Moving up

When your rooms too small, move out. When the cities confines start to close in, get on a plane. When the world becomes your soap dish, make a spaceship and head for the next star. Life is to short to waste time thinking of all the things you would do if only you could.

Invisible

. I'm the girl who is lost in space, the girl who is disappearing always, forever fading away and receding farther and farther into the background. Just like the Cheshire cat, someday I will suddenly leave, but the artificial warmth of my smile, that phony, clownish curve, the kind you see on miserably sad people and villains in Disney movies, will remain behind as an ironic remnant. I am the girl you see in the photograph from some party someplace or some picnic in the park, the one who is in fact soon to be gone. When you look at the picture again, I want to assure you, I will no longer be there. I will be erased from history, like a traitor in the Soviet Union. Because with every day that goes by, I feel myself becoming more and more invisible... -Elizabeth Wurtzel

One morning

".....and then one morning you wake up and you've forgotten all those things that made you unhappy, sad or less than who you are, and you are surrounded by love light and happiness once again."

Parasite in the land of plenty

I have become a tour guide, for a few weeks. Unintentionally and kicking and screaming the whole way. Acosted by people from home in my new surroundings, people stomping demands of "you will make sure I have a good time" and "Its your job to make me have a good time." No plan, no interests, no guide book and nothing to contribute.

I give the speech I had not known resided inside me, about making your own happiness and finding your own way. As the words cross my lips I understand that I have crossed over. There is a difference in levels, and respect and actions between us that is huge. Well at least we are in Kho Phangan I think, where the Thais are used to the typical disrespectful white people banging around. Excessive weirdness and ignorance.

Many scooter rides with the ungrateful tourist strapped to the back seat into the day and night, prove to be wearing on my soul. A refusal to learn compiled with a huge sense of entitlement make me not miss my home country even in the slightest. The fact that I have to be in charge of this persons good time irritates me. I cant wait for the day she leaves.

After much negotiation and several stomping off fits, I manage to get a night to myself. I spend it at a compond high atop a hill dancing and smiling, watcing the moon rise. Round and full above me surrounded by hiding dancing people far from the Had Yai maddness. Safe, and full of life. Not thinking for a moment about her and her demands.

Watching the sun come up from the water as I float and drink the last of my beer. Wishing the clock would stop as the hour I have left ticks slowly away. One last hurray, and then a feverish gathering of things and a blurry morning ride to the dock. We set sail back south, away from the isle of parties and distracted people. Criminals hiding from the law and confused travelers. But still harboring an ugly 160 pound bag of shit with a grin and a bikini to the next island.

The sun is blinding on the boat, amazing, calming and comforting. The sound of the engine blaring sooths as I sip coffee with the guatar player from Job 2 Do on the deck.
She is yelling again. Into my bad ear and demanding something, Im begining to think that that slice of watermellon I injested at last nights party may have had more than just "love" infused into it. As the sunrise turns many new shades of life, and the yelling disapears into charlie brown trumpet noises.

She has disapeared again, thankfully. I cringe at the thought of when she might rear her ugly, demanding face again. All too soon, I discover as we disbark from the boat she is back to demanding things. Lost and ignorant and to impatient to wait and see. She stomps behind me to the bus, dropping clothing and papers from her badly packed duffle bag she has unimaginativly thrown over her lumpy sunburned shoulders. She is now the ugliest being on the planet at this moment I am sure.

I fall fast asleep on the bus, uninterested in conversations with her or about her she has given up I presume and leaves me to sleep. The bus carries us slowly, hour by hour closer to Railay. I gather my things from the underside of the bus, and make my way to the tuk tuk that will cary us to the dock, and the boat from the dock that will take us to my island. She is lucky. ..but shes oblivious in her world of entitlment she sees nothing. Pouting I watch her disfigured face a marr in the beauty around her on the boat ride in. I am smiling.

As the boat comes to a stop far from shore, low tide is a bitch. She clambors to get herself and her dragging duffel out of the boat. The boat man throws the bag to her and I watch in silence as karma makes my day. The bag knocks her off the slippery concrete walkway underwater and she falls into the murky low tide mangrove water. Computer bag submerging, heel gouging on the rocks. She squeels. I laugh a little inside.

So the journey contines.

Fake Right Go Left. . . .

Faking right and going left can be used as an escape tactic in many situations. Avoiding fighting friends, leaving uncomfortable potential make out sessions, skipping out on your tab, and the ever popular just want to go home without saying good bye.

In the last week I've learned allot about humility. Strange adventures in the jungle with even hotter stranger mornings on the beach swimming in 90 degree waters. Just when you think everything is awesome, life comes and throws you some curve balls to make you reel back and think.
Curve balls that look like a green eyed 25 yr old Canadian hockey player living in Korea with a bad tattoo on his left upper shoulder. Curled exhausted on my bed naked as the day he was born. I can only open my eyes to the still playing music and the misquito net fluttering in the breeze and stare out blankly into the wooden bamboo hut that houses my disgust with myself.

What a big fuck you you are, to him. Proof that I can and will have anyone I want. Proof that nothing about you or myself was special. That I can take just as many people to the same spots we've gone. Take the pictures, hang the ropes, climb the faces. I hiked you to the other side, broke the rules and showed you sparkling crystal caves in the dark. Played you music, and stripped you naked. Risked arrest when we couldn't find a place by stealing the keys from behind the local discount bungalow main desk. We defiled that room for hours, unoticed. I liked it. Id do it all again with you... but only for the point of it all.

