Taking Comfort

Kerala, January 2016

What strange trajectories life can take. 

I remember thinking this lying in my bunk at the Ashram, staring up at the world map pinned to the crumbling wall next to me. I'd been in India for less than a week, and I had already found a rhythm to my days and nights, enveloped in comfort--more comfort than I'd felt in a long time. Ever, in fact. Comfort. A word as foreign to me as everything I was now surrounded by. I had walked away from one life to live a completely different one. I'd done this before so the concept wasn't new to me, but India was. And, I was noticing, so was comfort.

Chiang Mai, December 2023

I'd left Chiang Mai in a state of discomfort days before the new year. Six weeks prior, I'd returned from the US to an unwelcoming energy that left me frustrated, drained, and eventually injured in a way that stopped me from doing many things. There had been a series of events stretching back to earlier in the year that had me questioning my relationship to this city and many people in it. Was I still thriving here? Was I tapped into community in the same way I once was? Did I have any friends left I could turn to and trust in a time of crisis? Had I outgrown my time here? 

Kolkata, January 2024

In the heart of a bustling city, I found all the answers I needed. Venturing out of the comfort of our cozy Kolkata hotel and later the safety of the monastery, I expected to get caught up in the chaotic energy of the world around me. I expected discomfort. But, much like my first time in India, I didn't. In the midst of nonstop traffic and honking and crowds of people, I found peace. 

I found comfort in a bookshop off of busy College Street where we found a book I'd been trying to track down for nearly a year. I found comfort (and the best coffee ever) in a well known noisy, crowded café. I found comfort wandering parks and libraries, sipping chai at a small roadside stall, and meeting monks and philosophers and enthusiastic students. I found a sense of acceptance and belonging I'd forgotten I could feel. 

Rishikesh, March 2016

After nearly three months in India, it was in a yoga teacher training course where I finally learned not to get caught in the washing machine (as our teacher so eloquently put it)--a lesson I'd be reminded of again and again over the years, one that would bring me back to center when the world around me seemed to keep knocking me down and luring me back into the spin cycle.

Goa, January 2024

The dark sky took me by surprise. It had been awhile since I'd seen sky so clear--the constellations and planets brilliant against the moonless sky. We walked the length of Agonda Beach, from one edge of the bay to the other and back. The gentle break of the waves was the only sound, and their cool splash around my ankles kept me grounded. I'd only been to a handful of places like this in my life--dark sky and ocean--one of the last being on the northern coast of Borneo several years ago, one of the first during a journey induced by a hypnotherapist nearly 10 years prior, learning then that this space of dark sky and water was where I needed to be to feel safe, to bring me comfort when I needed it most.

Chiang Mai, January 2024

After having spent nearly four decades of my life in a mostly constant state of discomfort and anxiety, what comfort I found lying in that Ashram bed I've carried with me. I'd like to think it's what's guided me toward and away from most people and places and things that have crossed my path these past 8 years. Being back in India reminded me what comfort feels like. I returned to Chiang Mai with a renewed sense of vitality and a plan to help me navigate through my life during the times I'm based here. So far, it's working. 

Where do you find comfort? What brings you back to it when you find yourself spinning in the washing machine? 

The Last Quarter

At first it was challenging--the constant movement, disrupted sleep, the unfamiliar yet familiar sights and sounds. The vast distances between point A and point B. The unanticipated caution, kind attention, and eventually comfort. I became accustomed to all these things and grew to enjoy them to the point I didn't want to leave, not quite yet anyway. Hindsight or perhaps intuitive foresight is something else isn't it. 

Week 1: Conduit

Maria and I drove south from the valley to the coast and stood silent on the cliff edge. The ocean violently slammed into the rocks, then receded. The silent stories from my past slammed into me, then receded. I no longer need these stories to remind me of my strength and resilience. Why do I keep coming back to this town, these cliffs, and these memories to be reminded of what I survived and left? Like the four leaf clovers and daisies that grow through the cracks of hardened cement, the good memories and accomplishments from this era of my life find their way through the bad and settle like a cool mist, gently obscuring the harsh edges of everything. 

I flew further into my past, to Ohio, where the remoteness and the distance from everything familiar created a vacuum that sucked me into a vortex I nearly couldn't pull away from. A stark, cold late October chill hung in the air. I was at the mercy of everyone and everything. The unbreathable environments, the hospital and graveside visits, faulty cars, and long distance phone calls in the frigid rain gave way to long overdue catch-ups, a cozy hotel room, astrology readings, and surprise birthday parties. 

