The Blue of Distance

"The blue of distance comes with time, with the discovery of melancholy, of loss, the texture of longing, of the complexity of the terrain we traverse, and with the years of travel...Blue is the color of longing for the distances you will never arrive in."  ~Rebecca Solnit

I had been dozing in and out of consciousness and finally came to when I heard a voice. Take your time, the voice said. The last thing I remember was pointing to a lawn chair in the distance and saying something like I'm just gonna go lay down for a bit. Apparently, I had wandered from the small poolside cafe onto someone's bungalow and collapsed. The result of walking 5.5 kilometers midday in the equatorial sun to the only bookshop in Amed.

I'd like to think this is an isolated story of misfortune or bad planning, but as my track record shows, this is just how I function. There are countless examples here in this blog and throughout my life in general (some of which will never be discussed outside of the small circle of folks involved). The point isn't about the incidences themselves, but the miracles and lessons and stories that unfolded from them. And from this unfolding, something unknown and new emerges. The result, I'd like the think, of being curious, my compass always pointing toward the blue of distance.

I landed on Bali with no plan, too much luggage, and an urge to get lost in the magic of the island. I wasn't out to repeat any of my experiences from the months I had spent there in 2016, but to find something (as I mentioned in my previous post) that was completely unknown to me.

In four weeks time, I moved across the island from Canggu to Ubud to Amed to Sanur connecting with old and new friends along the way--some of them completely unexpected, all of them surreal as though we were all plucked from our lives and brought together on an island that only half exists in the real world. In these moments of connection, I learned a little more about the dynamics of souls coming together and sharing stories and energy. Sometimes what we give or take away from a place or another person isn't always obvious, not at first anyway. It's that lingering feeling that something has shifted, that we have somehow stepped closer to those very things we never knew we needed.

I've been back in Chiang Mai a month now, but it's not the Chiang Mai I left. I wasn't returning to my old job or my old apartment in the city, but to those things far more important to me--only when I returned, those things weren't here waiting for me at all. They had drifted out over the horizon where everything fades to shades of blue, but never completely disappears. I had somehow landed in a Chiang Mai completely unknown to me.

I stepped off the plane onto what I thought was familiar solid ground only to find myself swimming in the open ocean of possibility. Over this past month, my life here slipped from one of the most dynamic and busy existences to one of ungrounded solitude. But those new (and until now unknown) things and people emerging from this space are those very things I need to move in unknown directions. If this blog is truly about chasing miracles and following curiosity, then I need to allow the unknown to flourish and release all those things I've come to associate with Chiang Mai into the inaccessible blue of distance where memories and dreams live.

Here in a small teak hut in the jungle pressed against the base of Doi Suthop I awake each morning to a surreal life that feels like a new chapter has only just begun. The monsoon wind and rains wash out everything that no longer belongs. What is left? The glistening deep jungle greens and the blue of distance. Everything that keeps me chasing fireflies and miracles.

What is it that keeps you moving forward? Does something need to give you a push? Or does it come from a curiosity, a longing for the unattainable, the unknown, the blue of distance?