i'm exactly where i need to be

I feel powerful today. It’s a nice feeling amidst a lot of forces that aim to disempower. In the same day that I learned funding did not come through for the second phase of the project that’s been keeping me alive and well for the past four months, I got a call from some other folks in need of help on several projects over the next two months. And so, the balance is restored.

It’s a shame that each day we have to trudge our way through so much muck – fear, anxiety, Bernie Madoff and his high jinx , the dow, the unemployment rate, the latest company closure/layoff/consolidation. The media’s got us in its sights. It wants to take us down. But every day, the sun still comes up. Every day is new, pregnant with possibility. At least, that’s what I choose to believe. Because it’s all a choice, right? We can choose to be mired in the fear, or we can choose to find some pinpoint of light in the darkness that seems to be constantly closing in, according to the powers that be.

I had a chance to go to a yoga class today with one of my favorite teachers, so I took it. Some days get so hectic that I lose that chance. Les is an amazing guy, much loved by many people. What I love about him is his real-ness. He’s no bullshitter. He’s honest at every turn, and he calls ‘em like he sees ‘em. Doesn’t let me off the hook for much. Today, he spoke about two things that helped me see, once again, that I’m exactly where I need to be.

He started class by talking about the fear – the way we’re all walking around in utter panic about what we might lose…the way “they” want us to feel about everything that’s happening around us. “Well,” he said, “and I say this only with love. I hope you *do* lose it.” It wasn’t a statement of flippancy or a lack of compassion for the real issues in people’s live. It was a way for him to invite us into the challenges that we most fear. He wished for us not loss but the chance to face the fear we dread and to get right up close to challenge and see what it’s got to offer us. Can you be interested in the challenge, fascinated by it even, and allow yourself to get inside it and feel around for what’s it’s got to show you? And as he said this, a smile grew across my face. This is exactly what I’ve been working with (and writing about and trying to feel my way through) for quite a while.

Perhaps not a natural instinct, we’re often loathe to *invite* challenge into our lives. With so much on our plate, especially at a time when the chaos seems without end, the last thing we want is something else to find its way into our lives and complicate things further. But, really, we all know that the challenges are where the juice is; when we take them on – head on – that’s where we unearth the best discoveries. So, like Les said to me tonight, like my friend said about curiosity, isn’t it best to stand tall and strong and say bring it on?  Without judgment or assumptions about what the challenge might bring, can I look it dead on and get interested, fascinated, excited, even about the possibility that exists in that space?

I get scared about the future and how things will play out for me, but I don’t actually know anyone who doesn’t get scared at least once in a while. But for me, it’s about movement through the fear, not paralysis. Every day I’m creating something new for myself – meeting new people, learning new tools, finding something that makes me thrilled to be putting one foot in front of the other. Which brings me to the second thing Les said tonight. As class ended, he reminded us about the invitation to challenge and in doing so, reminded us that we’ve all got a place inside where we go where we feel on it, on fire, alive, creative, excited. When we invite the challenge in, we let that place open up a little, and we find new ways to get there. We remind ourselves that no matter the power of the forces outside ourselves conspiring to show us otherwise, that place exists and it rocks. That feeling when you’re in your space, doing your thing – it’s unparalleled. For me, sometimes it’s an idea that takes flight and throws me into a new project, or writing about things I’m passionate about, or being in a yoga class and hearing my thoughts spoken aloud by someone, reminding me I’m not alone in this wide, wide world. The feeling isn’t a constant and it’s not easy to come by, I don’t think. Sometimes it’s quite fleeting, getting just a taste of what it’s like to feel fully free.

This is yoga for me – every once in a while, my body gets what my brain has been trying to tell it for ages and I actually *feel* what it’s like to be in a pose. Whether it’s one second or three minutes, my body remembers that feeling. It knows it’s possible. And each time I return to a pose, especially really challenging ones, the gripping hold my chattering brain has on what I’m doing slackens just a bit and lets my body find that place it remembers feeling. Even a glimpse of the possible reminds my body and my mind that there is another way. On the other side of challenge and fear and frustration and uncertainty, there is a whole lot of sweetness.

part 3: the magic of pai

Early in the morning on my fourth day in Thailand, I embarked on a journey high up into the mountains north of Chiang Mai to the fabled magical wonderland of Pai (pronounced bye). I had heard so much about this town – people always “meant to go for five days, but somehow I stayed for three months…” Hmm. “So what did you do there?” I'd ask. “Do there? Yeah, I don’t know. I can’t remember for the life of me what I did there.” Pai is known for its surrounding countryside full of hot springs and waterfalls and hilltribe villages, but it’s even better known for its “do-nothing-every-little-thing-is-gonna-be-alright-rasta-vibe.” Hippie drop-out town, artist’s paradise, mountain hideaway. I opted to settle into the “do nothing,” float through the place experience. What I discovered though was so much more.