I've only been back to Ohio a handful of times since my college graduation. And each time I return, I find significant pieces of my past erased from existence--people, schools, businesses, homes. I stood on the edge of the property and gazed over the flattened landscape. An absence hung heavy over the emptiness. But like a conduit standing on nothing but memories, they bubble up from the ground and move through me, then finally to somewhere beyond. 

On my last night, the night before my birthday, I came back to my friend's house in Columbus--her kids had made me a birthday cake, Halloween themed and all. A send off to my next destination. I closed my eyes, made a wish, and blew out all the candles.

Week 2: Distance

Vast and distant and desolate, on a Gulf island where the desert meets the sea, waves crashed halfway under the stilted, front row houses. In other spots old piers dead ended over sand dunes stretched over swaths of desolate beach, the ocean roared in the far distance. A delicate dreaminess permeated everything, and I took it all in--the cocktail parties and wine tastings, community yoga classes and events, talk of the the town hall and island meetings. Gilmore Girls vibe was strong, another world completely removed from everything in my normal life, and I embraced it.

I rode a beach cruiser bicycle from one end of the island to the other. And on Halloween night, I dressed up and gave candy to trick-or-treaters in the public park. A family of farmers sat across from me with a small petting zoo of goats dressed as unicorns. This world, so surreal, yet so tragic, so beautiful, yet so painful.

Week 3: Suture

The disjointed details fell over each other, and in my mind, stitched together like a quilt wrapped around me, filling me with patchwork of memories. The taste of the soup at the Tibetan restaurant in Kensington Square, the warmth of the hot cocoa at the Soma chocolate shop after running through the freezing rain at dusk as our umbrellas flipped inside out, the crunch of brown and yellow fallen leaves on the winding pathways of High Park and the way the sunlight bent through the branches of the strange ritualistic structures we stumbled across, the click of chess pieces moving around the board, moody wine bars, and finding calm in a cup of chai amongst the chaos of Diwali. Evening chats around the fireplace and moka coffee mornings. 

The endless bus and train rides where all the characters of some Toronto story came and went. On one particular trip, I sat across from a college girl wrapped in so many scarfs she nearly vanished beneath them. She wrote pages and pages in a journal, perhaps taking notes, collecting stories, reimagining lives in other worlds.

Week 4: Enfold

Old libraries, academia, warm, buzzing cafes, organized protests, college lawns full of students lounging in the grass chatting, and autumn giving way to winter--Providence emanated the ambience of a Donna Tartt novel, a world I could too easily lose myself in. We wandered the university pathways and in and out of the old, drafty New England houses turned offices, found the literature and creative writing departments, and met up with students in the philosophy department--where one guy gave us a run down on Providence's shady past and another girl lamented on her novel writing process. 

At dinner on the evening of our last night, I took the opportunity to ask all the classics and philosopher professors if they'd read The Secret History. Most had not, but eagerly took note. Blurring the lines between the real and unreal--the edge where I live and create and never stray too far. 

Weeks Beyond

For the first time since I've lived in Chiang Mai, my return didn't feel like a welcoming one. The soft energy and gentleness I usually find was replaced by an abrasive one--one of over crowded streets and recklessness, perpetual misunderstandings and glitches, and an overwhelming sense of no longer belonging--not in the way I once felt anyway. Hot, dry days lingered well into a winter that would not come. The unbearable stress of unfocused work grated on my soul, and finally enduring an injury that has prevented me from driving anywhere--a blessing in the end, I suppose. An injury that has kept me focused on what is important, kept me from not going too far from home, one that has rattled me awake to make a change. A warning, perhaps, to make something happen soon, or I could lose everything I've spent my life working toward. 

The combination of these events (including my trip back to the west) has forced me to reevaluate my relationship with this city and the life I've created for myself here. Place does not always have to do with how well a person thrives, but sometimes it does--it has to do with community and opportunities and how well that place aligns with the goals of those who live there. 

Places have a way of communicating with you--to let you know they are there to hold you or teach you or guide you in new directions. A drop of clarity in the fog. And right now, it is still fog. But it's time to make a plan, a time to open myself to guidance that lies beyond the horizon of what I can currently see.

As we turn over into 2024, are you open to being guided to new heights and directions? If so, what is helping to guide you there? 

