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?

Wisdom from the Trenches of 2022

"...Neither movement from nor towards, neither ascent or decline. Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance."  T.S. Elliot 

January: Stillness. When all the things and people that used to matter begin to fall through the invisible fissures in the foundation of my universe, I stop grasping and allow them to fall away. After talks with a wise earth angel on the matters of faith and stillness, I hop on my bike and drive to Chiang Dao to lie under dark skies and tap into the cosmos--my still point, my safe space. Because stillness (in the middle of this chaotic, turning world) is where wisdom, always present, can be clearly known. 

February: Surrender. Visa issues and job limbo--a month of unknowns. I take long jungle hikes in the mountains to alleviate unwavering anxiety. I chant mantras. I surrender. And like the strike of a magic wand, all at once I get the job, my visa is approved, and a friend I hadn't talked to in months reaches out and invites me to a gig that sets in motion a series of events that begins to change everything. 

March: Listen. Swept into a world of music and mayhem, I follow voices and dreams into a new layer of Chiang Mai I never knew existed. 

April: Comfort. I find comfort and acceptance in the most unlikely friends and places so I continue to follow the music down this rabbit hole. But when I stop and pause and tune out the world, all I see are fields of wild flowers below me, kites above me, and darkness behind me. One foot in front of the other, I turn forward and walk straight into a blinding light. 

May: Confusion. Going out most nights of the week to observe the world around me is like a crash course in human nature. After this many solar returns, my naivety about the way people function in the world astounds me sometimes. I convince myself this is good for my writing life and keep on, keep on.

June: Balance. Embrace the magic of meeting with new friends while saying goodbye to others. Dance with the energy of connection and nonattachment. Be open, yet discerning. Curious, yet cautious. 

July: Adventure. Pai in July adventures mark the end of an era. I had planned to return to Chiang Mai, properly detox, and go into extreme hermit mode for the rest of the summer, but instead I came home with covid. And much like when I had dengue back in 2020, I came to in a slightly altered world. 

August: Float. Between monsoon rains, I've not much to do most days so I spend my time learning to float. I lie on water and take in the sky and allow the brightness and warmth of the sun to wash over me until I forget I even exist in this world. 

September: Mystery. When gifted a book and the inscription is written in Sanskrit, I take it as some sort of omen, mysteries to come, a glimpse of color in a world turned grey. For better or worse, I grasp at these signs and attach significant weight to them--a survival tactic I learned long ago and apparently still embrace because I need to believe in something. 

October: Stories. I hop on my bike and drive east into the mountains. By nightfall, I find myself in a tree house full of string lights and canopy bridges linking platforms facing west into the setting sun. I translate random Sanskrit sentences and inadvertently begin to weave stories from them. Some people, I decide, are meant to live in the real world, and others, no matter how hard they try, simply can't. 

November: Patience. I bide my time reading about the philosophy of Pessoa, studying the story structures of Calvino and Borges, and getting lost in the ever shifting landscape of literature across world cultures and within my own mind.

December: Dream. I awake on Koh Phayam--an otherworldly tiny island somewhere off the coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea where jagged, coastal rocks contain puzzles and narrow, winding roads all lead to destinations more dreamlike than real, more real than anything I've ever experienced. 

Back in Chiang Mai, I take life week by week, day by day, one foot in front of the other--which doesn't so much lead me anywhere specific, except back to a point of stillness where I find clarity amidst this turning world of chaos and beauty. 

Have you taken the time to reflect on 2022? What came up for you? How will you integrate what you've learned into this new year? 

Living the Mystery

As someone who needs extra strong anchors to stay grounded, the eclipse that happened earlier in November managed to cut me loose and send me reeling and I haven't stopped. What a strange year this has been, and it's not even over. Something stirs just over the precipice--and it's this unknown that keeps luring me deeper and deeper into its story, into its mystery. 

Back in Rishikesh, a teacher had told me that if I have a question, sit in the middle of it until I'm living the answer. I think about that talk a lot. At another point, years later, I came to understand that if we go seeking answers, all we find are more questions. 