After a very winding 4-hour climb up into the mountains – made so much more enjoyable by long chats with a fabulous Kiwi couple who were traveling through Southeast Asia, I hopped out of my minibus and started wandering the town in search of the perfect spot for the night. The town is nestled in a valley surrounded by breathtaking mountains and jungle. Cotton ball clouds floated above, their edges tinged with the gray of an incoming rain storm. I was only able to stay there for one night, sadly, so I figured I’d splurge a little. Pai is a pretty small town with a few main streets and a river that runs along one side. I decided to head towards the river to see if I could find a little bungalow. And bungalows I found…thatched huts all along the water’s edge with swinging rope and wood bridges traversing the thick, tan muddy water. I found a lovely place to stay tucked back behind a few riverside huts. My little one-room hut smelled of fresh, clean sheets and deep, dark wood. I was completely surrounded by the largest tropical flowers I’d ever encountered – red, orange, purple, thick, lush. My little hut even had its own little porch. I dumped my stuff and decided to take stroll and get a feel for the town.

Before I came to Pai, my very dear friends, Jen and Michael, couldn’t say enough about a few little places they had discovered on their trip to the town. I was told that I must find Na’s Kitchen and Crazy Kitchen – that I couldn’t possibly go through my life without eating this food. Now, this town is full of the best little bars, cafes, and restaurants. And try as I might, I walked in every direction and couldn’t find either of the places I was told to go. It was blistering hot, so I thought I’d duck into an internet café to see if I couldn’t pull something up online. Asked the guy next to me, did he know where these places were? Blank stare. No. Definitely not. Sigh. So, I sent Jen and Michael an email – did they happen to remember where they were? Long shot to get a pinpoint on a place in a town with such a floating sense of being. Could be long gone by now, I thought. I walked out of the internet café into the heat of the day. Walked up to the top of the street, and stopped. I just have this feeling, I thought. It’s got to be on this street. I walked back past the internet café, and wouldn’t you know it? Na’s was *right* next to the very place I sat down to get my bearings. Right next door. Ah, everything in Pai is so very meant to be.

Na’s. How to describe my experience there. No, wait, experiences. (I ended up back for dinner, but that comes later in this tale.) The food was absolutely amazing. Open-air kitchen run by these wonderfully kind and beautiful women. The food so fresh and bursting with flavor. I ordered way too much food for lunch – spring rolls, spicy lath nah and ginger iced tea. Since I was fully embracing the decadence of life in Pai, I decided to make my way through the iced tea menu which was blowing my mind – jasmine green iced tea, lemongrass iced tea, more ginger iced tea. I read and ate and drank for a couple of hours. When finally it was time to move on, I thanked my generous hosts and found a pay phone where I called a Korean woman named Cindy whose name I got from my friend Suah in Gwangju. Suah had met Cindy on her travels to Thailand. Cindy hadSeoul the next morning for good. Back to Korea, the antithesis of her life in Pai. We agreed to meet later that evening for dinner and a visit to her friend’s house. been living on and off in Pai for several years, and as it turned out, the day I called her was her very last day in Pai. She would be leaving for I may have mentioned earlier how obsessed I was with meeting Koreans while I was in Thailand. Whenever I got the chance to speak Korean or hang out with Koreans, I jumped at it. Something about the familiarity. Strange though, feeling more comfortable with Koreans than with other westerners. I had grown so accustomed to my life in Korea, it was all I craved while I was traveling. Good thing I met Cindy.