The Inevitable Writing Life

My writing journey extends as far back into my childhood as I can remember, back when I would write plays and comics for my friends and family to read (or perform). Perpetually lost in books and in my imagination, it should be no surprise that I struggled as a student, struggled to listen, and I genuinely thought telepathy was a valid form of communicating. Writing was truly my only form of outward expression, my only source of magic and power in this chaotic and ruthless world. 

In retrospect, there was no other path I could have possibly taken. My life experiences did not so much drive to me to write as much as writing shaped my experiences--as though I became a magnet for a life that kept me moving and asking questions. Ideas sparked from books I read and endless days daydreaming informed most of my life decisions, for better or worse. 

At some point, a turning point perhaps, was when I began to morph journal entries and photographs into stories. I could easily create characters from people I knew. I could easily turn an old photograph of a deserted highway or a scene from a busy ski lodge into a day-in-the-life of someone who was not me. It was like I had discovered a magic trick, like I possessed a power where I could transmute anything into my own. The world exploded open into many worlds and possibilities. I could create and inhabit any world I wanted. And so I did. 

What I love about writing fiction is that it allows me to explore ideas that aren't always mine. It allows me to experience the world through someone else's decisions and processes. I step out of myself and explore the possibilities. I can sit on the edge of a cliff overlooking a deep caldera and dream of all the scenarios that could have led a person there--to the edge of the world, thousands of miles in the middle of an ocean, staring out over a distant vastness where no horizon exists. 

In one rather alarming case, after being knocked in the head by a disc falling from my sun-visor while driving, a handful of characters came to me, fully formed, begging me to tell their story. I wrote about that experience in a blog post long ago. And years later, one of my beta readers of that particular novel told me I had actually been channeling one of the minor characters this entire time, that it was actually her story I was telling. And for an even more bizarre twist, my friend also told me I was channeling her because she was me, in a parallel life. 

I believe it was Carl Sagan who said that books were a form of telepathy--a way to speak to others over time and space, to crawl around in the mind of a living, breathing individual who lived centuries before you. So, who's to say writers aren't channels as well--channeling stories from other times and places, of this world and not of this world, yet worlds that we're a part of or connected to in some way. 

Interweaving these channeled stories with the world I experience around me is how I write fiction these days. I'm excited about the stories I'm creating, the novel I'm crafting, and the creative sparks that are shaping themselves into essays or blog posts. Never lose your sense of wonder and curiosity (those spaces where creativity blooms), and you will never lose your imagination that connects us over time and space. 

Do you think writing a form of channeling, a form of telepathy? How do you best express yourself? Think back to how you expressed yourself as a child. It's here you'll find clues to unearth and discover your source of magic and power. 

Quietude

From my westward facing window that covers the length of the wall, the sun moves across the mountains of Doi Suthep, and over the course of a year, it volleys back and forth, season to season, a steady direction of movement, a masterful marker of time. 

One month passed, then two, then three. 

For better or worse, I've shut out most of the world. In fact, it has been essential to my health and mental well being. My days revolve around routines of reading and writing and yoga practices. Talks and chats with my favorite people across the world. Publication and plane tickets and travel plans. An inward life of imagination, self-preservation, hibernation, preparation. 

Savoring the softness and slowness and silence I've wrapped myself in. 

I don't often venture out after dark these days, and those few times I have, it's been unsettling and jarring as though I've stepped into an oblique world where nothing seems safe or welcoming. And so I retreat back into quietude. 

I've always believed we move through different seasons of our lives--some we circle back around to, others slip away, never to return, and new ones can appear at any given moment. A life of trial and error, of cycles and seasons, and chapters and novellas. But I've written about this idea extensively and from many angles and lenses over the years. 

This is simply a check-in, mostly for myself. Hyper-focused on only those things that bring me a sense of peace and self-preservation as I prepare to travel internationally for the first time in nearly 4 years. 

In six weeks time, I'll be off on my travels, but until then, I could write about a myriad of things from books to yoga to stories about past travels and experiences. Or I could simply remain in this space of quietude for a bit longer. 

Two Suns

"What I confess is unimportant, because everything is unimportant. I make landscapes out of what I feel. I make holidays of my sensations." --Fernando Pessoa 

0

Taking in the breathtaking landscape of the rock-wall seaside cliffs of the Krabi coastline and karst filled islands of the Phang Nga Bay, I basked in awe--my perceptions pierced in ways I'd never experienced. More dreamlike than real, the world disappeared, and all that was left was the taste of surrealness that brushed against my senses and lured me into a world more vivid than reality.

