Large World

New Orleans, La.

I've written this before, but I guess some truths bear repeating: it is, in fact, a very large world.  Deep, abundant oceans, towering mountains, vistas defying horizons, cities that rise up like pimples from the arbitrary oils of history, and countless topographical idiosyncrasies stippled across this great planet we call Home.

We forget it.  I forget it.  I give myself credit for being able to bird eye my life and see some larger perspective or great divination moving my piece across the chessboard, but how much do I really see?  How much in my day-to-day am I actually aware?  I think about it. I feel I 'get it'.  But I don't.  I lose it.

I sit here in my square miles of proximity to where I report for my paycheck, where I buy my foodstuffs, where Someone Else circulates.  And in my case, I've had a pretty okay five years of establishing my square miles and deeply understanding the movements therein.

They haven't always been kind.  In fact, during the past year, I'd say it's been taxing.  I love my work, I have a solid circle of friends, but my viewpoint has condensed to the point where I've lost perspective of the worlds I've known before, the worlds I've explored, the worlds where I feel I've accomplished something, even if it's only absent movement.  I feel like I've lost sight of how big the world actually is and how insignificant my troubles truly are.

It's time to remind myself of the great expanses out there, both globally and within my own perspective.

It's time to travel.

It's been a long time.  I now hold a steady job, a fucking career, if you will.  This career could not be more rewarding or in tune with my values and yet I still find myself hostage to loss, defeat, melancholy.

It's time to travel.

This will only be two weeks.  Standard, rote, American vacation allowance.  But goddamn do I need it.  I once thought that anything less than a month was chicken scrap and now that I'm in the modern workforce I feel like it's nothing less than Knighthood.  I will travel.  I will ski.  I will hike. I will speak a foreign tongue and keep my phone in an inaccessible pocket and respond only to sunsets and open spirits.

It's time to travel.

It's never too late to remind yourself of the infinite of the cosmos and the fallibility of your own life.  It's never too late to remind yourself life is much bigger than where you are, where you stand, where you've been.  It's generally understood it's impossible to catch up with every setting sun or shooting star but that should never mean you shouldn't damn well try.  And so I go.

Griff

Before he could remember my name, Griff was wary of my height.  Not to attribute it to some source or complex or whatever, but I had a good foot-and-a-half on him and he’d tell me to sit down when I’d stand before his desk in that cramped office or we’d have some meeting in the Student Life Center (née cafeteria).  My height would come up in reference from time-to-time like when some student (in this instance, S.A.) would misbehave and he’d wonder how someone could ever act a fool or wile’ out in front of such an if-only-in-the-literal-sense “large” authority figure.  As in when he asked S.A., “how can you do this in front of such a -” he struggled with the word here - “huge man?!”

Because I wasn’t as big as you, Griff.  Never will be.  

It’s hard to believe he’s not still charging into the cafeteria in a suit three-sizes-too-large with his head rolling figure eights on his thin neck, eyes wide and popping, a large styrofoam cup of awful chain coffee in his hand and moving one hundred-plus Bronx teenagers down to the proverbial pin-drop decibel from a symphony of shouts.  Not by saying anything, mind you.  Just by being there.  Ever met someone with presence?  Preeeeeeeeee-zzzzzzzzence?  That was Griff. 

He would do the syncopated clapping thing to get their attention, walk over to a student speaking out of turn, put a hand on their shoulder, all the typical teacher tricks executed with an inimitable touch of grace.  I loved watching him dart a look back over his shoulder from the marker board as if some small conversation in the far corner could sink the Lusitania.  He’d shut down anyone who dare challenge his complete command and control of that cramped and stuffy cafeteria with even a furtive whisper.  The best part of it all was that in most if not all of these particular moments those students were imperceptibly disrupting a lesson where Griff was totally wingin’ it.

Griff had the presence to keep more than one hundred Bronx teenagers who departed traditional school attending CUNY Prep.  He could keep them coming, keep them in line, keep them going. He inspired those who passed the GED to go on to college.  He kept those who did not pass to come back for another cycle, try it again. These are young people, many from the Bronx’s toughest neighborhoods, who had no respect for authority.  And with good reason.  Many never had an authority figure worth respecting.  These teenagers had been told and shown through all their young, tough lives they weren’t good enough and far too many of them believed it.  Griff was the first and often only one to tell them not that they could- but that they damn better go on to college.  As a teacher at CUNY Prep for two years I drank the Kool-Aid.  I left CUNY Prep resembling more one of Griff’s countless disciples than his peer.

I remember K, having a terrible day (the good ones typically weren’t that good, either) and screaming at the top of her lungs in my classroom while Griff was leading an assembly across the hall.  He stopped speaking and made a beeline for my classroom where he gave her the biggest hug I’ve ever seen.  She went from scream to full-body sobbing as he held and swayed her.  He just knew that’s what she needed immediately.  Never mind I’d been trying to calm that situation for several minutes, he could do it on the fly.

It didn’t matter if you were a Blood, Crip, Latin King, a teen mother or gay in a culture with little sympathy for those on the outside.  You had a place at CUNY Prep.  I remember watching D.J., whose previous enrollment was at Rikers, playing chess against B.N., a chubby cheeked innocent who had hitherto been home-schooled.  That interaction only happened at CUNY Prep, which only happened because of Griff.  One moment Griff could shake hands with the wealthy white folk looking to pour some Foundation Money into a Good Cause, the next counsel a teen’s broken heart, the next talk some staff member off the ledge.  He could see into people, through them, find what they sought and provide it.  And it was always the good things he found.

We can be forgiven our sentimentality in the grieving process, perhaps also our tendency to cope selfishly.  At least I hope so.  We tell ourselves the world wasn’t ready for a star so bright or only the good die young or some other trope to soothe ourselves.  Me?  I’m just trying to appreciate how no one else who could meet their demise in a national-news-making train wreck and we’d all come away like, “well isn’t that just soooooooooooo Griff?”

Because it’s kind of appropriate for someone with such a flair for the dramatic.  I never figured him for an old man making a dying wish on a comfortable bed, close family huddled around. He deserved it, certainly, as did all around him, but that just wasn’t him. Had I thought about it, I’d have pictured him speaking up to the wrong misbehaving teenager on the 5 train on the wrong night.  Griff was the type to fight the fire; fuck calling 9-1-1.

If any man represented something far larger than himself, that was Griff.  Maybe he was always too accessible, always too present, always too giving, always too there.  And because he wanted anyone who touched his grace to go so much farther, be the best they could, climb higher, he had to remove his own incandescence and set it back further into the distance.  Every miracle accomplished by the myriad he touched was simply too easy, not enough.  Keep going, he’s saying.  Keep going, we must.

Aurora

Brooklyn, NY

Chris Rock once provided a pertinent sound bite, saying that there are two types of malls: malls that white people go to, and malls that white people used to go to.  A funny line in its own right, it was also shared by some friends in high school during our daily commute past the Aurora Mall.  Fast forward fifteen years and it would be no surprise to our former selves where a midnight multiplex massacre would take place.  I can't say I'm so surprised as my present self.