I had hours before dinner, so I continued my wanderings around town. I found galleries and lovely cafes. I also stumbled on a great little artsy shop selling super funky postcards, t-shirts and bags called Mitthai in Pai. Great artistic and crafty stuff, retro and super fun. I just kept walking down this one road, partly in search of a spa whose sign I had seen throughout town and partly mesmerized by the incredible sky that loomed ahead of and above me. The clouds shimmered in front of the sun that had begun to sink towards the horizon. The sky had darkened and turned a gray purple that I had never seen before. The jungle seemed to swell with sound around me.

I found the turn off into the boutique hotel that housed the spa. Very swanky grounds. Spacious, dark teak wood and whitewashed buildings. As I approached the open air lobby, I saw a half dozen staff members standing beneath a great lychee tree. One young woman stood upon a bench holding a bamboo stick in her hands. She was thrusting one end of the bamboo into the tree to knock free the fruit to the ground. The others around her were catching the falling fruit in their skirts and hats. When I walked up, they grabbed a branch and handed it to me, smiling and wai-ing to me as I graciously accepted the gift. So very thoughtful and sweet. I took one from the branch, twisted it open and popped it in my mouth, the juices running down through my fingers and along my wrists. The taste was so sweet, sticky, refreshing. “Oh, no” said the woman escorting me back to the spa. “We think they’re far too sour.” “Ah,” I said, “but where I have been, in Korea, you would never find them quite this sweet.”

My escort and I meandered down a pathway that passed alongside the very posh bungalows lining the pool that acted as the centerpiece of the space. German couples and some other European men with their Thai girlfriends lolled around the pool or on their porches. Couples on their honeymoon, older people on vacation, men on fantasy adventures. Fascinating. I approached the blue house in the back which was the spa. As I entered, I came upon a lovely woman playing with a young girl. I was in such luck – everything was 30% off for some reason – so, I went all out. For three hours I think I paid $40. The woman took me back to an open air room surrounded by giant banana trees. The storm threatened in the distance, tropical winds blowing the curtains and the smell of jasmine across the room. The massage therapist was wonderful, the experience surreal. I had hoped the rain would come, but only dark clouds and thunder echoed through the room, a truly magnificent and surreal backdrop to the afternoon.
As I was walking along the road, watching the deep gray and black clouds roll across the valley, a woman passed me along the path walking the opposite direction. She was tall, beautiful, relaxed. Though, she didn’t look Thai. She actually looked Korean to me, something that was a little oddKorea. I passed and headed back into town, ready to meet up with Suah’s friend, Cindy, for dinner. I meandered back to my bungalow near the river. After a quick change of clothes, I was back into town again, this time, running into the couple I had met on the mini-bus. I sat and had a beer with them as the sun set and the night life began to emerge in bars along the street. Lights started to turn on, music began to emanate throughout town. The sun bleached streets and dark clouds gave way to a starry sky and clear night air. I chatted with my new friends for a while, killing time before meeting Cindy at the 7-11.

It was great to see Cindy and rather surprising, really. Her hippy appearance certainly was incongruent with my experience of Korea. She pulled up on her motorbike, and suggested we walk down the street to, wouldn’t you guess, Na’s Kitchen, for dinner. Ah, again! So wonderful. I can’t even tell you how incredible this food was. We had a great time at dinner sharing lots of funny stories about Suah, learning about Cindy’s life in Thailand and Pai, hearing about her fears of returning to Seoul. She would be heading back to her life and her family in Korea the next day – not something she was very thrilled about. Her life in Pai was so different – so independent, so charged with life, so easy to do and feel and be whatever she chose. She had some complicated living arrangement with an uncle, I think, and perhaps her money had run out, so she was forced to return to Korea with very little idea of what would come next in her life. I felt fortunate to have caught her on her very last night in Pai.

