Leaving Chiang Mai

      What is it that molds our personalities and what is it that makes us the individuals that we are in this moment? Personally, my belief is that much of what makes me who I am has a great deal to do with my interactions amid the external world. It is all of the experiences; joyful, depressing, painful, exciting, discouraging, insurmountable, along with every trivial and momentous instant that life affords, that shapes my personality and my character. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on who you speak with, my persona has been created through interacting with many people from a variety of cultures and backgrounds. There was a time, a good while back, when I used to be one of those polyester suit wearing persons that passed out peanuts and refused to give you the entire can of pop unless you asked for it. One of the greatest things about that job was having the chance to interact with so many unique people from all sorts of places around the world. Also, I was able travel and be a part of differing cultures at least for a short time. How great it was to travel and see the people of the world and to be a part of their daily lives, if even for just a short while, the experiences were unforgettable. 

            Living in Chiang Mai was the first time that I was able to truly immerse myself into a foreign culture and people for an extended period of time. It surely was a very strange adjustment going from working an eight to five job for the last eight years to moving to the other side of the world without a set daily schedule. This was to be the first time that I would give myself the opportunity to integrate with another culture for more than just a two week vacation experience; and oh what an experience this was to be for me. Sure, when I first arrived in Chiang Mai I had a set agenda and itinerary, which listed all the things that I wanted to see as well as a list of things that I needed to achieve in order to get situated as a short time resident in this “Land of Smiles”. So, initially I made sure to get all of the sites in that I wanted to see; making sure to visit the many temples, markets, and any other guide book suggestions that caught my eye. After getting familiar with this enchanting city and after getting a good fill of sites, taste, and sounds; I moved onto the less enjoyable task of setting up the mundane aspects of life, such as a place to live, phone, electricity and all these other boring necessities required to get by in most places of societal existence. After passing the two week mark in Chiang Mai, I began to develop a daily routine. A routine is something that I require as a base in order to give me an anchor on which to cling upon. This anchor assists me in keeping the chaos and disorder of life from encroaching and disrupting my desired perpetual contentment.

           

          After a month in Chiang Mai and after getting into the flow of a daily routine; which consisted of Thai Language course, golf, leisurely reading, fiddling with the guitar, and enjoying a variety of Thai dishes. Comfort and confidence started to set in when it came to getting around and functioning in this once overwhelming society as it began to envelop me. After gaining a little more courage with speaking the Thai language, I was more secure when engaging in limited conversations with the local Thai populace. Also, I was fortunate to meet several Thais that spoke a fair amount of English; this was a great opportunity for me to use the Thai that I was learning as well as to immerse myself more into the local culture. The local culture and those wonderful interactions with such an amazing and ingratiating people, will be the things that I will carry with me as the days soften into years and the images, smells and taste of temples, waterfalls, lush vibrant forest, lingering smoke of burning incense during my morning walks, monks holding large silver bowls in expectation of offerings while walking barefoot on the cool morning streets, steaming bowls of warm rice covered with all sorts of varying sauces and meats, and paper lanterns filling the night sky in small orbs of illumination. These are sure to all begin to become fuzzy remembrances conjured up from the depths of memory by the thumbing through of old photos and writings. Yes, and this goes back to what I was mentioning earlier; that is, our personalities are forged through our experiences and interactions. Who I am as a person is fluid and is ever changing and should remain so, just as long as I continue to expose myself to diverse people, situations and ideas.  Stagnation of mind is self imposed and is a condition that limits my ability to empathize and interact with other cultures and persons. This belief may be why I take so much more from my back and forth interactions with the people that I met in Chiang Mai than what I take from the sites I saw during my stay in Chiang Mai. 