There are few things more American than firearms.  Giving weapons a close run for the money in the modern era is victimhood.  We see some tragedy, perceive some slight, real of imagined, and latch ourselves onto it like it's our turn on the mechanical bull in the crowded bar.  We know we'll get bucked off quickly, and we know we'll make it look more arduous than it really is, but look how many people pay attention to us while we're on it.

So I feared I was feeling such this morning as I read about my hometown.  That's five miles from where I grew up!  That's two miles from my church!  My favorite German restaurant is in that same complex!  Now, everyone, write on my Facebook wall and share some sympathy.

Indeed.  Of the global population, I probably rank somewhere in the top half-million when it comes to associations with the Aurora Mall (the press is calling it the Town Center, but trust me, you can't rebrand the Aurora Mall, no matter how much you spend on changing the facade.)  I left long ago.  I went away to school in the midwest, spent a year volunteering in Africa, wandered a bit more and somehow find myself receiving my mail in Brooklyn these days.  As my late grandmother remarked, I undid centuries' worth of my family's migrations with a single plane ticket.  Aurora was always great to come home to for the holidays, but I'm just one of those kids with their eyes perpetually on the horizon.

Truth be told, I'd be farther away from the tragedy had I never left.  My parents shelled out for a Catholic school down Parker Road, so I know what crowd I I'd be with if I stayed.  My peers knew their fathers, had cars on their sixteenth, filled out applications for this thing called "college."  They've got their own set of problems now, but none of us ever feared for our personal safety while wearing a Starter jacket during school hours.

I've come to appreciate growing up between the two worlds.  I can talk literature while playing drinking games with the car dealers and mortgage brokers; I know where to keep my eyes and how to comport myself in those......um......diverse parts of town.  Just as I would never trade my quality Jesuit education, so too am I grateful for those moments of terror when John Norman was about to beat the living shit out of little skinny me.

So imagine my sorrow, but, moreover, my resigned understanding when I learned about today's shooting.  Of course that happened where it happened.  Of course I don't have to make frantic phone calls home because people I know don't go to movies at midnight, and certainly not there.  So I could be sad without grieving, feel without hurting, shocked and sympathetic with the full lucidity to shake my head and say, "That's Aurora."  Put their names with Zach Obert, Ed Morales, all those people working at Chuck E Cheese that one night, those at Skate City another, plus at least a couple dozen each year.  My City Of Lights always has police tape and body bags at the ready.

So imagine my disappointment (yes, I am saying disappointment) when they flashed a picture of the "suspect."  Had he been some young, angry, discontent and misguided dropout from Gateway or Overland or Aurora Central, it would have fit the narrative.  There would have been the grief and anger, the pleas for solidarity, a couple wordless candlelight marches and a tearful ceremony of forgiveness between the families and then we could have had The Conversation.  I was all set to lead the excoriation against the NRA and those who fight so tirelessly to arm our streets.  I was salivating to be the one to point out (because, Look At Me, I'm from there!) the billions pouring out of Washington to the campuses of Lockheed and the Air Force Academy for industrialized murder.  Then (Then!) to juxtapose that against the budget shortfalls of Aurora Public Schools and the dearth of opportunity facing young men and women born on the wrong side of I-225.  Add a dash of resentment against the present tax structure that burdens the poor (which would most certainly have affected the formative years of The Shooter), a pinch of militant incredulity at the for-profit health care system (which would have completely ignored the psychological red flags of The Shooter), a dash of lament at the urban sprawl and the sights of blight it leaves behind, then top it all off with a dollop of seething, entitled rage against the Do-Nothing Congress that scares us with abortion and birth certificates so they can keep taking bulging envelopes of cash from the people that keep guns on our streets. 

It was going to be a good one.

Instead it just turns out to be some batshit-crazy grad school ne'er-do-well with faulty neurons and a case of homesickness.  The media will fixate on the video games he played, the music he listened to, who he followed on Twitter, but I knew 90% of what I needed to know when I saw his picture and heard he was from San Diego.  Peers will describe him as "weird", neighbors as "quiet, but polite", and we'll spend a couple news cycles interpreting his creepy green eyes with our thumbs up our asses until Anderson Cooper and Oprah tell us it's about time to move on.  All the while, Romney will try to telegraph fraternity to the gun nuts in his speech of condolence, Obama will go out of his way to mention that the problem is anything other than guns for fear of losing Ohio's electoral votes, and the media will keep its helicopters and klieg lights on standby until the Next One.

An unspeakable tragedy.  A terrible morning.  Let's hug our daughters a little bit closer tonight and remember not to change a fucking thing.

Alas, The Conversation will not happen tonight.  We're destined to keep spinning our wheels into post-industrial dystopian decline and these unfortunate patrons of the silver screen will get a moment of silence at the Rockies game, maybe a couple ribbon decals to grace the cars along Peoria Street.  The rest of us will just be grateful it wasn't us and keep blazing our bold trails of meekness.

And me?  Well, I'll go back to church and that German restaurant next time I'm home.  I'll lament the loss of innocence and try to squeeze some tears out of my eyes.  And then maybe afterward, I'll feel good about my sympathy, remind myself what a terrific victim I can be while driving to a bar downtown.

why i travel

singapore

less than a week ago, i'm walking through little india in penang. from one of the video store's speakers comes gayatri mantra, a hindi chant that i recognized from my time in india a few years ago. i'm not sure exactly where i heard it, maybe the rooftop in jodhpur or one of the ganga aarti ceremonies in rishikesh or just after sunset in delhi. i am certain that it was a poignant moment. that song. it was one of those moments when the world seems to pause for you alone. it's like everything is conspiring to tell you that there's something intangibly real all around you, and it's all good. i heard it then and wanted to know its name. the other day, i walked into the video store and found out.

what i remember most vividly about that moment in india is that it was one that i wanted to put into my pocket. i wanted to saran wrap that baby and stow it away for a rainy day. it was one of those break-glass-in-case-of-emergency-need-for-inspiration memories that get us out of the emotional tunnels of the daily grind.

and then i got home and that momentum seemed to vanish a la sonny bono on a ski slope. to be honest, i started writing a novel, so much of that was self-inflicted and worthwhile in the long run. but hearing that mantra the other day was a poignant reminder. i could call it something like serendipity or destiny, but i like to keep it a bit more plausible. after all, the odds are not exactly astronomical that indian music would be playing in a part of town called little india. i think it best contextualized as a reminder of how good i feel and how great i've been to myself; how i don't have to let it slip away.

this is not a three month trip. departure to arrival, sure. but it really goes back to about one year ago, when i decided that i would travel. it goes back to every time i bit my tongue at a shitty job that allowed me to save; every time i denied myself a short-term diversion so i could be gone for a longer spell. it reaches back to every time i heard the mosquito buzz in my life that told me that something had to be swatted, something had to be itched, something had to be done.

mostly, though, it goes forward. it will be there in the spring in my step and lightness of being. it will be there in my ability to separate what matters from what is just noise. i've made some decisions about my path going forward and at least one of them involves major change. i would not have the strength to do so without these past few months.