After filling our bellies with delicious treats, she suggested we go to a party with her friends. Sure, a party sounds great. So, we hopped on her moped and headed out of town on the same road I had been on earlier that day. We arrived at her friend’s house – a former cinema converted into living space. What I found was not so much a party as it was two people hanging out on a porch with beer. And when I got closer, I realized that the beautiful woman who I had seen on the street would be my host for the evening. She was, in fact, Korean, and she was living in Pai with her husband. They’d been there for maybe 2 years. Doing what? I asked. Nothing, they replied. Absolutely nothing. The night was warm and quiet. The sounds of the jungle reverberated around us. We lounged on pyramid Thai pillows and drank Chang beer. Some Korean snacks were spread around the table. I suddenly felt more at ease and comfortable and safe than I had in the 5 days I had been in Thailand. The familiarity of the language that was being spoken around me, the food, the company – I felt at home, strangely enough. We listened to this great, wacked out Korean music. We chatted as much as we could in English. And at a certain point, the man looked at me and asked, “You mind I smoke?” Huh? No. Of course not. Whatever. I certainly didn’t expect what came next. Out of his little can he started to pull small dried leaves which he then packed in to a glass bowl he pulled from his pocket. I almost died. Pot? You – a Korean – is about to smoke pot? Having lived in Korea for a year, I hadn’t seen anyone smoke anything other than a cigarette for my entire duration there. This was mind blowing. So very far from the rigid structure of Korean life. All the stress and anxiety that had been building in me for days, weeks even, suddenly dissipated. In those moments, I wasn’t a girl who was heartbroken and alone, aching for the company of the one she left behind, anxious for the future and confused by her present. I was just another traveler enjoying the company of strangers on their own journey.

As the night wore on, and we grew more and more tired, Cindy drove me back to my riverside bungalow. After a tearful goodbye, I walked the path to my place with so much gratitude and lightness in my heart. I was asleep nearly the moment my head hit the pillow, lulled by the crickets and the soft sounds of chickens wandering the grounds.

I awoke the next morning ready for a new day. I had found myself at different times spontaneously breaking into tears throughout the past several days. Today, I felt bolstered by the night before, ready to explore the town a little more and find some space to heal a little more. I found a lovely spot for breakfast – some hippie rasta wheatgrass juice joint where I had a delightful organic meal and excellent coffee. I wandered down the street half looking for a Thai massage school and half exploring. I found the stretch of bars with Buffalo Exchange at the end. I discovered the natural store and restaurant right at the bridge across the river. It was this location that a tragedy had taken place nearly six months earlier. An farang girl (foreigner in Thai) was walking with her Canadian friend near the bridge. The rumor is that a drunk, off-duty police officer came out of a nearby bar, got into an argument with the two of them, and for reasons unknown, the officer shot the boyfriend and wounded the woman. You can read more about it here: http://www.andrew-drummond.com/my-work/investigations/death-in-pai/

I had missed the massage school by a few doors. I discovered the rather hidden entrance and walked along a gravel driveway up to a small yard just off the main road. Here, I was greeted by the most joyful, kind woman I had ever met. Her smile sent rays of warmth through me. She would be my massage therapist. She took me to a small room and began to work on me. It was my first traditional Thai massage, and it was super intense. The emotional release grew stronger as the work progressed. As she moved my limbs and stretched muscles and tendons, the sadness and pain that I had been so overwhelmed by for so long just started to pour out of me. Tears ran down my face and the safety of comfort of this kind Thai woman allowed me the space to release and let go of what I didn’t need anymore. When she was finished, she directed me to the steam room outside where I could stay for as long as I wanted.

In Thailand, steam rooms are usually small concrete or brick structures in which dozens of different Thai herbs are packed into a space that is pumped full of steam. The aromatherapy experience within this space ranges from pleasantly mild to pungent and sinus-clearingly strong. I had that space all to myself. She wrapped me in a sarong and escorted me inside. I took a seat on the bench and began to allow the benefits of what I had just experienced in my body wash over me. Almost immediately, I was transported into a stream of memories, taking me on a journey all the way back to the first night I met Jim. It was an opening of a floodgate of emotions. I felt so very overwhelmed by what was happening. And as it was happening, I began to compose a letter in my mind, one that I would later write with more passion and intensity than anything I had composed before or since. The immediacy of the experience and the urgency with which I felt I needed to convey the journey was overpowering. Once the letter had been composed in my mind’s eye, I found some grounding in the steam room and emerged with some better understanding of the past two years.