I stood on the far edge of the floating pier and waited on the world around me to go dark--a slow burn of golden yellow to orange and red and finally black. As I made my way back over the ridge to the adjacent beach, the rickety, dimly lit pathway, screaming monkeys, and crashing waves created a disorienting half out-of-body sensation, as jarring and surreal as the landscape. 

I

I decided to disappear at the end of March. On the far edge of Ao Nang in Krabi Province, I secluded myself away in a spacious, cozy bungalow and decided I wasn't going back home. Years of compounded stress and trying to exist in a world I didn't understand finally came to a head just before I left Chiang Mai. What little self-worth and strength I had left, gone. My anxiety levels skyrocketed. I had completely lost focus of everything that once mattered to me. It was like someone pressed a reset button on my life, setting me back ten years. 

As Liz Gilbert once put it, "The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving....I just wanted to slip quietly out the backdoor, without causing any fuss or consequences, and then not stop running...." 

Curled in my veranda hammock, my stomach and mind in knots--how had I gotten here? I had no frame of reference anymore. How I had fallen so far from where I once stood when I stepped on that plane to India all those years ago? Nothing looked or felt the same. My life had slowly deteriorated to a distorted imitation of what I once knew. Nothing was worth the effort anymore. So I stopped believing in everything. 

II

Phang Nga Bay, an otherworldly realm where sea, sky, and etheric beauty collide. Full of rock islands with jagged edges and steep cliffs, many of them full of caves that lead to deep crevices, some completely inaccessible, like dreams we can't quite remember in our waking life, yet haunt us all the same. 

In the middle of the Bay sits Koh Yao Yai, the most desolate, untouched island, where silence and expansive, etheric energy permeate everything. Bare feet in the soft sand, warm, salty air on my skin, I wandered the crescent sand bars of Laem Haad and the world came into focus.

The kayak bobbed at the edge of a karst island cave. Difficult to steady, all I could do was lean back and stare at the crag, the cloudless sky, an impossible distance. And later that night, I fell into a deep sleep listening to the crash of the ocean over the rocks from my seaside Yao Noi bungalow, enveloped in calmness, in safety.

To possess a strong sense of knowing, an intuitive pulse, you must somehow remain soft in an incredibly difficult world. And the only way I could remain soft was to remove myself from a world intent to harden me. And so I intended to stay removed for a long while. 

If your intuition, your inner knowing, seems to be at odds with what the world reflects to you and what others project onto you, lean into it and explore it from all angles. Learn to trust the stillness beyond your senses, thoughts, and feelings. Or as my former teacher Gurmukh once said, "If you have a question, sit in it until you are living the answer. Don't get caught in the washing machine." And once you have those answers, don't continue to sit there. Embrace them and live them.  

III

I headed south to the tiniest, most far-flung, southern Thai island you can reach without leaving the country. Koh Lipe wasn't the most practical destination during a major holiday week, but with nothing left to believe in, I had nothing to lose. 

The next ten days were full of intense conversations, collaborative writing, surreal snorkeling trips, midnight seaside moon-swings, and incredible sunrises and sunsets. A world removed from everything familiar--sparks of inspiration and self-esteem began to ignite in me again. Each moment that unfolded opened my eyes a bit more to a world beyond the one I'd unconsciously slipped into, one which felt sacred and safe. 

Leaving Lipe was not easy. The trick now was to take the life that blossomed there and allow it to grow within me and everywhere. 

From the rooftop bar behind our hotel, the sun set beyond the westward cityscape of Bangkok, but when standing at a certain angle, the glass reflected another sun, one that sets over the Chao Phraya River to the east. Two suns set--one real, one not real. The only way you can tell the difference is to know which direction is westward and which is not. Without understanding the coordinates, the landmarks of where you stand, you could be easily be fooled.

IV

Part of me dreaded returning to Chiang Mai. And yet I returned, but not to the exact same life I left. My focus and priorities have shifted in major ways. My health and wellbeing are on the mend, and instead of falling back into the same patterns and routines that have kept me stuck for far too long, I'm choosing to create the life I want and deserve. I had to stop believing in everything before everything I've always wanted began to appear and push me in new and better directions. 

Surround yourself with people who challenge you to reach your highest potential, who have your best interest at heart, who aren't dismissive of your thoughts or feelings or reality, who make you feel safe and worthy of all the good things that happen to you, and most importantly, who make you feel like life is worth living (and writing about). 