if you want the cold, hard facts to support my reasoning for travel, i'm afraid that's as you're gonna get outta me. that may prove unsatisfactory for many out there, those that believe in tangibles and weighing them out like justice. but, dear, there ain't evidence and this is no courtroom. it's a far more important venue that i refer to as life.

if you still need the evidence, still need the play-by-play, then consider this an adumbrated attempt at appeasement. i present my reasons for why i travel:

to be bicycling in angkor wat and have to debate whether to overtake the elephant in front of me

to have to ask what day it is

to learn that it's also called the american war

to be stumbling and sweating after climbing liang biang and receive an introduction to lat barbecue and muoi ot chanh

for the only item on the daily agenda to be sunset

to see conical hats in the rice paddies

because i hear what you have to say about careers, but i remain thoroughly unconvinced

to be here, now

to be now, here

how can i be entirely sure it exists if i don't see it for myself?

to make new friends, on facebook and otherwise

for fan mail

to grab a little khe sanh soil to sprinkle in d.c.

to read matterhorn in vietnam

to feel proud to be out of my 20s

to stare at palm trees for a half-hour and think about life; to continue staring at them for another ten minutes thinking about palm trees

to spot the irrawaddy dolphin

to make solid friendships stronger

to learn the translation for 'no problem' in four languages

because i know why the caged bird sings

to watch an australian open final between a serb and a spaniard while smoking filipino hash with a german in vietnam

to go from exploring my options to optioning to explore

so that when someone asks if i'm canadian, i can reply, "hell no"

to make peace

for the slow boat

to leave it cleaner than i found it

to respect the ladyboy

for thai smiles

because for this bus ride/trek/sunset/walk/coffee/meal/beer/railway ticket queue/swim/dive/song/spectacle, we can be friends

to give myself a little credit for once

because my generation will not be able to retire

for cheap massages

to take life seriously

for strawberry shakes

for ringside seats to muay thai fights

to swim with the barracudas

to pursue that thing called happiness

for street food

to take 1400 pictures and then put the camera away for a little bit

for those 1400 pictures

for endearingly terrible lao karaoke

to follow through on that promise with the eight ball and the corner pocket

to put a face to the name

for reggae bars

to empty my life's spam folder

to arrive in tokyo and kuala lumpur at night

to be the guy riding my motobike through the hoi an pedestrian market

to say chul muouy with the fellas

to be the generation that forgives

but, again, if you have to ask, you'll never understand.


if you followed along on my journey: thank you. i appreciated the company. i'm already looking forward to having more to share in the (hopefully) not too distant future.

and to the great people of these great lands: i simply don't have the words. in their stead, i'll simply say arigato gozaimasu, khawp khun khrap, aw kohn, cam on, khawp jai lai lai, terima kasih, and thank you with perfect pronunciation and my head bowed, palms fused in front of my chest until i'm blue in the face and these tears dry up. i will very soon be gone, and you will never be forgotten.

coming home

melaka, malaysia

with regard to 'proper travel', i believe that one mentally prepares to be away for the exact amount of time they will be gone. they set an internal alarm clock, as it were. there is the initial honeymoon phase where the accumulated baggage from life over there is unpacked. one can make sweet, blissful love to the distance they've put between their stress and their self. toward the end, there is the preparation for reintegration phase where one rearms both defensively and offensively. were i to use a simile or metaphor here, it would be football and/or battle related. in between these phases, there is this thing called living.

the theory states that if you tell yourself you'll return in three months, you'll be ready to return a little bit before that point. over- or under-staying that time frame feels exactly as such. there grows the sensation that you're missing out, be that at home or on the road, case depending. it is my own theory, and according to it, i am ready to come home right about now.

i'm not. sure, okay, i really want to see some people. i miss my family. i can't wait to receive hugs from so many great friends. one of the greatest thrills in life is seeing someone's face light up when they're genuinely excited, and i mean excited, to see you after a prolonged absence. i foresee several instances of that in the coming month and that feels very good.

i miss americans. what a far cry from several years back, but i've determined that we are the funniest and most fun people to be around. i want to hear some new music and spend hours watching and rewatching every vietnam movie. i want to take my time in a great bookstore, catch a baseball game, drink a fat tire, and overdose on mexican food. the friends and family deserve another mention. and another.

but it's not lost on me that i'm closer to jakarta than new york. ditto yangon. shanghai. dhaka. lhasa. geographically, at least, and if i really press two fingers to my spirit's pulse, there are a few other senses as well. a lot of that you would already know. i travel and i write on a blog about how i like to travel; you get it. it's probably lost on nobody that i enjoy seeing new places. but it's bigger than just some desire to take some more photos, collect some more sun, challenge my gastrointestinal system with some new street food. the reason is that i'm good at this. some guys can throw a baseball, others have the patience to care for the infirm, i have talent for travel. they don't keep score on bus ride tolerance, map reading, tuk tuk bargaining, food finding, local experience locating, and they don't have target practice for kindness killing. these are skills, i tell you, and i have them.

in the west, we have personality tests and buy self-help books; we attend seminars and shadow people who are "in the field." we are supposed to add value to some supply chain and be grateful we don't have it as bad as the other guy. i've done that and i am grateful for everything i've got, but it's getting to where i don't see the point. finding a job after traveling is like casually dating after being in love. eating stouffers for dinner after a five-star brunch. it's like that ex-ballplayer in the broadcast booth or selling cars. there's somewhere we'd all rather be and we've been there before. and we were really, really good at it. we are the living, breathing, ruined for everything after.

the after, for me, for now, comes soon. before the after, come the realizations and the bargaining. the anticipations, good and bad, and the nearer i get to that 747, the worse they get. i don't want to perform solidly at a job i'm apathetic about and i don't want to politic. i don't want to spend hours on query letters and be all "professional and shit" around some literary agent. i want to network like my ass wants teeth. i don't want to get into a routine and i don't want to accept things as they are, simply because they are. and, yes, frankly, there are some things about america that i'm less than excited for. i don't want to be asked fifty times in a day about how i am doing and have none but a handful mean it. i don't want to eat across from someone on their cell phone and i really don't want to witness aggravated entitlement. i don't want to hear romney and santorum try to out-cro-magnon one another in their high-wire act for low-lying fruit.

if you're telling me to grow up, you're partially correct. this is all par for the course and one that must be navigated, even if we have to plug our noses for a stretch every now and then. and there is something really beautiful about a normal life. dorothy was right: there is no place like home. it's just that for some of us, saying those magic words and clicking the heels of the ruby slippers is a nice journey that soon has us looking for the songthaew back to oz.

so that's what it shall be: home for now and a "hello kansas i missed you so." appreciate the small stuff, spend some time with auntie em and uncle henry and remember to never take a precious moment with a great person for granted. i'll take toto for a couple spins on the bike, lend a hand on the farm, and make sure i've got my backpack on standby: it might not be today, it might not be tomorrow, but there will be another twister.

pulau penang

penang, malaysia

there is an inherent dissonance between an applebee's commercial and the actual dining experience. as it appears on television, we show up with loose neck ties after a great day at the office to find all our smiling friends of variegated ethnicities gathered around and making merry. a waitress with perky tits and great teeth delivers a couple tall beers and sizzling fajitas, adding an innocuous rejoinder to whatever you said upon entering camera left. your friends all laugh at your expense and you join in after feigning objection. she really got you there, jim. she sure did.