I said my goodbyes to my massage therapist. There was some profound change that took place there. This catharsis had given me new ground upon which to take the next step. With a little more than an hour before my bus back to Chiang Mai, I decided to continue to explore a little while before settling in to put to paper the words I had composed in my head. While walking up another street, I noticed a Thai woman sitting in a doorway, hand-embroidering white shirts. Inside her shop were lots of peasant shirts and beautiful handmade goods. Not wanting to spend any more money, I nearly passed it by, but something in the jewelry case caught my eye. When I approached the counter and started a conversation with the woman and her partner, I noticed that her partner had on him dozens of pieces of Native American jewelry, items or turquoise and silver, with animal spirits and clearly Navajo roots. We engaged in a conversation about the pieces, and though I can’t possibly tell you where or why he had these pieces, I can tell you that they were beautiful people with a deep appreciation for the jewelry and its significance. In his case he had a number of black cuffs with turquoise embedded in them. I had never seen anything like them. Black coral, he said, from the depths of the Thai sea. It protects you, just as the turquoise does. One in particular caught my eye. And having emerged from my earlier experience with such a profound sense of self, I decided it was important to mark the experience with an object that held meaning and significance to me. I chose the black coral cuff that had first held my attention.

As I left the store and made one last loop around the town before jumping on my bus back to Chiang Mai, I was truly awestruck by the past 48 hours. My emotions were running in overdrive. I was up and down so quickly that before I knew it, I was back again in yet another cycle. This town, though, had given me all that it possibly could. It gave me some space to let these emotions swirl around me. It gave me some time to savor the sweetness of new experiences and new understanding.

part 2: afloat on a sea of mist

Doi Suthep, a long road, new friends and a trip to the Night Bazaar

Up early after a long night of sleeplessness, I ask the manager at my guest house how best to getmyself to the temple in the mountains – Doi Suthep. “Oh! No problem,” she says. “You take songtaew to Doi Suthep. Maybe 40 baht.” Ok! So, off I went, into the street in search of a taxi. But of course that wasn’t the whole truth. Because, as I quickly learned, no one wants to just take one person anywhere in Thailand, let alone 8km up a mountain. If you are just one person, the cost of getting anywhere goes up exponentially. So, after taking a taxi truck to one bus stop and waiting inside another taxi truck for it to gather enough people to make it worth the driver’s while to take me up the mountain, I decided enough was enough. I waited an hour and was still the *only* person sitting in that truck. I hopped into the first truck that would agree to take me up to the temple for the least painful sum. In the end, I settled for 350 baht (about $12). The driver was great. Halfway up the mountain, after stopping to pick up a few other people, he stopped at this lookout point and dragged me from the truck to be sure that I got to see Chiang Mai from one of the highest points in the city. He waited patiently while I snapped some shots of the view and off we went. When we finally arrived at the temple drop-off, we had some more negotiations about getting me further up the mountain – there’s a summer palace and a pseudo hill tribe village further up. It was a no go. For another $20, I could get him to wait for me and then take me down the mountain, but that was absurd. I wanted to go UP not DOWN. So I set off on my own, knowing that I would probably find myself doing a lot of walking that day to get where I wanted to be.

I made my way into the temple, up many, many stairs. 306 to be precise. At the base of the stairs was a series of tourist shops and food stalls along with a group of women and children all dressed in traditional Hmong clothing. As tourists approached them, the kids would smile and say, in a sweet singsong voice, “Do you want picture? Give me money!” They gathered at the base of the hundreds of steps, some of them scampering off into the jungle with younger brothers and sisters in tow, others playing games and smiling placidly at the passers-by. I watched as a family of very large Germans gathered around these small children and plopped themselves down on the stairs, ready to have the moment documented. Such a surreal image—these pink faced foreigners surrounded by the bronze smiles of children adorned in bold colors and lots of silver.

As I walked up the 306 stairs flanked on either side by dragons, the smell of jasmine pierced the air. The sky was full of high clouds, some dark. It was certain to rain at some point that day, though I hoped not while I was on this particular adventure. I entered the temple and made my way around the back side, towards the International Center for Buddhism that calls Doi Suthep its home. Plants and trees and flowers and shrines blanketed every inch of the space. I wandered past the center and found a pathway to a large open plaza with a view of the valley below that was far superior to my lookout point experience on the way up. But the plaza had something else equally as exciting—a row of about 20 bells hanging along a long horizontal rod. Unlike my experiences as Korean Buddhist temples where ringing the bell wasn’t quite the most acceptable thing to do as a visitor, these bells were there for ringing. And so I did. I rang *all* the bells. Every one of them. I noticed something as I walked around the temple—many people were without shoes. Now, having traveled for as long as I had in Asia, I was very conscientious about such things. Shoes were always left at the door – of homes, temples, restaurants, school, everywhere, really. But somehow, I had missed something. As I rounded the other side of the plaza and came back around to what I now recognized as the main entrance, I wasn’t really clear on how I had missed it. There, all along the front side of the entrance to the main part of the temple were scores of pairs of shoes. There were even shoe racks on either side of the entrance. Totally missed by me. Alas. It happens.

