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?