in reality, you're likely to be one of three customers in the entire place. it's mid-afternoon and you're alone at the bar, almost entirely ignored by a bartender riveted by a game of angry birds. you stare down at a plate full of stale mozzarella sticks and think about how the only reason you took the highway off-ramp was because you wanted a clean place to take a dump. this place is far from a neighborhood, and you're definitely not "eating good."

an exaggeration, of course, but once i decided to leave koh tao, i realized that this was close to the sentiment i was feeling. my experience on the island closely resembled the plot of forgetting sarah marshall, without the humor, sadness, or dramatic tension. everything was like a postcard: the views were stunning, but it was two-dimensional and there wasn't much beneath it. there were thai people, but they could have been stage props brought in by the island's management. my lost tribe of merry pranksters was nowhere to be found.

the problem i found in koh tao is similar to the problem i found with thailand in general. in a few words, amateur hour. bush league. off-off-off-off-off broadway. not the thai people, of course. any fault i attribute to them is the fact that their wonderful nature created a troubling predicament. like mexico, thailand suffers from a perfect storm of perfection that bleeps big on the sonar of the less sophisticated. i am referring to bros, bro. the country has a major international airport, fantastic beaches, cheap prices, great food, easy transport, a lax policy to alcohol consumption, and super friendly people. it is, with great reason, a fantastic travel destination, and the shame of it all is that this has not gone unnoticed.

i am trying not to sound like i'm drinking perrier, using a silk kerchief to clear caviar from my beard and scoffing at the proletariat. what i'm trying to articulate is that there is a certain type of traveler, a type i became accustomed to traveling with over the years. this person does nothing extraordinary; they simply store some basic local language greetings in their head and visit a couple local places. they smile and/or acknowledge the other human beings in their presence. they do and behave in a manner commensurate with that which one would reasonably define as "nice." basically, that whole when-in-rome thing. there are those in thailand, for sure, but there was an overwhelming feeling that i was a visitor at the sigma chi house's annual thai fiesta (because they would call it that.) you take your beverage in a bucket and make sure your muscles are flexed as you drink it to better showcase your tribal tattoos. there is a full-moon party tonight in koh phangan, don't dare ask me if i'm going.

so it was a relief when my travel plans were diverted to singapore and an even greater relief to arrive in malaysia. i hadn't really given the country much consideration and after half a day i am already scheming on how to get back. i am walking around an island that is the love-child of every major eastern and western naval power of the past millenium. i had dim sum for breakfast, will have indian for lunch, and then hit two or three street carts offering a melange of tastes for dinner. and the best part? it's all local. i have already had three endearing, genuine conversations with locals and foresee several more in the days remaining.

so i know i'm contradicting everything i wrote two posts ago. i swear i thought i was telling the truth. i thought i wanted to drop my pack for good. i thought i was fine with spending us$15 on lodging, sitting still or alternating my position beneath the palm trees depending on the whim for sun or shade. i thought i was ready for unapologetic relaxation. turns out, i was relaxed enough.

i will say that the spirit of that post remains intact. one should conclude their trip doing what they want and, if i may dare say so, what makes them happy. for me, that will include three days of five-plus hour train trips with the days in between dedicated to walking with my camera, pausing for street food. if it must be reduced: eating good, in the neighborhood.

standby

chumphon, thailand

of a myriad of childhood influences, the fact that my mom worked for a major airline may have been the greatest. the job, from my vantage point, was far from great. the commute was long, management sounded to be aloof at best, and humanity rarely gets uglier than when someone is upset at an airport (if you want to see an asshole personified, look no further than the customers queued at an airline kiosk next time there's a delay.) of course, i didn't have to endure any of that. i just got to enjoy a perk that makes the company car look like, well, peanuts (sorry for the obvious in-flight reference.)

i am speaking of free or extremely reduced-cost air travel, but i'm sure you already picked up on that. after the paying passengers have boarded, there will typically be a handful of empty seats distributed to the standby list, the end of which is comprised of airline employees and their companions. usually, there are enough leftover seats that you will get to where you want to go. it may not be the first flight and may entail an out-of-the-way connection (or four), but the odds are in your favor.

because of this benefit, we had season tickets to university of washington football, even though we lived in denver. more than once, we flew into lax in the morning, spent the day at disneyland, and flew back at night. when a good friend moved to cleveland, i could visit him for a week every summer. for one long weekend holiday my senior year, mom took me to australia for a few days. i also saw my grandparents as frequently as if they were neighbors, even though they lived in seattle.

it was as great as it sounds, but it also instilled some heavy doses of humility. it didn't matter if we had a week marked off the calendar and hotel reservations; if flights to honolulu were full, we weren't going. we had to dress well and sit upright and be on our best behavior, otherwise "our" seats could be passed on to someone down the list (though i think my mom exaggerated that part.) it takes two hands to count the number of times i have slept inside chicago o'hare's airport and there have been multiple holidays that were this close to being spent in a food court.

the big takeaway, as far as i see it, is that my modus operandi was entirely molded on the concourses of this great world's airports: the world is yours, so long as you'll fit. or: you can go anywhere you want to go, just don't be a dick about it. however you wish to phrase it, i owe an astronomical debt to the cosmos for granting access to the globe and front-row seats at seminars on patience, hard work, entitlement, and humility at the school of hard knocks. the end result may not be receiving any awards, but, hey, i'm in thailand right now. and i'm not being a dick about it.

this present trip is a result of several serendipitous blessings, none greater than the reinstatement of flight priveleges this year. you probably don't want to hear what the flight portion does or does not cost, and you certainly don't want to hear that i went over the water both times in business class. what is more relevant is that the time to return is nearing and my eyes in the sky have suggested that bangkok is looking a little tough to get out of. there's one flight a day and it looks to be a photo finish each and every one. what could happen? i could catch the first flight out. i could also spend a week riding back and forth on the sky train on polar ends of unsuccessful attempts to fly the friendly skies.

so i'm going to singapore. flights are looking pretty good for early next week and since i'm only a few train rides away from the bottom of the peninsula, i reckon i'll just take the rails down. i'll get a malaysia stamp in the passport and introduce some new street food to the system. vacation was nice and lovely, but i've got to catch a flight in about a week. until then, the world is still mine.

vacation

koh tao, thailand

there is a stark difference between travel and vacation. the former is the thinking (wo)man's foray into the foreign, a search within and without for some sort of meaning. vacation is putting on the blinders to all the stresses and worries of the world over there, a chance to forget and recharge. the participants in both activities, like it or not, are tourists.

a traveler will tell you that someone on vacation is entirely oblivious of their surroundings and only looking to massage their id. the average person on vacation does not know who a traveler is or what they do, only that they do not want them near. the traveler is typically identified by wearing pants or shorts that look like they were cut from some sort of florid, indigenous tapestry. the vacationer typically sports a tank top with a logo or cartoon strip advertising that they do, in fact, enjoy drinking alcohol. the advantage of the traveler, and i would add obligation, is to end their wanderings with a vacation. i am doing so right now.

