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September 28, 2005
Travel
Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.
-Freya Stark
In a way, this is very true, but in knowing this truth, everyday life can be set in a picture frame without ever taking a step. Train your eyes to see the wonderfully intrinsic qualities around you every day, and you will never have to travel to faraway places to watch in fascination the kind of people you ignore at home. I recommend both.
People say you have to travel to see the world. Sometimes I think that if you just stay in one place and keep your eyes open, you're going to see just about all that you can handle.
-Paul Auster
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 12:45 PM | Comments (1)
September 26, 2005
I Left Myself In Siam
Emptiness is something I would not have expected, but there it was anyway. I watched the mixed Bangkok skyline roll by beyond the runway markers. The world appeared liquid as reality was distorted by the imperfections in the small double paned window of the roaring seven-forty-seven. I heard the safety speech but I couldn't listen. I saw but didn't watch the stuardess enacting the safety procedure--how to unbuckle your seat-belt, how to breathe into the oxygen mask to make you high while the plane is falling low, how to pull the emergency door open and slide down the big fun yellow ramps--but as the plane crawled down the tarmac towards our runway to the sky, I could feel some part of me becoming more and more distant. Had I forgotten something? I think a part of me stayed behind the day I left Siam, and I'm going to have to go back and find it someday.
Did that part of me even come to the airport that day? Maybe he's still sitting at the Sompeht night market in Chiang Mai, eating Krapao Moo or Pad Prik Prao. He could be dancing under the strobes and tinted flood lights of Bubbles, Lava, or the Par Club; if he's there, he's jumping and spinning to the heavy bass beats that shake the very foundations of those discos. He might be cruising through town late in the afternoon on his 125-cc motorbike, grinning at life while the massive monsoon clouds grumble overhead. I long for the drenching rains, the flavored food, the warm people, and the phosphorescent ocean algae-- shining in near competition with the stars above. I wonder if he ever thinks of me? I say he stayed behind... Does he think I left him? Who is the deserter here? Not me.
Did somebody say dessert? How 'bout some Khao Nio Mamuang from my favorite stall on the corner by the eastern moat in Chiang Mai? Ohh yeah... I can't even begin to explain how tasty this is. There's something about sticky rice and mango marinated in coconut cream that makes my taste buds dance a tango as I slowly chew each bite. The rice is cooked just right, the mango picked perfectly ripe, and the coconut cream is applied for a smoothly delicate flavor. The smell is heavenly; the texture and consistency is that of nothing you've ever experienced; and the taste stays with you for weeks--mainly because you won't be able to stop eating it. Best dessert in the world and made in Thailand, of course. It's the perfect top-off to a full meal of stir-fried vegetables, basil, chilies, and chicken over rice, so full of spice and flavor you have to plan each bite to include a bit of each one.
Back at home, I try to explain to others how Thai people eat with a spoon and a fork-- shoveling and building the perfect mix with the latter into the former. I try to convey the feeling of eating there, truly taking your time with every bite and adding more flavor sometimes after every taste, but in the end no words can sit you down at a night market in Thailand and serve you some of the better-than-home-cooked meals you watch being prepared for you with love and care. Back home, the food I used to think was spicy tastes bland. The weather I used to think was hot feels so cold; the rain I used to think was heavy feels like just a mist. It's all what our bodies are used to, I guess, and I can get used to anything.
It's raining again. The monsoons are here. It's almost every night now, a dumping of water so thick and heavy it fills the streets to just below your knees. Taxis have to find higher ground to open their doors for fares; tuk-tuk engines stall out completely in clouds of blue smoke as the water fills up past their axles. Just as quickly as it came, it's gone. The sun sets and the world continues, if not a bit wetter. Shop keepers uncover their goods once again; the slowly draining pipes lead the water out of the streets and into the canals; the opening skies lead the smiling people back into their night lives; and I'm off to eat some dinner at the Sompeht Night Market. Nothing like a good rain to build the appetite.
I didn't eat lunch today. It's funny, I used to be able to eat two servings at every meal when I was in Thailand, but lately I feel as if my stomach has shrunk. Did I leave part of that as well? As I said before, I must go back someday and retrieve these things I left behind, because I feel incomplete.