Think about the long walks into the dark, and how bright the sun scorches a broken heart when day breaks and him and my heart he holds hostage are still a thousand miles away. But lets be honest you don't care and neither does anyone else.

I'm gonna fake right and go left now baby. ....and keep going.I think as I stroke your perfect 25 year old Canadian skin. Its been nice to know you, and you, and pools of green eyed soft skin lay like the after wake of a speed boat as I walk away. I don't want to fall into you and I didn't open a door into me. I felt the sting you ignored and I stared blankly out into the water when you were studying the intricate details of my neck skin. If only you knew what really lies here for me on this shore, why the glowing shrimp look so amazing to you but are lacking charm when I touch them. Ive buried a treasure here for sure, but I wont give you the map.

I'm glad your going back to Korea, London, wherever your from. It doesn't hurt it doesn't even sting...a little bit. I felt nothing. I used you...like so many have used me before. I cant see anything in your eyes....because I don't want to. I'm laughing at you yes yes I am. When I think about our memory Ill be laughing still.

I guess you could call this my selfish phase, I just call it the great abyss, and Im going to stuff you into it green eyes,beautiful skin,perfect lips, musculur build and all. I'm not afraid, and Christmas didn't make me wish for anything this year. Santa didn't bring back a happy papered box with a new heart piece in it or fix my sun damaged skin. I'm here right where I want to be in my own head, sitting on a beach watching the tide come in and the fireworks drinking Sangsom. Waiting for tomorrows that never come. True love that has died, and something real. Throw me the ball Im ready to go long, and make the touchdown.
Score.

‎"Ah to be the unicorn in the traveling circus ...is not the life for me."

Bangkok, used to be one of my favorite cities away from home. Its big its menacing and it stinks. It stays open until well....it never sleeps. There actually are tons of citys around the world that never sleep...it always amazes me that NYC made that their slogan like its the only one.

Sitting at the Gekko bar on Cosan, nursing my first beer for the night and watching the interesting travel crowds ebb and flow through the street. Luggage bags rolling, backpacks slamming into each other, travelers looking dirty and honeymooners looking star struck or confused.
I sit, humbling observing the passing traffic and wondering where this night will take me. Not expecting much from the Cosan antics, as I have seen this show before, I wait.
A group of travelers gather around a table behind me and begin the nights revelry. A loud man off to the far end of the bar area is throwing beer on his friend and demanding more whisky from the tiny Thai bar lady.
I eventually end up getting an invite from the table behind me to join in their fun. I figure why not, and end up sitting at a table with two spanish, one itailan, one french, two americans, and a sweed. A group of aging Goa Trance hippies once at the heigt of the travel circuit now clinging to the last of their group, headed once again back to Goa for the season. Selling jewelry, and a dream that has as it seems died ten or so years ago. I run accross these people every now and then, and I often wonder if they can see, that time has passed and they as much as they continue on they have forgotten to change with the times. Lost souls....living on the road, clinging to the dream.

I spent some time in the reggae bar dancing with rasta spanish men and german women teaching english. Watching the angry bangkok Thais fighting with the farang. Smoking hookas on the street until dawn and helping the drunken idiots stumbling around find their guesthouses. In between marriage proposals, and pool games I saw the light, invites to goa to sell jewlery on the beach sound so great on the outside but I would just be a unicorn, a single girl in the traveling circus of freaks left out in the cold. This is not my path...but I wish you all the best.

Time in Pai

Ive been in this tiny northern town of Pai now for about a week, I believe I blew into town last wednesday, but I cant be for sure at this point. The days have blurred and the nights have run together. Ive seen the waterfalls and laid in the sun. Soaking up the rays and smiling at strangers.
Attended a party in the jungle on monday night, filled with crimials and travelers. The criminals injesting large quantities of illicit drugs and the travelers injesting whatever liquors they could find. Smoking bong loads of tabacco in a tee pee high in the hills. Drinking with the moon and talking with the stars.
Hiding my broken heart inside, and attempting to drown it in thai whiskey. Watching the night turn into day and the fog roll over the valley. Like so many parties in so many other places the music goes until dawn and everything looses its appeal after the sun begins its ascent back into the sky for the day.

Tuesday was a blur, waking up at 2pm with no pants and dirt in your bungalow is always an interesting feel. Taking a short trip to the corner for mexican food in thailand, complete with margaritas and a CNN newscast on the bigscreen. Downloading movies and staying in....in your hut for the night is a concept only some share.

And then the next night I find my self back at the bar where it all began, making small talk and reliving the events of the previous two nights. Sitting by the bonfire with people from around the globe listening to various laungages and senarious. Watching faces and actions, having one to many beers just because the company is intrancing. Listening to the river flow and catching the occasional glimpse of shooting stars. Learning more hebrew and exploring the fact that goosebumps mean I shouldve changed into my pants at some point hours ago.
And there is love, all around me. No I am not holding your hand, and no we dont stop between buckets to make out like the couple across from me. But if I stop for just a moment and just be still....its there...in the air like a warm blanket on my cold heart just waiting for me to let it in.

I woke up this morning, with the urge. So the time has come. My bag is packed again, and its time to move on. I will see you all again Pai, and Im sure as it always is it will be a little of the same and a little of the new.