if the key to travel is a submission to spontaneity, the secret sauce in a vacation is advanced planning and rigid inertia during the period in question. i have known all along that i would vacation in southern thailand and had the benefit of traveling in the same region. most of the farang on the banana pancake trail have come from here or are likewise on their way, so there has been no shortage of advice over the past few months. there were a few who recommended koh tao, sure. more important were the endorsements of other islands and beaches along the way. at the risk of sounding as i am, which in this case is extremely judgmental, i have to say that an understanding of the messenger was vital in understanding the message. i admit that there have been numerous occasions where i've asked an unsuspecting twenty-something which places they or their kind enjoy going so that i can cross it off my list. this process, more scientific and kind that it sounds, brought me to koh tao.

i've got a few days of diving under the belt. my allegiance to inactivity has kept me on the main strip in town, sairee beach, spelling breaks from spy novels by cooling off in the sea or quick jaunts to order coffee shakes. at sunset, i have several options for restaurants with padded seating and a chillout soundtrack. after washing off the day's accumulated salt, i hit one of a handful of trusty pad thai carts and log some critical people-watching time. once dinner is through, i could go to any number of the bars associated with the flyers i've accumulated in my evening walk. for no reason in particular, i've preferred a leisurely stroll back and an earlier hour for sleep.

part of that is to say that sairee beach was good for my diving oxygen supply but has not been quite as aligned with my spirit. not that it is a bad place, just one that suggests that i could find better on this island. so i will, tomorrow. i will rent an eyesore of a motorbike and ride around the hills and peninsulas of this island until i find that eden worthy of my final days. there will be sand to dig in my toes, a modest hill for climbing, and something soft to lean on or swing in for the three hours i will dedicate to the sunset. and the right guest house will announce itself to me clearly. no sooner than i step off my motorbike will a pair of bearded gentlemen with the potential for good conversation relieve me of my heavy bag and take it directly to my modestly-priced bungalow, the last vacancy remaining. two sylphlike local women will hand me a cold chang and a kebab with large, freshly grilled prawns and lead me arm-in-arm down to a large bonfire on the beach below. upon my arrival, the small, friendly congregation will break out, in unison, "it's about time. we've been waiting for you."

and i will not think about my return, my reintegration, my acquiescence to wearing shoes and a belt. i will just be here, now, and be now, here. i will do all that a proper vacation entails, and not a damn thing more.

under the sea

koh tao, thailand

the subject is scuba diving. pressed for metaphors, i would go with human flight. not in the roger-victor-you're-cleared-for-takeoff sense, more in the donning a cape and looking on the hamlet below with benevolent or nefarious vigilance, case depending. on the mechanics alone, the metaphor suits. up here on terra firma, we're a bit constrained by gravity and an extra dimension in our movements; a bit like those limitations imposed upon early era nintendo video game protagonists. but down below (and as the movies suggest, up above), one's body can move up, down, and side-to-side with scant limitation save for physical conditioning and oxygen supply. but that's not the reason for the metaphor (or was this a simile?)

i've gone deep, real deep, five times over the past forty-eight hours per the requirements of my advanced certification course. there was one dive that involved a one meter square and my best impression of a performing seal. another had a compass on my wrist with a little obstacle course and the third found a flashlight in my left hand as we searched the coral after sunset. both of my dives today bottomed out at thirty meters and that was the "lesson" in its entirety.

the reason behind all of it, and i'm getting back to the flying thing mentioned above, is that scuba diving is fun. it is surreal. it is one of those rare activities that can literally transport you into another world (if you do not classify the bottom of the ocean as another world, then we are in complete disagreement.) to know barracuda in its grilled form is to know a delicacy; to see a school of hundreds of them slice by above you is to have an experience. to hear ringo sing about an octopus' garden is to appreciate the quantity of drugs he must have ingested; to see one hovering under the coral is to understand that he could have been dead sober and padi certified. it is easy enough to dismiss the clipboard-toting and hairy-legged girl accosting you to save the coral reef outside whole foods or your favorite bookstore, but to see tens of thousands of inch-long fish hover and sway within inches of a massive submerged outcropping is to understand that the coral respires. it breathes and lives like any of us, though it's far more beautiful and supports infinitesimally more life.

and that's still only part of it. looking up to see the sun cut through deep, azure waters? yeah. hearing your breath come in sounding like you're on life support and then expelling a thousand clear bubbles that come out sounding like currency in a bubbly kingdom. seeing that this fish could kill you but it won't; you could kill that one but you could never; all the while this one is rubbing against your leg and another is inches from your mask and you think yourself better for all of it combined.

at some point, i realized that the best comparison is travel. both experiences involve a displacement from the norm and an immersion into the foreign. you drop into a different world to which you can never truly belong. even if you memorize the lay of the land, find a way to know and communicate with the inhabitants, find yourself a never exhaustive supply of clean air and nourishment, there will always be at least one thing you will never know because you're not from there. you never could be and you never will be and you must accept the fact that you are there to learn and love and embrace as much as possible to take back in your heart and mind, because there is no other way it can go with you. at least, at the end of this trip, i will have another degree of certification for one of them.

border run

chumphon, thailand

not more than ten hours ago, i was sitting on a wooden bench overlooking a roundabout for the vehicles of a high-end resort, listening to britney spears sing a missive "from the bottom of [her] broken heart." a bit incongruous, one might conclude, the image of my bearded, bohemian self waiting for a shuttle at a luxury casino/golf course complex. still probably not as odd as the fact that the background for this setting was none other than one the world's poorest and most isolated nations, myanmar.

the how and why are simple enough to explain. thailand grants foreigners from most countries fifteen days' stay when they cross in by land. one can stay beyond that, but the daily surcharge comes in at close to us$20 and for some of us that sounds like a whole lot more than "twenty bucks." of course, one could always just "go home," but that doesn't sound like too much fun now, does it? this means that those wishing to stay longer need to make a dash for one of several borders before returning. the free market disciple will say that the market is there to fulfill the need. i would be more likely to say that this creates an opportunity for someone to make a buck while adding no value to the world. potato/potahto.

so, i had to go to myanmar. and, technically, i did. i made a beeline from chiang mai to ranong over the course of 29 hours and found one of several services in town offering 'visa runs.' my boat left at 8:30 this morning. we crossed in a high-speed ferry (mr. thein sein: tear down this andaman sea) and disembarked at the concrete steps for andaman club, the aforementioned resort and casino. i followed a group of four russians exhibiting early morning malaise through their tepid dubaduh dubaduh plazita blazita plazita blazitas through a quick passport stamping and onto a hotel shuttle. from there, to the hotel lobby, where we turned around so that i could be serenaded by a melancholy ms. spears and eventually shuttled back to the boat.

it's been a day of my life that has not made me a better man. the fresh-inked and well-pressed myanmar stamp in my passport will serve as a flipbook reminder of how i haven't really been to the country. the images of the casino and its obeisant staff will be the ones playing through my mind each time i read about the very real people having very real struggles in the very real part of that country. and me, i lost 1000 baht on the tour and one day on the beach. i guess if i put it in the context of the myanmar i didn't see today (but will someday), i really have no basis for complaint.