I take these ideas and build stories around them. For better or worse, I have a tendency to block out the world and live in these stories, and each year I think it's time to shift, to be more apart of the world around me. I don't feel that anymore. So I will sink deeper into the stories, into the mysteries, and see where it leads. 

As this year comes to an end, I really don't have much to say. Perhaps when I do my year in review, I'll be able to articulate better. My inner world has a language of its own, and it's not always easy to express it to the outer world though I do try through my stories and pictures and here on this blog. 

Two days, three parties, and one exhausted me later--time to pack and hit the sky. One magical reunion and many ocean swims and island adventures await. See you in the new year friends. 

How does your inner world speak to you--through words or images or something else entirely? And how do you best express it to the outer world? 

Uncover, Unlock, Discover

As we move into the shortest days and longest nights, I move further with in, locking myself away with my books and writing and unfurling imagination. Digging into the depths, peeling away layers of my own psyche. As a child born in late October, I am prone to fall in love with esoteric mysteries, hidden magic, and getting lost in the labyrinths of my mind or otherwise. I have an insatiable desire to penetrate the surface of all people and places and things, to hear their stories--the ones they tell and the ones they hide between the lines, in those moments of deep breaths and pauses and sighs.  

The morning of my solar return I awake early and take off eastward, terra incognita. I ride through rolling landscapes as the city fades behind me and a surreal quality descends and encompasses everything, lifting me from the liminal space I inhabit to somewhere altogether otherworldly and unreal. Rivers run through teak coffee houses, hidden waterfalls cascade behind abandoned hostels full of narrow hallways and staircases and giant blue cushions, and a massive treehouse towers over a cliffside. It's getting late, but I stop and turn around anyway.

I'm the only motorbike on the road, the only bike parked at the base of the never ending upward staircase. A chill cuts through the air, and I zip my thick jacket and wrap my giant, heavy scarf around me. I climb the steep, narrow stairs until it levels onto a canopy walkway connecting the various platforms suspended in mid-air. Mountains stretch over the vast landscape, and beyond them the sun settles low, creating a soft orange glow across the sky. Birthday messages come through as well as a perfectly timed phone call. Planets and stars appear in the dark sky. Night takes over, and it's time move on. 

Back at home, I empty the contents of my bag onto the bed. I pull out a notebook full of notes from my interview with an astronomer, a book of Japanese folktales, Sanskrit letter and grammar charts, and budget sheets with a list of books I'm requesting for next semester workshops. A glimpse into how I spend my time these days. The things that trip over each other in my head. I fall back onto the soft, white comforter and sleep for 10 hours straight. 

I blink, and it's already November. I finish the Borges book I started last month, and think about all the clever ways stories have and haven't been told. I think about how much of an impression he's made on me, my life, my perceptions--which is a rather odd realization to have considering I don't ever recall reading him before now. And I can clearly see his influence seeping through the stories of Ted Chiang and Haruki Murakami. Reading mind-bending literature can unlock new neural pathways as readily as meditation practices and breathwork and studying ancient philosophies and languages. It can rip away veils and reveal more layers to dig through. 

And as much as I love reading and learning and uncovering these layers through literature, I find that most stories do not live in the pages of books. They live in ancient, crumbling cities and old growth forests, down winding mountain roads and flowing, muddy rivers, in wide open fields of wildflowers and honeybees and narrow hallways of abandoned caves. They live in the impossible vastness of love and magic and imagination. I've started a new writing project, and I dive deep into these mysteries, exploring ideas I've not yet explored. The journey continues. And I hope you continue exploring with me. 

What stories do you discover when you penetrate the layers of your mind and the world around you?

Impressions of Summer

Let's just keep walking. We'll be back on the trail eventually. Cloudless sky and scorching sun directly overhead--my friend Jo and I were lost somewhere in Pai Canyon. The dry, dusty trail crumbled under our feet as we descended further into an abyss of nothing but the same. I glanced back over my shoulder at the impossibly steep crevices we'd climbed down, and a sense of dread crept up my spine. 

