“when and there, in southern thailand”
May 6, 2008 by constantquantum
everywhere & nowhere 29
July 29
Hat Yai-khas Phanom Bencha National Park
I am in Thailand. & I am truly lost.
Like when I was a kid, hiding from my older brother’s anger, my heart pounding to the beat of his fists on my locked bedroom door.
If the door held, he would give up the vigil with a volley of curses, and I would be left, first deafened by the silence, then fascinated by the way the branches of the old oak tree scratched against my window. Breaking through my deafness.
One day, about a year after my father died, a heavy winter frost sat like felt across the pane, recording the tree scratches. Inscrutable hieroglyphic stories on a brittle glass page… a secret code that meant my room wasn’t my room anymore. I was somewhere else altogether.
& I almost spoke of it to Johnny:
Childhood scars over scotch and beer.
But I won’t talk of my childhood tonight,
I don’t want your hand resting on my shoulder,
Turning gentle now, offering sympathy,
“We are only playing Johnny”
Later, alone, the voices insist, recording scenes from the past.
Me remembering in an ordered mature manner, avoiding the uncertainty of a child’s gaze…
***
& Thialand is still the place to begin exploring… even if it seems cliche.
Past/present/future all together here in the land of ancient traditions.
Where a rising middle class means no more romantic nostalgia for foreign tourists in search of an exotic “other” world. Here, where 75 million year old limestone deposits are greeted by a new superhighway; where “Western tourists” mix their curiosity, shoulder to shoulder, with orange and saffron clad novice Buddhist monks….
both out to learn the scope of things
& Thailand is as difficult and as beautiful as it is expressive.
The man who runs the restaurant, and takes care of the park here, has two beautiful daughters.
He is my age. He earns money at two different jobs, working more than 16 hours a day, in order to send his three year old to the nearest school …which is more than 40 minutes away. (An hour during the rainy season.)
So: “Here I am” I think, “I am here in Thailand.”
“Sitting in your restaurant. In your home. Eating the food your wife has prepared. I am drawing silly pictures to entertain your daughter. I am listening to the stories you tell about your life here in Thailand.”
“Here you are: Painting scenes… making me see…”
& I am trying
…but…
inadequately prepared to understand it all
I am still a silly girl, with a tourist’s sensibility.
No, I will not stop
trying
trying
When I get home, when I finally sleep thru the night, I will dream of the things you’re saying, and the things I’m seeing, and the order they take will not be affected by mature responsible, logic; and finally, maybe, they will not be drowned out by this romantic crush i am carrying around like a life raft on this journey… i will not be trying to work out all that has happened, making it add up, making it make sense.
It will come in flashes:
Like, the fisherman in the dark hours of the early morning, that first night in Indonesia. Standing in the shallows of a rough-pebble-and-broken-coral beach. A silhouette bathed in the moon’s blue spot, his arm arching above his head, hypnotically spinning the line around and around, the faint hum of momentum, before casting out to the waves…
Or glimpses of yellow green sulfurous mud with epoxy bubbles, as if it had lungs…
Warnings of evil spirits on Malaysian beaches: local ghost stories designed to haunt a solo stroller, perhaps to scare this silly Western girl walking alone at night–and me smiling, thinking evil people might be more of a threat… wondering how easy it is to tell one from another…
I will remember Christine singing that haunting Moire folk song…
The girls giggling an evening away in a mobile tent village beside Thailand’s highway number 4…
& learning about
…everything…
from a young Indonesian man in Charita.
I want to remember the way Arlene’s wordless crocodile games drew scream-and-giggle delight from inquisitive Indonesian children… & to smile as I recall raindrop schools of fish.
I will remember times with absolute certainty:
“I don’t know what you want…”
He is complaining, tho his smile means he’s pleased with my teasing.
“We are only playing Johnny.
Tag you’re it and the chase is on.
It’s supposed to be fun Johnny. Come play with me!”
We are sitting on fold-out camp stools, night shadows plotting territory on the white of the truck right behind us. I have his fingers at my lips, denying their calluses and unfolding their grip.
games in the dark
a driving force
everyone else has gone to sleep
but here, in a stranger’s land,
i am nocturnal
and i am sure of everything
…except that
in a flash
the memory is gone….
August 2
(?)
Last night:
In the cab of the truck with Johnny
Music thru tinny speakers.
Everyone else is sleeping
but we are listening
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons fills my senses
“Did you ever think maybe life is a door?” he asks me. “It would be easy to learn how to open the door gently, but it would take a special talent to close it softly behind you.”
playing
playing
…i have forgotten how to breathe…
the music infects my brain
reflecting our shared space
claustrophobic
anachronistic
too dense to contemplate
***
Tonight:
Another sleepless night spent walking the beach alone
We are somewhere on the way back to Bangkok
…on our way to the end…
& across this ocean
somewhere
is my home