fight night

chiang mai, thailand

it's somewhat easy to forget that things are a bit different over here. there are the temples and a different alphabet, but after a while the signage and aesthetics blend into the background. if laos served consistent reminders that i was not in kansas anymore, thailand has been far more subtle. roads are paved and often have more than one lane going in the same direction(!). wifi is ubiquitous and ronald mcdonald is frequently winking in collusion at the starbucks mermaid. again with the seven-elevens.

last night was unmistakeably a step back into the land of yore. if not culturally, then at least with regard to western ethical notions of what should and should not be classified as entertainment. i, along with some few hundred people, paid about twenty dollars to watch shirtless thai adolescents punch and kick each other for sport. and it made all the difference.

we arrived too late to place a proper wager on the girls' fight. by my guess, we entered while they were in the second or third round, as evidenced by the accumulated sweat and slightly swollen eyes. the fight came to a decision and i was left with deep-seeded concerns about the corruption of the thai state. was i questioning how any country would deem it legal for young girls to harm themselves for exhibition while profiteers sold tickets and beer? that too, but mostly how any judge could have given the decision to the girl in the blue corner. she done got beat, and everyone saw it.

the fighting took a more straightforward course for the next couple bouts. the two of us alternated choosing fighters and shadowboxed in our seats alongside them. the boys wore traditional head wear resembling stringless badminton rackets and gave some sort of buddhist devotion to each corner before the bout. the bell would ring and the three-piece band played cobra charming music behind us. the boys squared off and tried to make their fathers proud. us too. we were glad that nobody got hurt and savored the victories when they came. i'll forever cherish that moment when geng chayyaigym's knee went up and pataek sitkruood went down and i found myself the new owner of a tall chang beer. these are moments in life.

there was a moment of dubious moral levity during the king-of-the-hill sequence. six boys were paraded into the ring, blindfolded, and the farang in the audience questioned if we were really about to see what we were about to see. we were, but at least kicking was not allowed. the kids blindly felt their way around the ring until making contact with someone else and then wailed away. on more than one occasion, the referee was dodging a barrage of attacks. the five minutes allowed the combatants to endear themselves to us. we felt like we truly knew them. there was tornado kid, spinning around in 720s with the hopes of delivering the lethal blow to someone. mostly, he fell into the opposite corner and one or two others would trip over his body. windmill kid was vicious. he softly felt around until finding someone, then reached back like he was pitching a softball and coming down hard on their back. i probably would have fallen just like all the others did; if that kid eats less than two dozen egg rolls a day, count me in the surprised column.

the night closed with a three-round exhibition between a guy from california and a local fighter past his prime. the american held himself well in both fight and sportsmanship, even if he fell victim to a biased decision. he was grateful for the call-and-response i started during the fight from team america and really wished he could have stayed to talk a bit longer. unfortunately, he was gassed and regretting the beer he had before the fight. we hung around for a photo shoot on the canvas and the opportunity for a game of pool. the sounds gone and the lights turning off in the complex, we left and stepped back into the more recognizable world, grateful for the detour.

seeing hands

chiang mai, thailand

they say that familiarity breeds contempt, and that would be taking it too far. in southeast asia's particular case, familiarity breeds familiarity, or, at least begets a law of diminishing returns for various stimuli and phenomena. approaching two weeks until departure, i'm starting to open my eyes once more to my surroundings, very much aware of the upcoming transition from life moment to lifetime memory. this manifests itself in various ways. there has been a spike in strawberry shake consumption. i've embarked on this strange activity referred to as "shopping." and i've begun to read the writing on the wall. that's where they have the prices listed for massages.

they're cheap and they're offered everywhere. in my experience, they're so ubiquitous that after two weeks i hardly noticed someone was willing to relieve my body's accumulated stress for us$5 per hour. it was just par for the course. my own massage visits have come in spurts, if you'll permit me one unintended, inappropriate double entendre. my first visit was on my first day in bangkok. it was a godsend after arriving from winter and seemed like a fantastic way to kill an hour while waiting for the lsu-alabama kickoff. i crossed a border and briefly continued the trend in cambodia. the country has a fantastic concept where they train the blind to give massages, thus allowing a respectable trade and wage to the handicapped. i had two myself, calling it quits after the second confirmed that their mentor's teachings were a little too heavy on the death grip. not only did i pay to feel like i was in guantanamo, i also got the opportunity to complain to a blind man. i should have kicked a legless orphan just to keep that high going.

save for one post-trek visit in sapa, there was nothing until this dimaggio-streak i've had going for the past week. the thais have the best practice, in my opinion, and the weather has turned so that there is really no point in being aggressive with sightseeing during the day's hottest hours. letting someone knead your muscles and crack your bones is a great way to give your book an hour or two of intermission.

and the atmosphere has been fantastic. spending the real money yields the scented candles and soundtracks inspired by sounds of the forest or waves crashing. that whole thing strikes me as an intimacy i simply cannot associate with stretching my tendons. what i've found so far in the north is the equivalent of a korean nail salon. older ladies chat away in open rooms with several foam mattresses and spinning fans. i have my eyes closed while one of them eases the tension from the kilometers of walking and hours of compression in planes, trains, and automobiles. she gets to catch up on gossip with her friends while letting my lanky frame redefine the potential of just what a limb could be.

all the while, i get comfort in the security that i'm not going into one of those other massage parlors. i'm pleased to report that i haven't even been offered a happy ending. many people come to this part of the world specifically for that additional service, so it is a potential hazard. there are concerns about the objectification of women and the health risks of solicitation, but i'm afraid that my reason for not partaking is far simpler: it would just feel weird (not literally, of course; one could argue that it would actually feel quite good.) i should probably be more vehemently opposed to the practice on moral grounds, but i've met enough people who do or have done it and it really is far more nuanced than the larger dialogue cedes. if the masseuse is willing and of a certain age, how you spend your money is really none of my business.

which all feels refreshing. what, you ask, feels refreshing? why, the relief at being able to come clean about how i'm not coming dirty (okay, sorry, two double entendres) during this trip. it's something that is often wondered whenever you meet a solo male traveler above a certain age and it's always good to dispel. of course, i could just be dispelling it publicly to hide my shame at having done the practice privately. but then again, why would i write about the topic if i had done it? wouldn't that just be drawing attention to the whole matter, attention that i would be looking to avoid? then again, you counter, maybe i am soliciting and using this forum to take control of the dialogue and shape it with my lies (inspired by the republican primaries, of course)?

listen, i only have two things to say before closing this out: 1) i am not paying for sexual relations, and 2) i should have just written about the strawberry shakes.

into the hills

pai, thailand

there have been better nights' sleep. with several gaps between the bamboo reeds comprising the wall and my placement right beside it, the cool night air was a formidable obstacle. though the reeds were woven tighter on the floor beneath, their firmness eliminated several potential sleeping positions. in the window between howling dogs and singing cocks, there was maybe an hour's worth of sleep to be found. the next morning, i was tired but not alone. between the eight of us trekking for a night with a hill tribe, we could probably combine for the doctor-recommended night's rest of one individual. not that we were complaining.