I took off my shoes and ascended the stairs. What I was met with was more than I ever could have imagined. Imagine: a square area with a covered walkway on all sides under which sat various shrines and images of the Buddha. On two opposite sides of this square were rooms in which monks were bestowing blessings on visitors. Another side was devoted to offerings—candles, incense and lotus flowers—and a jade Buddha image. In the center of all of this, a grand golden stupa around which people were walking, offerings in hand. I stopped a tour guide to ask how many times people walk around it. Three she told me. I took my offerings in hand and walked behind a mother and her very reluctant child around that golden stupa three times, watching the mom drag her kid around that thing for the last round. I laid my offerings alongside so many others in front of the jade Buddha and received my blessing not from a monk as they are forbidden contact with women, but from another person whose position at the temple was unclear but no less valuable.

The spirit of the place was energetic. There was serenity but there was also the fervor and excitement to be in such a place, a site of such grandeur and sanctity. I spent more time walking around, trying to take as much in as I could. There was just so much. When I felt satisfied, I walked back down the 306 steps and began my journey to my next destination –the Royal Winter Palace Phu Ping. I was told by the taxi drivers to take the road, my safest option for walking there. The first road sign told me I had 4 km to walk. No far, I thought. Not so bad. The road was quiet. Jungle on either side, the sounds of the creatures who call it home amplified by the stillness in the air. Few cars passed me at all. I had essentially found myself fully in solitude for the first time in so very long. The two hour walk gave me much time to center myself at the beginning of this journey, at the end of my adventures in Korea, at the close of a year of so much change and growth.

When I finally arrived at the end of the road I had been traveling and the beginning of a small road to the palace, I was in awe of my surroundings. There were flowers everywhere, flooding the hillsides. I saw these gorgeous dripping flowers that I used to have in my backyard in the Sunset in San Francisco.I have no idea what they’re called, but they hang like bells from low trees and smell so sweet. But here, in Thailand, they were enormous. And they were pink and yellow and white and everywhere. I found the palace and realized I only had a short time to cruise the grounds before closing time.