            Chiang Mai was initially planned to be a place that I might live out the rest of my days. However, after getting into the routine of daily existence, I realized that life in Chiang Mai was just like life in Austin with just a few differences. Also, I knew that I could survive for a few years without working due to the low cost of all things, but eventually I would have to get a job in order to get by. And as nice as it was to be away from the workplace, I have to say, I found myself actually missing the daily routine of the job, as well as the daily challenges to be surmounted. The employment choices were limited in Chiang Mai and the pay was minimal for the jobs available. Sure, I could work to live in Thailand but this working to live thing was already something that I was doing in Austin. As I pondered what I might do to get by in Chiang Mai, memories of Austin and of its beautiful meandering hikes, of its humble water falls and streams, of the wonderful diverse taste, of the amazing people and of my extraordinary friends began to flicker into my consciousness more and more often. These smile inducing memories led me to reminisce about the time way back then. It was thirteen years ago, during a time when I had a job that allowed me the opportunity to commute from any location around the world. At the time I was based in that decrepit crumbling city of Detroit and only wanted to get the hell out of there as quickly as I possibly could. Well, when I was younger, I had always thought of living in one of those “hip and cool” cities, like New York, LA, San Francisco, London, Madrid, Tokyo and a few others. It’s amazing how the things that I thought I wanted were really just things that others around me said that they wanted and so these are things that I thought I wanted as well, funny how that works. Anyway, I ended up going to all of these cities for small amounts of time and found that I really didn’t enjoy any of these places enough to pack up and move there. “Hip and cool” was turning out to be crowded and pretentious, not really what I was hoping for. Then there was this one day that I was to meet up with an old friend who was living in Austin Texas. It was May and the overbearing heat of the summer had not yet set in. Temperatures were still in the mid 80’s, the flora was in full bloom, and the trees were coloring the horizon and roads in varying hues of green. There were times in the past that I had made my way to Austin, but these occasions were just two day excursions over weekends away from Dallas. That trip was the first time that I was able to actually get out and see all that Austin was; it took just a week for me to fall in love with the town. I remember being taken out for some tasty Tex Mex, getting out on the lake, sipping upon cold beers on the back porch amongst the flickering fire flies and cool breezes of Austin’s spring evenings, and then concluding the trip with a free outdoor concert. While lying there in the soft cushion of thick grass while shifting abstract cloud shapes into discernable images as they floated slowly overhead, I decided that Austin would be the place to hang my hat and kick off my boots. And well, as time passed in Chiang Mai it began to enter my mind that Austin is still the place that best suits me.

            Like a fallen leaf floating upon the ebb and flowing surface rippling down a winding stream as it dips and rises through voids carved from impermanent stone, through tumultuous rapids, and calm serene lulls; I find myself adapting and adjusting to the externalities of life; trying not to resist too much but still trying to guide myself in the direction that will offer me the highest chance of contentment. Since I do not believe in Dharma or that we all have been given some sort of single purpose which we need to accomplish during our limited years on this planet, I am free to change directions on a dime and simply follow a new path. This is where I am today, on a new path. For me I find it a very liberating thing to know that I am not limited by dharma or limiting ideas of what the future is to be. Sure it’s trite, but I am a big believer in enjoying the now. The future will have everything to do with what is done in this moment and so, I do my best to focus on my happiness in the here and now. Currently, the here and now is back in the place in which I left six months ago, good ole Austin.

            Spring is the best time to be out and about here in Austin and I am so very glad that I made my way back to this home of mine. Now I come back with a new gained perspective on where it is that I want to live out my days. Chiang Mai, as beautiful and as unique as it was, did not outshine the everyday experiences that I have been able to find here in Austin. And now that I have moved from Chiang Mai and set back up in the states, I will not be keeping up with the blog that I created to document my happenings while living abroad. As fun as it has been to write about my time away, I do not think that it would be nearly as interesting to write about the day to day back here in Austin. Also, I think that my chances of getting into awkward social situations would be greatly heightened by keeping a blog about my experiences and interactions with the locals here. Back in Chiang Mai, most of the locals were unable to read any of the postings, so I had carte blanche when it came to telling my stories.  Of course I will miss writing, it has been a good deal of fun and the support from my friends and family was a great motivator, thanks for that.

            Thank you Chiang Mai, thank you to all of the wonderful smiling Thai faces, thank you friends and family, and thank you to all of those that instilled in me the fortitude to take the leap onto that next stepping stone of this ever varying path.