the old-school guestbook archives
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shanti ~ October 26, 2002 - 3:08 p.m. I realized the other night that this thing with louisa brought up a lot of my own safety issues. I've been more conscious of my vulnerability. I've been checking the locks on my bungalow windows, burning sage, casting circles... all without really thinking about it. and then, night before last, I woke up screaming. and that was a trip... that's not something that happens to me a whole lot these days, and it just so happened on the one night in ages that I was sharing a room. brendan went down to rai lay with me, since I had to pick up my broken camera and he'd never been there... he and I have become pretty good friends, in a deeply platonic sort of way. we have a lot of fun, and we're both bisexual, so we're always checking out the many flavors of beautiful humans to be encountered in this place. we had a great night on rai lay, and brendan could see why I'd liked the place so much. we took a boat ride there after dark, and in the boat wake you could see the phosphorescent algae flashing and sparkling in the dark. absolute magic. we took a room at last bar, cheapest beachfront accomodations and, appropriately, the last bar on the beach. that night the specials were magic mushroom shakes and 50 baht joints, rolled by ted, the thai bartender, who giggled while he rolled and said "I love my job!" we wandered and talked, walked the quiet side of the island and the noisy side, and then we got back to last bar and brendan took himself off to bed. I stayed up for a bit, taking it mellow at the bar and talking to ted and some drunk american who sat down next to me, seeing a female alone and hoping for an easy score. that was funny. he asked me what I was doing in thailand, expecting some kind of well, y'know, just hanging out, traveling around... and when I gave him an intelligent and articulate answer about what exactly I'm doing in thailand, I blew his mind. from there the conversation went in all kinds of directions, and when I started talking about ideas that were beyond his scope of thinking, he got upset. he didn't know what I was talking about, and it freaked him out. now, I've heard about men who feel threatened by intelligent women, but I haven't encountered that much of it, at least not like that. I challenged him to think outside the box of his narrow perceptions, and it made him so profoundly uncomfortable that he finally said "that's the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard!" so I just laughed, and said hey, that's fine... it's all good. he went on for another couple of minutes, repeating over and over again what bullshit it was. so, since he didn't wan't to let it go, I asked him-- in a friendly kind of way-- why is it bullshit? and then he got really confused... his blanket bullshit statement was supposed to get him out of the hole he was in-- the one of not having a clue what I was talking about-- without being wrong. now he found himself in a position of being asked to explain what he meant, and he had no idea what to say. so afraid of being wrong, that one. I felt a little sorry for him. I can't verbally joust with you, he told me, and I just laughed and told him again, it's all good. which of course, he had something to say about. there's a lot of people who can't get behind it's all good. when I say it, I mean it. to me, it's all just part of the journey. hard things happen, crazy things happen, but it's all about learning what you need to know in order to grow and progress as a spiritual being. how you deal with the craziness affects how you grow. each ordeal is an opportunity to either shut down or progress. and did you know that good and god share the same root word? you could as easily say it's all god, and have it be equally true. but then of course, people would look at you like you were a religious freak... which maybe I am. a freak I am, for sure, and spiritual, it's true. religion I don't have as much use for. so in the end, I got the drunk professor-of-english-in-korea-from-tennessee laughing, and he said "okay, it's all good." and I just laughed and said only if you let it be, and took myself off to bed. I asked ted to tell me how to say good night in thai, which he did, and then he taught me another one, lah pon day, which he described in his limited english as: when you go to bed, and you sleep, but you're looking at things? but sleeping? it be nice, good. so then I taught him how to say it in english: sweet dreams... and then I went off to our room, where brendan was crashed... crashed myself a few minutes later, but then I dreamed that someone had come into the room, and that he was climbing up on the bed. I screamed and jumped out of bed, and it wasn't until I was on my feet with my heart pounding that I realized I'd been dreaming. I apologized to brendan, who I'd woken in quite a startling way. made sure the door was locked and crawled back into bed, slowing down my breathing, feeling my heart pound against my ribcage. and that's what brought it home, that I've got issues coming up around the whole louisa thing, and my own sense of safety. I still do believe that I'm safe, and I take good care to listen to my instincts. and of course, I'm not about to take some pill that someone hands me. but I'm realizing that I need to be taking care of my emotional self too, that vulnerable piece of me which is quite conscious that I am a stranger in a strange land. I took the night bus from krabi to bangkok, where I now have something like a day and a half to explore before going on to pattaya. I'm staying at a guesthouse called shanti, chosen as much for its name as the glowing review in my guidebook. a good place to find a bit of peace, take care of my still-sick self, and explore the city of angels.
(((rings))) |