Sakura Dreams

The sakura first appeared in a lucid half-dream--the liminal space where other worlds dwell. Walking a snowy path from winter to spring, the blossoms looked like snow covered branches from a distance. As I approached them, they fell, soft and powdery, over everything as far as I could see. Somewhere between winter and spring, between dreaming and waking, cherry blossoms cascaded like snow across a dreamscape.

I was still living in Santa Cruz then, in the apartment on the UC campus with my longtime partner. He and I had planned to take Japanese classes that summer then travel to Japan the following year. Little did we know then, those plans would never transpire. The dream has haunted me ever since. 

The Sakura or Japanese cherry blossoms only bloom during January in the mountains of northern Thailand. So when my friend from Bangkok called and said she was passing through the area and did I want to adventure into the mountains to look for them, the obvious answer was yes. After spontaneously picking up an extra adventurer at our meeting spot and stopping for coffee in the Hmong village, it was already quite late in the day, but onward we went, further up the mountain and deeper into the jungle. 

According to Google maps, the road we were on would eventually loop around and bring us back to the city, so we continued up the mountain. The air cooled, the roads narrowed (with only a few sketchy patches), and after several stops to explore and take in the wild beauty of the mountains and abundance of cherry blossoms, we found ourselves in Chang Kian village where the road abruptly ended. 

We lingered for a bit at the highest point in the village that looked over tin rooftops and dusty, rust colored paths. I had finally found the sakura from my dream as well as no clear way to go beyond the point at which I stood. 

When time came to leave, we tried several promising directions and asked some friendly villagers, but they all told us the same thing and pointed us back the way we came--no roads went beyond Chang Kian. We weren't prepared for night driving in the mountains so we fled pretty quickly. It was going to be a long, cold drive back. 

We somehow managed to make it back to the Doi Pui viewpoint just as the sun was setting. Full of people and completely silent, taking in the landscape--the valley and villages and ridges. That's when I heard my friend whisper over my shoulder, "Our timing is impeccable. We should become tour guides." And with that, the sun vanished behind the mountains wiping out the horizon. 

The road we took back wasn't the same as the one we took to get to Chang Kian. Facing the opposite direction with the sun low in the sky casting light at different angles across the jungle, it created an altogether different experience. 

Afterthoughts: 1. Google maps lie and 2. Paths do end and new ones are forged. Life will force us to stop and re-route us when necessary. I'd like to think my sakura dream was a premonition of things to come back then--impasses and pauses and freefalls into space where no ground exists and all possibilities extend out from the center of where I am. 

I am currently dreaming and forging new paths that may (or may not) lead me to roads and life experiences beyond Chiang Mai. Do you ever receive dreams as gateways to paths unseen in your waking life? Tell me your stories. 

Year of the Rabbit

You know it's going to be quite the year when you awake on New Year's Day to a cryptic message and a picture of a particular view. A clue to follow, a bit of intuitive guidance, and sheer determination lead you to him.

He takes you up a steep, narrow incline to visit a tucked away spirit house--the outside, weatherworn from wind and storms, the inside, full of incense ash and melted candles. You light an incense, walk down to the water's edge, and say a silent prayer. 

By the end of the day, you've made your way to a secluded, hidden beach cove where you write poetry about rocks and puzzles and the movement of water. A challenge to write about the mundane, the ordinary objects of our everyday world without incorporating flights imagination or secret metaphors, leads to new kinds of magic.

Blink and the Lunar New Year passes. Somewhere in the heart of Chiang Mai a small village awaits your arrival. In this village is a pastel game shop, a museum of colorful batik fabrics, a picturesque garden restaurant and café, and a library filled only with books on art and cooking. The Alice in Wonderland vibe is strong. It is the year of the rabbit after all. How far will you follow? Chase rabbits, sakura blossoms, and river swept shoes. Fall through holes, lament to flowers, heal through the surreal. 

Blink again and it's February. Friends leave the city and others arrive. You're just home from an evening of hunting down a specific brand of champagne when a message comes through. White Rabbit? At the entrance you wait for him. From here, he leads you through a surreal, maze like abandoned warehouse of tattered toys and cluttered rooms to the tiny, dim speakeasy. You cross the threshold into the classy, dreamlike atmosphere. The door shuts behind you, a clear divide between two worlds.

Are you, dear reader, following the rabbit this year? Where has it led you so far?