Again, the most impressive aspect of the palace itself was the incredible gardens of flowers occupying every inch of the place. That and the totally Disney-esque experience of being guided from one building to the next by informative badly translated signs and Musak that wafted from speakers hidden under bushes and inside trees. It was so very bizarre. The palace consisted of a variety of formal buildings and walking areas as well as living quarters and all sorts of little cottages everywhere for the extended royal family. It all looked like a little Hummel scene come to life. Or like I had stumbled upon the world where Peter Rabbit and Mr. Toad live and at any moment they might just pop out for tea in the garden. But the pièce de résistance, the pinnacle of this whole experience was the Queen’s fountain, "The Fountain of Celestial Water of People." Built for her 72^nd birthday, this “fountain” was a large rectangular pool as big as a soccer pitch with severaoordinated water features – coordinated with the awesome cheesy Thai/Bollywood music. It’s difficult to fully appreciate the musical score without having heard it, but it felt a little like disco meets Fantasia meets Thailand. It was so over the top. As I inspected it more closely, I noticed that the whole thing was made out of poured concrete with sloping walls that closely resembled the “rivers” in Tucson when I was growing up. You know, the ones like in Grease when they drag race on the sides of the walls? I imagined emptying the fountain and holding a Roller Derby there. (I’m sure this image and the very idea of desecrating anything connected to the Royal Family is intensely offensive to some. For that I apologize. But really. So over the top.) The walking tour of the palace ended with me sneaking a walk up to Her Majesty’s temple and then sliding down a muddy hill on my hands and knees to the road below where I found the Giant Bamboo. So very giant. Towering in clumps overhead into the sky. Overall, the palace was a decent experience. Not totally fabulous, but interesting and slightly bizarre. I walked out of the palace in search of a bathroom and found myself walking downhill through a series of vendors. I almost gave up looking when a woman who was walking uphill past me urged me to go all the way down and check out the view. “You won’t be disappointed,” she said. And indeed I wasn’t. The hill dropped off at a series of tiered ledges. No one was around. Just me and the jungle. There were picnic tables and paths in every direction. I jumped on one and followed it down to a hidden shrine buried behind a grove of pine trees. I spent a lot of time inspecting all the details of these tree spirit houses and even discovered a very beautiful, very strange flower growing right out of the ground beneath the thick carpet of pine needles. As I walked back up the hill, the sky grew darker, and I had no doubt it was going to pour rain. Though there were dozens of taxi drivers waiting outside the palace, again, no one would take me back down the mountain for less that $15. Just one person. Totally out of luck. Ok, I’ll walk then. Maybe I can get someone to pick me up along the way. Since the sky was threatening to dump, I decided a brisk downhill run was in order. I ran for quite a while, slowing down as the road opened up to an outcropping. At just the moment that the rain started to fall, a songtaew honked and stopped for me. Headed down to the temple, he said he could take me for about $3 at least to the midway point. I’d have more options once I got there. So, I climbed into the truck and was startled to see a pretty large group of people in the back. Within minutes we were all chatting and becoming fast friends. The group consisted of a family of three from Bangkok and two Japanese girls and me. After telling them of my (mis)adventures with taxis, they encouraged me to just stay with them and go back to the temple and then back to the city. Why not? There was certainly more of that temple to take in. So off we went, back up the 306 steps and into the heart of the temple, shoes on the racks first, of course. We were probably up near the stupa for only about 15 minutes before it just started to pour. The rain made the marble surfaces so slippery. And my new Japanese friends and I did nothing but slip and laugh and take pictures. I suddenly had friends! My first friends in Thailand. One of the girls had been studying Korean and was planning to move to Seoul to study more after they returned from their trip. So, we chatted in broken Korean (for me) and had a blast. We spent the next hour walking around in the rain, ringing bells and talking about our various adventures. We took in the view across the valley below, covered in a sea of mist. I felt as though I was floating. We had lost the family in the crowd at the temple, so we decided it was about time to get ourselves down to the taxi to go home. We hadn’t yet cleared the last step off the stairs when the rain started coming down in sheets. Within minutes there was a swift river running down the stairs and into the street below. We huddled under the roof of a small restaurant and then under the archway of the temple entrance until one of the girls spotted our truck. Off we fled into the downpour and into the dryness of the truck. I watched so many people jumping on scooters, babies and shopping bags in tow, riding off into the rain on the mountain. Wild. The family eventually made it back, too, and we made the winding descent into the city. Not long after we started, the rain subsided, and by the time we made it to the city streets, it was nothing but a memory. Not a drop had fallen in Chiang Mai. We said goodbye to the family and then agreed to have dinner—the three of us girls—after a shower and a change of clothes.

I met up with them and we walked towards the Night Bazaar, finding a fun little restaurant along the way. I loved it—these girls were so much fun. It was so interesting to talk to them about their traveling and their plans for the future. What their parents expected, what they wanted, where they were headed. They were as fascinated by food as I am—taking pictures of everything they ate, giggling at the oddities on the table. And then there was the shopping. They were all about the jewelry. And the bargaining. As my first trip out with spending cash, I was reserved, wanting to just scope it all out before I started giving in to the rip offs of the market. We made it through a large portion of the market and then I suggested a cup of coffee. I had read about a small coffee shop close to where we had found ourselves. We crossed the street and found the shop. Walking in, I was first hit with the blinding cold of the air conditioning, keeping the shop totally inhospitable to our hot weather attire. And then, I noticed that everyone working in the shop was wearing a very pink polo shirt and was *very* eager to help us, the only customers in the place. I asked for a coffee to go. And what I got was a very small clear plastic cup with a lid with half a cup of coffee in it. I wondered what I would have gotten had I not asked for it to go since we ended up staying anyway. The girls and I enjoyed our drinks and the strange atmosphere, and then we parted ways on the street. They were tired and done with shopping. I was wired and ready to explore a little more.

