August 2, 2020
This entry is not about aging. Tonight I am writing about the rain. I am writing about being in Northern Thailand close to the Mekong River. I am writing about the actual experience of being in a foreign land and still being me, the part that is foreign, the part that can’t imagine being comfortable any place else. The part that can’t quite find his place in his country of birth and can’t quite feel touched by his brothers and sisters who are safe and happy and quite content to live in only one place, the country they were born in.
The rain is falling tonight and has been drenching the earth here for the last 5 hours and will most likely drench the earth here until morning, and then we will see. The drought seems to be coming to an end. The rice is growing. It is green green green here everywhere you look. I run in the early evening and as I am engulfed by the weeds that shoot up over night and take over the roads and the walk ways I hope a car doesn’t mow me down as it bends through the curve of the road, me unseen until the last minute when it swerves away and I keep on running.
My heart is broken and my emotions are extreme. I realize that in my isolation I just want to be cared for…not like a baby or a spouse, but like a friend. I want to be invited to be with another and I want to feel comfortable to invite another to be with me…just to hang out a bit and feel relaxed and at ease.
It is raining tonight and I happen to love this kind of weather. It is relentless and you never know how much the earth will be able to absorb the rain and how much will flood our streets and our houses and how much we will have to start all over again.
It is raining tonight and somehow this part of being in Thailand is the most exotic, the most mysterious, and the most like home, even though it feels chaotic and dangerous.
We now have to improvise and when we improvise, somehow we become alive to ourselves and to each other.
(So strange but a few days later after this reflection which I forgot about, I was running and an App on my iPhone began broadcasting a meditation by a Buddhist monk. The meditation was entitled “meditation for a broken heart.” I had never heard of or chosen to listen to this meditation before. My broken heart suddenly became whole again while running, touched by the acknowledgement and recognition of me seeing me assisted by the synchronicity of the wonderful spontaneous playing of the meditation on my phone.)