Here's how you float, Heather said and took a big breath. On her back, she floated around the pool like an untethered raft. I can't, I said. You're thinking too much, just hold your breath until you're stable then breath light and easy. She continued to float, and I continued to sink. Again and again and again.

Immersing myself into a barrel of freezing water had never been a thing I'd considered doing, ever. So I shocked myself in more ways than one when I said yes to joining an ice bath community. And, over the course of three weeks, I went from popping in and out of the barrel, to staying in the ice for 30 seconds to one whole minute. The rush and lightness was unlike anything I'd experienced. Half in my body and half out, voices receded into the distance as my friends counted down the seconds. 

❈

The opening scene from Arrival popped on screen, and a rush of excitement washed over me. My job is all about language and communication after all, so of course, I chose Arrival and Story of Your Life for the students to analyze. How could I not?

I spend good chunks of my time creating workshops for students at Chiang Mai University. Most of the workshops are all writing craft and discussing short stories. Occasionally, we play murder mystery games or escape room or watch movies. The beauty of it is that I get to share my favorite writers and stories and ideas and hope that it creates a ripple effect of awe and inspiration. 

I brought you a book, he said. And I wrote a message in it for you...but it's in Sanskrit. With the nearly full moon overhead, I held it to my chest. I don't think there is anything I will treasure so much in my life. What this means to me is beyond words or logic. And once again, I free fall into the mystery that envelops everything. 

It took me three days to translate the book inscription--which was either way too long or pretty good timing, considering it was handwritten, and I had nothing to go on except trial and error to start. Laying poolside in the sun with my Sanskrit chart, I think: Life can't get much better, really. My compulsion to throw myself into puzzles and mysteries seems to have reached a pinnacle, an event horizon that will forever drag me toward its center, but never fully revealing all its secrets. 

❈

My All Trails map finally loaded--showing that we weren't even on a marked road or trail. We could turn around, but it would mean climbing back up the terrifyingly steep crevices. With the glaring sun in my eyes, I squinted and looked back at the the hill of dry dirt and gravel we had half slid down, then gazed down at the more of the same, leading us ever deeper into the canyon. 

Let's turn back and course correct, I said. Jo nodded. You might need to push me up the hill, I told her. You might need to pull me through the crevices. Good thing I accidently brought my bike helmet with me, she said and held up the helmet that helped us climb down, and eventually, would help us climb out of the canyon. We had no water, no sunscreen, no food. But we had a motorbike helmet. Divine intervention at it's best. 

I learned to float because I drowned once, Heather said. You drowned? Yeah, got caught in a whirlpool. I was dead when they found me. What do you remember? I asked. Not a thing. I held my breath until I couldn't anymore. Everything went white, then next thing I remember I came to in an emergency room. Wow, I said, that's wild. That's why I float now, she said and floated to the other end of the pool and back, unwavering and steady. 

❈

Baa narak dok mai. Chan rak kafae. Sawadee kha. Kop khun kha. Nam. Chai! Mai pen rai. Nit noi. Sabai sabai. Ruesi! My friends and I sit outside the little coffee stand, and I list all the Thai words and phrases I know.

After six years in this country, my knowledge of Thai is still only a string of words that never really add up to anything but impressions. Much like most of my experiences here in Thailand. And life in general for that matter. A string of impressions that don't really add up until maybe you stand back and see them as a whole. Which I fully intend to do once I reach an appropriately old age. I'm sure I'll know when that is when I get there. 

I held my breath and floated. Heather had left the prior week so no one was here to witness this moment of the seemingly impossible. I breathed easy. I stayed afloat. I allowed my mind to wander from earth to sky, from here and now to the liminal space in-between. Star chaser, sun child. I let my imagination unfurl into infinity.