On the corner opposite the coffee shop was the famous roti corner where a woman stands every night making the most delicious rotis with honey and butter in the most visually mesmerizing pattern of hand motions I’ve ever witnessed. With a carton of fresh orange juice, I parked myself on a set of stairs to enjoy the treat and watch the people go by. Not long after I sat down, a pretty large group of kids came running up, one of them holding some kid of frame in his hands. I realized almost immediately that they were Korean kids, so I started chatting with them. The kid had just bought one of the framed beetles I had seen in a stall down the way and was showing it off to his friends. They were somehow connected to a Korean girl who was studying at Chiang Mai University – maybe a sister or something. The Korean disappeared and I walked a little further down the market stalls to see what the rest of the street had to offer. I hadn’t gone far before I heard, “[clap clap] Everything 70 baht!” repeated over and over. I rounded a corner and a very large Indian woman came into view, hands clapping and shouting the bargain that were store was offering. Basically, “everything” meant anything you could find in several giant piles of cotton Thai/hippie clothing and “70 baht” was about $3. How could I resist? You have no idea how many amazing things I found in that $3 pile.

I took another route home, finding myself in the bar section of the market – this huge open air plaza full of little squares of bars with tvs and pool tables and girls at the ready. I couldn’t find a taxi (surprise, surprise) so I walked down the street headed back to my guest house. I found this art gallery still open so I ducked inside. Downstairs was an amazing collection of beautiful silk and sequined clothes. I got to chatting with one of the gallery owners, and he took me upstairs to show me the studio part of the building. His name was Ti (as in “tea”) and he’s a woodcutter. He pulled out a dozen of his woodcut prints. They were so beautiful. Most of them had these incredible images of people – sexually charged yet androgynous, figures superimposed on each other. So much detail. So much energy. I met another one of the artists who was very shy. Ti and I talked about art in Thailand and at home in San Francisco. It was a magical spot to stumble upon at the end of an eventful and spectacular Chiang Mai day. I felt elated in my rickshaw ride home and ready to dive into the next adventure – a trip to Pai the next day.

korea revisited

In a few short days, a deeply missed partner in crime (and joy and silliness) will return to my world. And with her return, a new wave of exploration of the experience that was living in Korea will begin, and already has, really. As she prepares to wrap up a life created in that place and re-enter this city again to start the next chapter, I am reminded of my own wild emotional ride last May when I stepped off the Korean peninsula to resume life once again on this one.

“I did this!” she continued to exclaim over IM last night. “I DID THIS!” Yes, you did that. You moved to another part of the world and created a new and different and cherished life for yourself among people who now not only know you, they love you and will miss your presence deeply in their lives when you leave. And this is the thing that is, even now, astounding to me: How was it possible to create such a life there? Amidst so much confusion and challenge and pain and anguish, I discovered more capacity for emotion, connection and gratitude than I have ever experienced in my life.

I wrote about this a lot while I was away—how being in such a foreign place with so many new obstacles really strips you to the bone of all your defenses, all the typical ways you have learned to protect yourself and guard yourself, all your support systems. It’s a commonality among most people I’ve talked to who have lived outside their comfort zone for any period of time. It’s within these experiences that we discover our true capacity as human beings—and not just the feel-good, lovely, I-get-how-the-universe-is-connected stuff, but the ugly, scary, messy chaotic stuff as well. Yes, I saw my true capacity for opening myself to new experiences and people, but I also witnessed a capacity for anger, frustration and disappointment that surprised and, at times, was both terrified by and ashamed of. How could I be capable of such things?

Now, with so much distance and time between my present self and the tumult of the Catie who left Korea on May 6, 2008, I see it—the understanding of the vast complexity of who I am and the ways in which trauma, stress and fear can conspire to reveal some of the most critical pieces of the tapestry of my being. I’ve come to see what emerges from those experiences as the juiciest bits of information we get about ourselves. Yes, I was freaked out by some of the ways I reacted to situations and even ashamed of my behavior, but really, it was all part of me, and there was a deeper explanation beneath all of that emotion and reaction. Many deeper explanations. That’s where it gets interesting. That’s when stepping outside of my behavior and looking at what’s really behind all the commotion becomes the key to unlocking what it is that I’m so afraid of.

I’m so grateful that my BFFK (best friend in korea) is coming home. But I might even be more grateful for the opportunity that I get to revisit my life after Korea and what I’ve come away with after all this time—how I’m living my life differently; where I’ve found happiness; how I’m maintaining integrity in who I am and what I need in my life. So many things.