we didn't sign up for comfort, though that's not to say we registered for discomfort, either. it came with the territory and the territory, we were told, came with the indigenous people to whom it has belonged for over a century. we spent the night with the lahu and finished by going in a karen village (the karen are a people. had it been singular, there would have been fewer photographs and we, most assuredly, would have worn protection.) if my trek into the past in sapa was real if not authentic, then the past two days made up for whatever local snap, crackle, and pop was lacking in the prior. no, there was no indigenous dancing. no animal sacrifice or primal incantations. there would be no exotic wardrobe.

what we did receive was a warm welcome, plenty of tea, and a room large enough that each farang could have their spread for the night. if we were not given sleep numbers and teddy bears, then our soft, pampered western bodies were better for it. the local children in the village stared at us as if we were foreigners, something not always felt on treks into cultural hinterlands. the town was without a shop, nor any other opportunity for us to shill out our baht into the local economy. it was a town, and we could stay there. we had a great guide, so we were able to learn a thing or two.

our overnight village was near inaccessible on account of the fires. it is the dry season around these parts, a time when locals burn the forest to clear and prepare valuable land for the upcoming planting season. if it sounds a bit narrow-minded to destroy something that benefits all of us (the forest) because of individual needs, you might be on to something. if you saw that it all comes back to us, you'd be getting warmer still.

they didn't always need so much land. the local people throughout northern thailand and the area known as the golden triangle have not always been subsistence farmers. they used to cultivate opium poppies, something that required a percentage of the labor and netted one more zero in their income than the present tense. we in the west decided that we didn't want opium in our backyard, so they couldn't have it in their front. nevermind that it was the cash crop for entire populations for generations. nevermind that it was going to show up on our shores and in our veins nonetheless. nevermind that it's the substance of the problem, not the substances we use to hide behind, that is the real issue.

they continue to work and not complain, because only one of those pays the bills. they'll keep the present rotation of burn, plant, harvest and add the occasional supplement provided by a visit from the farang. i'll just wish that we in the west could humanize our drug laws so that both users and primary growers are not the ones punished. it's always the middlemen that create the problems; the rest of us are just trying to get something to help us sleep.

life of pai

pai, thailand

one would be forgiven for confusing this town with boulder, co. there are mountains looming, a meandering creek, courses for yoga and massage, an abundance of thai food, and not all of the long-hairs are posers. there is even a buffalo exchange.

the town has the feel of being the right place to be for me, right now. wifi is abundant and i've been able to get good audio feeds for the ncaa basketball tournament (my bracket is looking pretty tough, btw [raises and holds hand in air, waiting for monster high five.]) plus, i'm sick. nothing bad, just seems like the mucus factory got a stimulus grant and my slight cough comes with textures. i did just spend three consecutive days of at least eleven hours in moving vessels with dozens of others, so being sedentary in a relaxed town is as good a prescription as any. a relaxed town that sells ginger tea on every corner, i might add.

still, i'm a bit bored by it all. the "illness" is not confining; i could very well keep pushing the proverbial tempo if i wanted. actually, if some dutch couple did not want to ride elephants today, i would be cooking with bamboo and sleeping near the myanmar border right now. instead, i'll have to wait until tomorrow. the meantime has been filled with hammocks and tea and earnest attempts at breaking through the poor writing in a tesla biography. the number of fresh fruit smoothies is approaching double digits. and i'm not relaxed.

what i thought would be an exercise in recovery has actually been a test of patience. this is week number twelve (more or less) of get-up-and-go. riding from dawn to dusk to pack all the travel into one day, allowing the next for whatever temple/beach/historical site is at the end of the road. i've parked myself for four or five days here or there, but even that felt methodical. those who know me would be loathe to use such pejoratives as "planner" and "restless" in my description. somehow, some way, that's kind of what i become out here.

it's a good approach for this life. spending six weeks on ecstasy in ko phi phi may work for some, but the better call is to actually, ya know, see a place. ergo, transporting oneself like a cliche '80s song title. but that day will come when the bag gets put down and there's no more guidebook necessary. get-up-and-go will come from the alarm clock and some expectant combination of boss and client. coffee will be taken in motion and the ability to put something off for another day will provide the true reward. the key, i'm thinking, is how to balance the two.

this is the part where i say that i have found it and, truth be told, i think i have. for me. that's why i do/did this. it involves a little more movement and a high degree of uncertainty, a combination that i'm slowly realizing brings out the best in me. so i still have a bit more time to plan. a bit more time to think of logistics. i suppose it'd be a good hour to get some more tea, maybe even a little rest. this town is suitable for the night, but there's a jungle waiting for me out there tomorrow.

a simple statement

pai, thailand

an objective statement, really, but even the most benign and general is subject to so many caveats. there are any number of prejudices and biases, whether they be known or unknown. even if i self-assess as clear and absolved of any of the aforementioned, maybe the doubt will remain in the minds of others. in an effort to inoculate against any such skepticism, a few qualifications and clarifications must precede.

there are sociocultural biases. it is necessary to acknowledge the lens of the "other" through which one regards another culture or any tangible/intangible byproducts of said perceived alien. even if the decolonization of the mind is not, ipso facto, possible in deed, it can at least be acknowledged as an inhibitor of pure objective reason. so too with every one of a wide range of lenses. the framework of paternalism most definitely applies, as do any number of historical antecedents ranging from "the white man's burden" to orientalism to the westphalian construct of the nation-state and the impressions these created/exploited. it need not be explained, though certainly bears mentioning, that though the self perceives, its inclusion as a part in a larger whole (i.e. regional/national/cultural biases and frameworks) inherently suggests at least a minimum of conscious/sub-conscious inculcation.

the cultural-historical framework dovetails in concert with biological and genetic preferences vis-a-vis ethnocentrism and xenophobia, depending on definition and manifestation. intrinsic physical preferences for similarity to the self (ex. face structure, skin tone, height/weight, etc) are deductive, individual preferences rendered from the larger, anthropological preference of the people to which said individual belongs. of course, those points heretofore stated do not take into account the fetishization of the foreign, but then that is a long, windy path with freudian and jungian tangents that, again, do not need description so much as acknowledgment.

then there is the subjectivity of experience, i.e. the formulation of opinions based on experience and the cumulative effect of the self-protagonizing window through which we regard external stimuli internally. all of which, really, is simply the inherent and prejudicial trust assigned to our own inductive and deductive reasoning for no other reason than that they are our own (i.e. self-fulfilling prophecy.) at which point, if we're truly going to acknowledge these disparities, it bears mentioning that perception and awareness are dictated by those of self-consciousness alone, those only seen by the other, that which is seen by both, and that which shall forever remain outside the doors of perception of both parties (e.g. johari window.) remember, these are just the influences, with scant mention of the opinions thereby derived, something that shall, again, be mentioned without superfluous explanation.

