Since arriving in Asia four months ago, I have only been bitten by one animal (a new record!).
A lizard sunk his teeth into me on Ko Phangan, off the Gulf of Thailand. I’d say he was acting within his animal rights. I did sneak up behind him and grab him off a tree. . . So maybe it was less of a lizard attack and more of a human attack. . . But I just wanted to hold him. Do you ever feel this way when you see a reptile? That you just want to give him a bite-sized cuddle? I wanted the lizards and me to be friends, but clearly we cannot. While my heart was stung, I washed my hands after the bite and did not suffer any serious infections.
Four Months in Asia
Today marks four months in Asia. I can’t believe I’ve made it this long. I almost didn’t make it at all and there have been plenty of times along the way when I was ready to throw in the towel and book a flight the hell outta here.
In New York, I was faced with a degenerating back/neck, constant pain, no health insurance, and a one way ticket leaving in five days to Asia.
Whenever I need to really think in New York, I go to a place where a committee of fish heads look out at me like meditative sages staring from a frozen foray – The Bushwick Fish Market.
Walking in circles, I thought about my circumstance, stared into the eyes of a rainbow trout and decided to go ahead with my trip to Asia where, unlike the U.S., I could pay for a bit of medical care out of pocket.
Due to my limitations, the financial hardships, and loss of identity (guitar playing jam session bandit no more) caused by them, this trip hasn’t been easy.
There have been times this trip when I faced some inner darkness and a few sinking moments of despair. But the process of overcoming this has led me to a place I’m grateful to be. There is a fondness I’ve developed for those very limitations. I feel like something very helpful and happy has taken hold of me through it all.
I’ve seen a dozen doctors, as many alternative healers, have been immersed in yoga and things inside are ever on the mend, but I still am uncertain of how much better I’ll be capable of getting. The road of pain has been a path of serious introspection coupled with basking in the bliss of letting go of things I once thought would have killed me to leave behind.
Asia on the Cray
To say it another way, “So much crazy shit has happened to me in Asia, friends!” One of my biggest frustrations along this path has been finding the way to share it with you, dear reader. My limitations have led to my blogging marching sluggishly onwards. But I’m dedicated to catch you up to the present and somehow relate a series of unlikely events I’m still trying to understand – heavy happenings that have caused me to completely shift my ontological worldview.
I’ll certainly have time this next week to reflect on them. I’m about to go into 10 days of silence. I departed Cambodia yesterday afternoon and arrived back in Thailand. From Surat Thani, I took an overnight boat to Ko Phangan.
In 12 hours, I begin a 10 day silent meditation retreat in Wat Khao Tham. Everything about my trip has been pointing towards this retreat. While my ego thinks that with only three weeks left in Asia, I should do something more compelling than sit around silently meditating for 1.5 weeks. But an inner prod makes me sense that this silence is exactly what I need to put the last four months into a decipherable perspective. Also, I’m very fortunate to be able to do this. How many people living in our endlessly marching modernity can take 10 days to just be?
Jayne is someone I met in a yoga/meditation retreat in Cambodia at The Vagabond Temple. As someone who’s seen her life ravaged by MS, but come out on the other side with a fierce drive to still own her life, she is one of the bravest, most inspiring, admirable people I’ve ever been privileged to share the air with. “I think you should go,” she told me without further explanation when I brought up the silent retreat during a motorcycle ride to visit the Goddess of Travel on a mountain overlooking Kampot, Cambodia.
And so I’m going. My articles due this month have been typed (like this blogpost, on my iPhone) and sent off. The work for the tour company I’m co-founding has been delegated to my partners in the endeavor. An online fundraiser for an orphanage in Uganda I promised to do has been picked up by my friend Simone. . . Work to help set up a program to help establish a beneficial program for an orphanage in Cambodia is being moved forward by my partner in that endeavor, Jayne (and Caity and Ana from their philanthropic perches in The U.S. And Guatemala). The only thing I wanted to do before I went silent was to get a blog post up. . . It seems I have. Thanks for reading it. I’ll check back in when I return to the world of the speaking.