"Check bin khap!" I motion to the water as I finish off the always amazing Pad Prik Prao and stand up to pay. Usually I'd have had a bowl of noodle soup or some pad thai to go with it, but lately I just haven't been hungry, even with the rain. Where are my friends to help me finish everything? Maybe they'll come back to visit me here someday. I hope so, because I'm never leaving.
How can you see the world and then close your eyes? I guess the answer is-- you can't...I can't. There was usually a feeling of wanting a stable home that nagged while traveling, but when at home, there's a feeling of being trapped; of wasting precious days to see and experience more of what this fantastical globe has to offer. I guess there is a balance to find, as with everything, between home and the road; what you know and what is unknown; being happy just relaxing and getting those itches in your boots to get out and do something! I will return to Thailand one day, but when that happens, I hope to make Thailand a home for me as long as I choose to stay. My heart is happy on any side of the planet. My heart is happy at home.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 08:01 PM | Comments (1)
September 23, 2005
Rejected
Ouch. We didn't get the house we were lookin' at... No backup plan, except again the classifieds, and/or cosmic intervention. I'd go for the latter. Well, on the bright (or should I say cloudy) side of things, we got our first snow today! It stuck for a few hours before being melted off by that killer sun tearing through the clouds. The hot tub is fixed and should be steamin tonight, ohhh yeaaah. Still bummed about the house though. While looking through all the newspapers for the classifieds, I read a lot of articles as well. Did ya hear about the corduroy pillow? It's making headlines! haaha.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2005
Funnies
Aight, I gotsa joke for ya. Now that I'm officially an Oregonian, I can tell this one:
Q: How is California like a Granola Bar?
A: They both contain fruits, nuts, and flakes!
*snicker*
Okay, okay, one more.
Q: What goes *clip clop clip clop clip clop clip clop BANG BANG clip clop clip clop clip clop...*
A: An Amish drive-by shooting.
Ooooeeee hilarious stuff here, people... :)
That's all for now.
BTW, Eugene was awesome and I'm super stoked!
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 07:03 PM | Comments (1)
September 15, 2005
College Town
Eugene, Oregon. I hear it's a nice place. Soon it's to be my home, so I hope what I hear is right. :) College towns seem to have a certain vibe to them, almost like there are two faces to the place. Eugene is a good example of that as there is a huge hippy/environmentalist/left-wing student body, and then there is the right-wing/conservative/hillbilly population that inhabits most parts of the whitest state in America. It should be an interesting place to live as a college-age student of life, don't you think? Tomorrow we hit the road to visit a college town without actually looking at the college... Wish me luck!
BTW, check out the trippiest clouds you ever saw.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 02:13 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2005
Note to Buddhists with Cell Phones
What ringtone is your cell set on? The Milkshake remix? Do you jump when you hear the first few bars of Jessica Simpson's "These Boots Are Made For Walking"? If so, you've been led astray...even if you're not a Buddhist (which I don't claim to be). But don't despair, the right path has shown itself. I've just been reading on the Buddhist Channel News Network that sayings recorded by one of Thailand's leading monks are to be released as mobile phone ringtones. Now, instead of hearing "LET'S GET RETARDED IN HERE!" when your upset ex is calling, you could take a deep breath and listen to what your ringer has to say:
"Anger is stupidity, fury is madness - if you don't succumb to anger, you won't succumb to stupidity and madness."
It would help to hear this before you pick up the phone to your uptight parole officer:
Compose yourself before answering this call. Avoid being irascible and causing disputes."
This one for when your boss is calling you into work on your only day off:
"It is better to sweat from hard work than cry from laziness, which encourages poverty,"
Unfortunately, these ringtones are available only in Thailand and they are spoken in Thai. Do you think there'd be a US market? Maybe with Christian teachings. How about a direct quote from Jesus:
"There is a saying, 'Love your friends and hate your enemies.' But I say: Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true sons of your Father in heaven."
Maybe Bush needs one of those for every time Osama calls from the mountains.
