A Final Post and A Big Thank You

As my flight descended last night into JFK I spent the last half hour in the air sifting through my brain. As we approached New York I saw the oh-so-familiar sight of the Empire State Building and of course it felt like I had never left. And so I sifted. I treated my brain like flash cards calling up a place and then forcing myself to think of a corresponding image. Burma - picture the first guesthouse I stayed in in Yangon. Chiang Mai - picture what my classroom looks like when the students are going crazy. Sirimankalajarn - my street in Chiang Mai, picture the turn onto my lane. Rinsuk Place - my apartment building, picture the laundry man downstairs hanging his wash out for the day. New York - picture this. As we got closer and closer to New York I was of course overjoyed but also worried that my past year would slowly disappear and so I recalled as much as I could as fast as I could. Just to make sure it was still there. Just to make sure I had done that.

It's strange being home. In many ways it feels like I never left. But then, I find my head filled with people, thoughts, memories that could never have existed in my life here before. It feels as if everything has more depth, like there is now a new dimension to my experiences as I am suddenly able to see my life here and my life there as just one combined life.

I have been thinking a lot about labels for the past few weeks. How quick we are to classify and box. When you are young the labels are smaller. There are the kids with brown eyes and the kids with blue eyes, there are the righties and the lefties. But, you are all from the same city and probably even from the same neighborhood. You leave home, you go to college and suddenly you are labeled as the place you are from, "oh you are a New Yorker." Am I? I mean I know that I am but I have no idea what that means to you. You leave school, "oh you are a Princetonian." That's true, but I don't know what box of yours that puts me in. And then you leave your country and you are suddenly representing an even bigger pool, "you are an American?" I'd never really thought about that part before, but yea I am.

I have brown eyes, I'm a rightie, I'm a New Yorker, I went to Princeton, and yes I'm an American. They're all boxes and labels, ways of simplifying a person down to sound bytes. But yes, they are truths and when pursued they are important. Now that I'm home I have a new label. "You lived in Thailand." Yes I did. But I have no way of ever knowing what that means to you.

After this year of exploration, self discovery, serious personal growth and pushing myself beyond any of my known limits the one hard and fast truth I have left with is that there is no way to box people. That we are all more similar and more different than anything we could ever imagine. While I type these words there are people in every single country in the world typing words. Different words, but we are all typing and expressing. As I breath we all breath. There is much to be shared and only the structure of boxes to keep us from sharing.

The perfectionist within me wishes to wrap up all my experiences in one tidy post. The realist knows that that is impossible. I am still frayed at every edge, the country I was living in is still devolving into complete civil unrest, my luggage is strewn about the house. Nothing is tidy.

But everything is full, and interesting, and filled with questions.

Today

I just received a facebook chat from one of my students, "I'm scared." She wrote. "And I'm so embarrassed." Facebook has been the only way for me to stay connected to everyone in Thailand now that I'm gone. "What is happening to our land of smiles?" One student wrote. "Peace when?" wrote someone else. "Thailand needs peace!" "Oh, Oh, I'm so embarrassed."

The shame and embarrassment that they are expressing speaks volumes about the Thai people. When I first arrived in Thailand every person I met was concerned with whether or not I felt safe. "We take care of you," they always said. "Tell your parents that we take good care of you." You took excellent care of me and now I just wish that I could take care of you.

The fighting has spread to Chiang Mai and I received various emails from students with photographs of a central Chiang Mai bridge on fire. Currently spray painted across that burning bridge are the words, "UN help please!"

The US consulate sent an email warning of "burning tires and firecrackers" being thrown in front of the Chiang Mai governors home and all I can think of are the millions of people who feel "embarrassed" and "scared."

There are countless ways to say you are sorry and countless ways to say you are sad, but those assertions won't change facts and unfortunately, unless somehow monumental, won't do much for fighting.

Red, yellow, or whatever color shirt you wear, it is really only the heart beneath that can spark actions which will give peace a chance and answer the calls for help. Please.

Beginning the goodbyes

I left Chiang Mai yesterday. I refuse to say that I left Chiang Mai for the last time. Instead I will say that I left Chiang Mai for the last time on this Asia stint.

As for now I am in Indonesia for 2 weeks. Spending time with family on this side of the world before I make my way over to the other.

It's hard to know what exactly to say as I think about Chiang Mai. I don't think it has sunk in that I don't live there anymore. I am no longer Ajarn and my apartment now belongs to someone else.

Leaving is bittersweet. In one sense I am ready to go home. To speak English, to see all the people who have over the last year only become voices via skype or words on my gchat. On the other hand it is hard to say goodbye to the first place you felt like a grown up, the place you first had a job and a rent to pay on time, electricity bills and work clothes.

I will miss ancient women Thai dancing in the market place, the smell of dessert waffles coming from ever street stall, fried eggs on all my food and driving my motorbike through crowded streets. I will miss countless things that I won't even realize I miss until some March morning in New York City when it's 33 and raining and all I want is noodles from a street stall and a morning hot enough for 3 showers before noon.

The idea that Chiang Mai is now just a memory does not sit easy. But at some point everything becomes a memory and the only agency we are left with is the ability to live, in those moments, as if all of it is forever.

Update

My mother asked me why I haven't been blogging. The reason: My life has been reduced to hours of watching Glee and putting my belongings in ziploc bags.

My days in Chiang Mai are numbered to 5 and as my Monday morning move out gets closer and closer the hours I spend sending pictures of my shelving units to interested classified ads readers only grows.

I'm not yet ready to wax poetic about the wonder that is Chiang Mai so instead I will tell you that I am safe and sound. Happy and healthy. Exploring the weird fat deposits that have accumulated on my body after a year of eating rice, and enjoying the new Asian mullet that was cut into my hair today.

Consider this post a warm up. More to come but for now I have more band aids to put in baggies and enough backlogged episodes to get me through the next few days. So hello America. I will be with you before you know it.