Riding to you writing the Blue Ridge high and free--the Blue Ridge, my home, those mountains in my heart, yet how so different from the green palm-studded hills of Thailand? Yas, but more on this later.
Tension--and resolution. That dissonant half-diminished chord taking you back into the relief of a II-V-!.
What the hell am I talking about?
Last week was my first full week of teaching. Moments of real failure. No sugar coating here people--failure to properly execute coherent lessons. AND moments of great success. That "click" when an hour is filled with order, laughter, expansion, ease, and expedience. Aligning a workout schedule with classes has not been simple--and yet, I am finding myself in a blissful arrangement that involves a trip to the gym between my morning classes (not bad!)--this coupled with a new diet involving actual consciousness (a very new concept with me regarding food) has left me feeling GOOD. Healthy.
Back to tension and release. The release came midday Friday after one of the aforementioned successes, gliding me into the weekend--a weekend highly anticipated and effortlessly executed.
I was to embark for Ton Sai, a small beach cove on the West coast near Phuket, accessible only by boat and without electricity between 6am and 6pm, a rockclimbing haven (see cliffs) and a hippie chill spot, stocked with delicious food all around and hiking trails through the lizard-crawling monkey-monkeying rainforest.
Right, and I did.
After the typical afternoon on a tropical beach, evening thunder clouds rolled in and the sky shook with darkness. Ah, but at 6, power returns...incidentally, our beach butted up against an outdoor wooden bar (the source of at least 3 but no more than 5 fruit smoothies throughout the weekend) which, incidentally, was equipped with a stage, incidentally advertising an array of incidentally rock and roll music making apparatus, and me being me, us being us, we moseyed on over and picked up a few guitars and began to strum a bit. The resident pirate with his toolkit of English catchphrases ("You like this shit!" "You'll see me when you see me." "Why not?" "Make a BIG music!") eagerly grinned his way over and plugged us in while sitting down at the drums--then the local milkboy hopped up, we made a switcheroo, and before we knew it, we had a rock and roll outfit thrumming up sounds only the thunder could compete with. After noodling on their stratocaster for a bit I decided to create some bottom and grabbed the bass leaning up in the corner--easier to get funky down low anyways, especially seeing that all these instruments were right-handed of course, less accessible to the southpaw contingent, yet adaptability friends, yes, adaptability, a saving grace in this goofy world...where were we? Yas, making music on a beach at a bar in a thunderstorm. With an audience! Oh it was great fun--the milkboy a pure natural who could pick up any beat, akin to the albino banjo-picker in Deliverance, and Blackbeard with his silliness and rhythm guitar, smirking into the microphone "you like this shit!" or a "see me when you see me!" after every song--Rolling Stones, Clapton, a blistering rendition of "Imagine"--music is everywhere friends, and it ain't goin' nowhere.
My weeks are spent eating delicious street Thai food. I love it. But holy mother of fuck the burger and banana split I devoured last night were practically orgasmic.
These tropical enclaves--they are lovely, but once you see beyond the surface, quite tragic. They lack culture in many regards--80:20 White:Thai ratio. A group of Chinese tourists speaking English to the Thai waitstaff. Everything English. Cute rustic bungalows...but also dubstep bars and tailor shops and pharmacies. Shawled Thai women begging to give you a massage to make a little dough. And we are part of the problem. Me, I am. I did what I could to pick up some litter and pay homage to the land and sea by keeping quiet and reverent. After the rock and roll music and burger, of course. And all this for less than 60 bucks--food, transport, lodging...but ah, I am on a Thai salary filled with thousands of Baht amounting to significantly less than thousands of American dollars...
The evening cleared and we did a lil' pickin' and-a-grinnin' on our own down the beach into the night and hovered back on air to the quietude of our bungalows up the hill and into the palms, away from the crashing waves below.
This morning I arose very early and with a cup of real coffee (a luxury here--the Thais don't drink much themselves but make instant concessions for the Westerners passing through) waded far out into the sea amongst coral and rusty boat propellers, only revealed during very low tide. I looked around, saw the cliffs towering above me, felt the salt and sand on my, in my body, the palms bowing to their elemental counterparts--and I was utterly overwhelmed--verklempt!--with the knowledge that everything is interconnected--you can't have rocks without water, nor humans without air, nor wooden tables without trees--in fact, nothing without the mind! All we perceive--by definition, objects of of our minds, the prevailing subject. When I ponder the sea, I ponder my mind. I am settled in mindfulness. And with this knowledge, as in I KNEW IT IN AN INSTANT, NO INSTILLATION REQUIRED, came the understanding of the impermanence of things, of every thing--and yet, it isn't this impermanence that causes us to suffer, no no, it is the attachment to something already unattachable--so why this preponderance of suffering in the face of impermanence? It is the ACCEPTANCE of such transience that brings us joy--ah, joy, yes! The spaces between the suffering! For suffering is nothing without joy, and still, joy is but an object of the mind, and on and on and on...
And coming to know this alone in the water at daybreak, I was overcome with bliss--knowing that this is empty, we are empty, we are connected, we are alive, awake, yes! But all one, the same, and all without substance, neither good nor bad or anything in between--and this, my friends, has carried me through the rest of my day.
Up and over a cliff. Down into a lagoon. The familiarity of skipping up a mountain, feet pounding into muddy earth, muscles tensing and guiding the bones they envelop, waves of strong emotions met with smiles fueled by the knowledge of their emptiness...
I will probably be heading back.
For the rest of the evening? A trip to the market for some fresh fruit and fish, still flopping on the chopping block--and a night of sound contemplation, preparing for another week of city life interacting with young people before another foray into the jungles and beaches of the Thai interior...my interior...
The trail provides. ทั้งหมดเป็นความสุข ...
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