Jo and I made our way out of the canyon and found the path we strayed from. It was too late in the day and we didn't have time to hike the full loop so we headed back to the trailhead. My clothes, caked with dirt, stuck to my sweaty body. Jo looked as though she hadn't even broken a sweat. The sun drooped westward casting a burnt-orange glow to the trail and a dark shadow over the canyon. We rode through the countryside on backroads back to Pai, taking in the sweeping rice field landscapes and muddy river views as heavy clouds rolled in over the mountain tops and thunder cracked in the distance.

Summer unfolded like a series of impressions--one fading into the next and lingering like the oranges and reds across an evening late summer sky. Or maybe they were more like shooting stars hitting the atmosphere--taking me by surprise, creating an impression, and vanishing in a blink.

What about you, friends? How was your summer? And how will you remember it? 

Stardust and Stories

"We are all stardust and stories." --Erin Morgenstern

The stories from elsewhere come in waves, often times when I least expect it--never when I see fields of flowers or kites or wandering muddy jungle trails alone in cool early morning hours. They come when I hear clips of random music or when I'm staring at the ceiling after a yoga practice. Or, most often, staring at a star filled sky on a clear, moonless night, tapping into the ether beyond time and space. Stories caught in timeless moments like crystalized snowflakes. At one point in my life, they were my only moments of peace.

Sometimes the stories come in moments of stillness on nights of chaos when the music is too loud and when my brain starts to short circuit from overstimulation. This world is only gonna break your heart. A chorus whispered through what I think might be a love song, albeit a disturbing one. A song I'd not given much thought to until recently, and I think: Should be the disclaimer before signing onto this planet. A place where stories tighten around throats.

If all stories come from outside time and space where all possible stories exist, then we are the containers that catch them and they live through, permeating our psyche and shaping our lives. But these human containers are so small and narrow, each one a sliver of all possibilities. A memory from a forgotten dream perhaps. Or maybe from a chapter in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Either way, the idea has haunted me for years.

I spend good chunks of my day thinking about story structures and how one tells a story is just as important as the themes or plot or character development. I think about astrophotography and nesting boxes and charm bracelets, and how anything can contain a story if you're willing to let it. 

⁜

I started reading the Starless Sea because of a really bad review a friend wrote about it. She didn't just simply say it was a bad book. She took her review to such an extreme it actually made me want to read it. And so I did. 

I've never read a more Murakami book not written by Murakami. Intertwining stories hidden within stories. Keys that unlock painted doors that lead to other worlds, other stories. Mysterious characters that lure unsuspecting protagonists into adventure and danger. Also, elevators, food, and cats. 

Like Murakami, Erin Morgenstern leads you through trap doors to underworlds, into your psyche, full of twists and turns and crossroads and choices. The meandering nature leaves you wondering if the story will actually lead anywhere. But unlike Murakami, her story does lead somewhere--into new stories, a never ending sea of stories, not unlike the akasha, the ether beyond time and space. (She also references the Secret History which I can't decide if I find endearing or pretentious). 

The Starless Sea is undefined and loose, its intertwining stories build slowly around structures like vines. Tales trapped in webs. Questions caught in labyrinths. I think about the myth of the Argus, the eyes in the sky, witnessing all the stories at once. And how the only place for stories to hide is beneath the surface of the earth, hidden from stars, from our eyes, where myths drown in a sea of honey and fate and time cross paths again and again and again.

It is thick with metaphors and symbolism, and like the structure, they are loose and undefined. It's up to the reader to attach meaning to them, to weave their own stories into the mess of story fragments scattered throughout the book. I think that's what makes it so frustrating for readers, nothing is explained to you. You are spoon fed nothing but vivid imagery and symbols and characters constantly getting lost. But I also think that's what makes this story so compelling and beautiful. It's a lot like life on planet Earth--a bunch of lost people with nothing to go on but the mess of stories filled in their containers. 

The Starless Sea isn't and never will be timely. Only timeless. Instead of attempting to make sense of things, it embraces the senselessness and chaos. I'd like to think the world needs more stories like this. But what do I know.

What are your thoughts on story structure? When you read, do you ever think about the structure and how it can shape your interpretation of the story?