Cell phones are everywhere these days... It suprised me to see that Thailand has more mobile phones per person than the US does, by far. It makes sense when I think about it though, as a lack of infrastructure and the availability of wireless networks even in the smallest rural villages makes a cell phone the perfect tool to stay connected, whether it's with the Top 40 list or Phra Phayom Kalayano's teachings. Next is ringback tones, so that the caller gets to listen as well while you scramble to pick up your phone. Pretty cool, I'd say.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 10:32 AM | Comments (1)
September 10, 2005
How Fortunate
He sat on top of all he had accumulated and looked around at the world stretched out below him. A tear fell from one eye and splashed onto his shiny new shoe, which he quickly kicked and wiped dry, making sure to get that shine back to its perfect state. Leaning back into the plush leather, already forcefully forgetting the cause of the tear, he sipped from his endless glass of morning dew he had stolen from the forest that no longer existed. Another drop landed on his other shoe. Startled and confused, he reached for his polishing towel. A drop got him on the back of the neck. Reaching back and looking up, he searched for the source. These weren’t tears he knew, not from his eyes at least, so where had they come from? As his eyes moved upwards from the bright sunny blue of the horizon to the skies directly above him, his heart dropped. The higher he looked, the darker the clouds became. At the very top was a darkness so dark he had to avert his gaze. More and more of the droplets now, bigger, harder, and faster. His hair was dripping the rain into his eyes, his mouth (it tasted sweet), onto his suit which was already soaked, and onto his leather chair he liked to sit in so much. It ran down his socks and into the soles of his shoes.
He began to fall. In spirit and in his physical world, he was falling. The chair tipped as the mountain of things he had acquired began to collapse under its own weight, compounded by the mysterious rain. The cloudly precipitation seemed to concentrate directly over his head like you see in the comics when a rain cloud follows one frowning character around and the others remain dry and happy. Well, our character here no longer could smile. He was in a panic as the world he had so much control over melted away just as his soul had the day he gave it up for his mountain of things. What would he do? Where would he sit? Down and down he fell, sliding and bouncing off this and that. He saw suitcases, treasure chests, and expensive lamps, all melting under the cleansing power of the raincloud. His fall began to slow, and as the mountain of things turned into a river of melting, he was caught up in its current. Sputtering and gasping for air, he floated along like this for a number of hours. He was about to give up when the current picked up suddenly and the river seemed to disappear somewhere downstream and a violent roar came from below. This was the end, he thought, but as the water carried him over the edge, a sign bobbing slowly in the water off to his left caught his eye. All he could think of as he plunged down the waterfall into the unknown were the words the sign simply stated:
How fortunate the man with none.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 05:50 PM | Comments (1)
September 09, 2005
Burner Thoughts
Well, I'm back, and despite a series of unfortunate and bloody events in my life involving art pieces and now firewood and also scissors (flesh wounds, nothing more), I'm feeling good. It's like winter is already here and I had my first grey winter day, inside and out. The sun burst through in the end though, as it always does. It's warming the other people of the Earth right now and I'm going to turn off the light and wait for the return.
Even the moon turned off for the Man this week. Dark. As he stood proudly in pink and green while looking over his city-- the city that was him, the city that became just for his being --I got lost beneith his feet of neon in a maze for the mind. Pushing, pulling, twisting, and turning, I opened a dark curtain and a brilliant flash blinded me. I saw a figure dressed in black walk away from his shadow as it stood behind, pointing at him as if in disbelief. The dark figure threw up his hands and continued pacing while his shadow still pointed. The two must have been having a fight in their minds, so I closed the curtain. A woman in great big goggles and dreadlocks stomped smoothly past me in her fuzzy space boots. I turned to follow, but the door she walked through was sealed as it was rotated from another room. I went the other way.
I heard chanting. An incredible range of vocal humming was coming from somewhere off to my left. There were sopranos, altos, tenors, even super-basses and sopraninos. All of them coming together in a fluid circle of sound. I squeezed my way through a set of push-pull revolving doors and almost fell into the middle of the symphony. There were burners of every kind facing the walls of this room. On these walls were the shapes of hands with little blinking lights next to them, the kind you’d see in a high security checkpoint in some super secret installation, you know, like in the movies. I walked up and, one finger at a time, placed my hand on the pad. In the midst of so many voices, I could hear my own, coming and going as I lifted my hand and replaced it in a pattern. It was as if I were singing through my fingers. A tone unique to the rest, yet blending perfectly with the others who were so lucky to find this room. I moved on.
Expect more here soon, maybe even with a bit more visuals...you never know what might happen on TheOtherSide. Sometimes words aren't enough...
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 11:26 PM | Comments (1)