Soundtrack

There is a small restaurant with live music right next to my apartment building.  My balcony looks out right over it and the mellow sounds of the evening's songs waft up the 8 floors and land elegantly in my room.  Never too loud, never to soft.  Someone just played "Jamaica Farewell" and now they're on to "You've Got a Friend."  I swear if the soundtrack of my emotions could be played out loud this little bar would hit the note right on key.  

As time passes here in Chiang Mai I begin to feel more and more alone.  Not necessarily in a bad way, just literally further and further from everything I left.  It's hard not seeing the faces behind the words I get in my e-mails, and it's difficult not being able to see or hug the people I love.  Many of the most important people in my life are sharing a 13 mile long island right now and I am 12,000 miles away sitting on a balcony and looking out over a city that six months ago I didn't even know existed.  

It's funny the things you miss or allow yourself to miss when you are away.  I don't let myself think about 198 Rutland Road because I know that if I ever let myself really go there I would be inconsolable.  I don't let myself think about Princeton for the same reasons. 

It's the things, the objects, the places the smells that have caught me the most off guard.  I expected to cry over family, friends and love but I didn't expect to miss the subway platform and it's miserable heat and holler.  I didn't expect to miss scary nails at the grocery store and eating Chip Ahoy Reds (hello Helen) in my PJs. I didn't even think about missing clean floors, hot chocolate, summertime upstate or Miami rain.  What I miss most is comfort.  

This post makes it sound like I'm knee deep in homesickness which is not the case.  I blame the low tones of Tracy Chapman now floating up from the bar below.  

Every day here I'm filling my life with new things, things which one day I will miss.  One day I will miss being served lunch by a man in a bra.  One day I will miss eating meals with zero identifiable foods in them.  One day I will miss these sounds and smells and the soundtrack of my life being played by a Thai man with a guitar outside my window.  

If being here has taught me anything it's that all of this is manageable.  The body and the mind can carry a lot more than I previously thought.  And no matter what, the mosaic of the self can reach beyond what you thought was the limit and find a new place of comfort.  

Right on cue the singer below plays the perfect song.  

"There will be an answer let it be."