of course, there remain the larger existential factors which must, inter alia, be presented if not fully dissected. whereby tangible, baryotic objects are not, in and of themselves, necessarily existent (i.e. a grain of sand is only a grain of sand until it is perceived as a grain of sand, whereby it becomes subject to the biases heretofore described, etc), further questions remain for the existential nature of intangible concepts (i.e. culture, customs, etc.) it, at least, bears mentioning that such intangibility becomes subject to existential dilemmas primarily and teleological factors (intrinsic and extrinsic finality) even if such digression were to fall beyond the purview of this examination.

so, if we take all of that into consideration, then i'd simply like to say:

asia's pretty fuckin' weird, man

slow boat

huay sai, laos

a month before this trip began, a friend and i attended the secret science club at the bell house in brooklyn. they showed a nova video and had some quirky little astrophysicist give a funny talk about dark matter. the next day at the farmers market, a man affectionately known as mr. science dropped by my tent and ten minutes later was lecturing about a dozen passersby on the basics of the universe. it was a funny scene and i was thinking about it today. why? i was looking at the river go against us and i started thinking about spacetime, that fourth dimension of physics that explains, well, time and how it passes and its interaction with baryonic matter. it made sense to think about at the time.

you see, i'm a thinker. i try not to talk about it too much, but if i told you the thoughts and their tenuous chains and the way they flash through my mind, you'd probably classify me as neurotic. not like the thoughts are bad. okay, sometimes they are, not usually. if anything, they're random. what's distinctive for me is that speech and language do something so cruel to thought and a favorite pastime of mine is a good stare. take those eyes of mine, put something aesthetically pleasing in front of 'em, let the mind back up its software. sometimes i fear that nobody will ever no me better than the passing terrain behind a dirty glass window. i comfort myself in knowing that its pretty harmless and i don't feel right if it's not done.

i've covered the bases by now. i mean, here i have. all that emotional, professional, personal baggage that comes with the 'participant' medal from the field day of life. there's no shortage of mind fodder for that life, but i've been traveling for long enough to feel away from a lot of that. feeling a little bit more here, now. that doesn't mean i don't still like a good think, it's just that now i can get a little bit more random, kick it a little more freestyle, and it's all good.

which is all to say that the past two days have been like spiritual porn for the thinker within me. a two-day boat ride. a slow boat ride. going against the million-ish liters of water per minute that comprise the proverbial grain of the mekhong. a boat no wider than two meters, a wooden roof the same, and about twenty to thirty meters long.

no windows, but a movie was playing for me between the wooden posts on the starboard side. a movie starring water, showing its range in a gritty performance filled with everything from placid calm to white-capped rapids. rolling mountains and verdant palms appeared in noteworthy supporting roles. small villages and villagers and limestone outcroppings were but a handful of the stellar guest appearances and sun killed it with the cinematography. i've reached the destination, so i guess that ruins the ending. i recommend your own personal screening nonetheless.

it's getting to be time now. tomorrow i cross into thailand and the next stamp will happen at an airport. trust me, i'm not whining. i still have more time remaining than most americans take for their annual holiday. i'm just saying that this splendid boat ride felt like the beginning of the, not end, but of the return. a content counterpart to the trail of tears. enough time remains that i don't have to think about imminent reintegration and the stresses of the other life i supposedly lead. but i could start. the pressures not on, as i'm sure i'll be able to think of more random topics, be they in physics or otherwise.

another thing i was thinking: the larger, cultural equivalent of this boat ride. we were going against the river, so i initially thought about apocalypse now, what with the whole being in laos thing. but that wasn't it. i had an a-ha moment at some later point i can't remember and realized it was the great gatsby. as the big boy wrote, i felt like i myself was beating on, boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

thirty-two

luang prabang, laos

today is a day like any other day, except that it happens to be the day that i turn thirty-two years old.

[can i get a little piano, for the background? just a little rolling of the fingers soft and light over the high keys. the tone should be soothing with the slight undertone of an edge. something reflective. yes. just like that. turn up the bass on the vocal]

as i've written before on this forum, there is nothing remarkable or monumental about the age. this morning was no different from any five years ago and likely the same for anything within the next five. society tells me that i should procreate and pay my taxes, and i remain within that lucrative demographic that's easy prey for anything from doritos to oldsmobiles.

[at this point, i'd like to add some cello. let's get some looooooong and broooooooad strokes to accompany the piano. several octaves lower, of course. just take that bow slowly, deeply baaaaaaaack and fooooooooooorth. just like that]

we assign all the landmarks to the formative and final years; the sunrise and sunset. if you're able to find someone who can tolerate you, there's a wedding that can be thrown in for good measure. other than that, it seems like it's the starting gun and the finish line. but if you're truly paying attention, you'll notice that there will be indicators, if not the rewards of the bookend ages. they may not be handing out the medals, but they're the ones cheering you on in word and deed. it's still your own race and it always will be. i guess i'm just saying that i'm far enough out there to gauge how well i'm doing.

[let's get the tenor sax to gently edge its way in there. trailed ever so slightly by the oboe. i want the tenor to take the lead, as it were, but the oboe should be complimenting the sax in particular and the whole ensemble in general. keep up those broad strokes, cellist]

and to be even more specific, i would add that i have a great vantage point on the life in motion. i may not exactly know which direction i might be traveling in, but i know that it's forward. i may not know the destination, but i think i'm on course for a good one. it's step-by-step plodding and i can't say that each moment is necessarily getting better, even though the years clearly are.

[time for the percussion. let's get some soft, padded mallets to gently cascade up a pair of tom-toms to a gentle, rainy cymbal. nothing too sharp. just like each note is an echo of soft, distant thunder]

nobody said it would be easy. life is hard, hard work and trying to live it honestly is even harder. everybody's keeping score and they're not keen on sharing the point spread. you try to take something good and leave something better and not always sure that you're succeeding. you get to the point where you'll just settle for a good night's sleep.

[add the other hand for the lower keys, pianist. everyone: we're changing over to the bridge, lower it an octave]

i've been through the hard times, we all have. i've taken the punches and it's not always felt good, even when you believe in that makes-you-stronger adage. i've hurt and been hurt and felt like the headgear on tyson's sparring partner.

[back up an octave]

but i've gotten back up each time and stood taller. i didn't let the cheap shots distract me, those side swipes that try to pull you back down with the troglodytes. i know where my battle lies and i've stared steely-eyed forward through the rivulets of my own blood in pursuit of what matters.

[come in here, trumpet. blare out like a triumphant bugle with your dun-da-da-da-duuuuun. hold us together, piano]

and it may not be showing up on the scoreboard. i may not be on the cover of time and i certainly haven't discovered some breakthrough microbe. but i can already look back on more than a decade of tenacious, humble pursuit of a good life.

[drums!]

a life that might not be the ideal for the masses, but one that suits me just fine. a life a little less centered on stopping on other's toes and a little more focused on a good walk and whistle. and maybe that's what i should be looking for all along.

[trumpet!]

so i don't know where i'll be when i'm sixty-four. i don't know where the world will be and certainly not my place in it. but i can look back on the past thirty-two and see some good photos, some wonderful people, and already a lifetime of memories from chasing down my own quixotic dreams.

[trumpet!]

and if nothing else,

[stay with us, piano!]

i can say that from myself,

[drums!]

i have already learned the formula

[cowbell!]

for a life well-lived.

[trumpet!]