Little By Little
Oozing soft moisture
jungle ocean harmony
beloved Thailand
It’s our fifth day here, about 11AM our time, and I’ve been awake since 6:30. Starting to put together some routine, pieces including early morning mantra and sitting on the balcony over the pond; washing up; stop at the village Wat to say hello and bow to Qin Im and to Buddha, and today my first solo 1.5 mile morning walk on the beach (my other meditation), cloudy skies providing welcomed coolness and protection from the otherwise hot tropical sun. Returning home to make fresh squeezed orange juice and cooking our first official home based breakfast of wok’d veggies and scrambled eggs, with a piece of Du’s hearty hand made brown bread and a cup of espresso ground coffee for me, my imitation americano.
Wise palm trees whisper:
be brave! flow with confidence!
Dancing with what comes
These things are helping me to settle here, bit by bit, which seems to be a little harder this time for both of us, because of the depth of the time we spent at Sherabling, and the pain of leaving there. Little by little we make the transition. Little by little we bow to the eternal truth of impermanence, and to the importance of accepting and honoring loss.
We connected yesterday with our Thai friends Aek, an ex Theravadin monk of some 20 years, and his “partner”/friend Tui. We pulled up on our motorbike in the light rain to the little table stall where they are now selling Thai lottery tickets as a livelihood, in Saphli. We opened the face shields and took off our helmets, and everyone let out a yelp of joy at seeing each other again. Modest hugs, smiles, and a lovely visit ensued. We even bought a ticket for 100 baht ($2.85 US), and promised to give some money to the Wat, and to Aek and to Tui if we win the 6 million baht prize. We’ll know on December 1st. May it please the Buddhas!
We were also able to find the opened phone store and get a sim card and phone number for Nancy, and the Sunday fresh market was in full swing, so we did a bit of fruit and veggie shopping as well: mamuuang (mango), som (oranges), gluuai (bananas), mung bean sprouts, manao (limes).
Earlier we had met with our American friend Sheri, from San Diego, for brunch at Du’s. Sheri and her husband Michael had lived here for maybe eight years when Michael died here about 18 months ago after various long term health problems and a motorbike accident leading to several weeks in hospital and death. It was a long visit during which Sheri shared some of her grief, and her new plan to leave Thailand and return to her house in San Diego, in less than two weeks now. She’s busy emptying out her home here, packing, shipping, giving away. A big decision for her, and another loss for us as one of our Thailand friends (or should I say two?), whom we had met on our first trip, will be gone very soon.
Different shades of green
earth-bound wisdom shows the way
feast for our senses
Later it was a stop back at Du’s for 4 pieces of his bread to take away, and still later back to the beach to Oy’s restaurant for dinner of chicken vegetable curry and rice, sum tam (spicy papaya salad), pad thai. Oy’s place was the first place we ate on our first trip to this beach in 2015, and we’ve gotten to know her a little over the years with many return visits for her tasty food and her accommodating ways for our farang (foreigner) palates and special requests. We commiserated on our last visit in late 2019 since her old and senile mom, who of course lived with her, and whom we knew, had recently died, and my old mom was on her way out, which exit occurred in May of 2020.
So all of these things, these meetings up with, these daily life necessities, these relationship renewals, our cooking at home, are contributing to our getting settled in.
Thai beach refuge; grace
our other heart home welcomes
same same, different
