From the Ruins

When I left Slukat last Thursday, after a surprisingly emotional goodbye and a week of flashmob dancing with the kids, I was eager to spend time alone. For a month straight, I had been surrounded by people; small people yelling "HALLO, how are you too-day?!", big people sharing my room and my stash of Oreos, and medium-sized creatures scuttling under my bed or buzzing past my ears at night. I thought that a weekend in Ubud was just what I needed to decompress from my incredible month at Slukat, and I was determined to do it alone--after all, I like being alone.

Wrong.

What I ACTUALLY like is being surrounded by people with the OPTION of being alone. After spending three straight days without anyone I know, I got to thinking about how many of us consider ourselves natural-born loners, drawn to the somewhat romantic idea of quarantining ourselves away from the company of others when it feels oppressive, but secretly only want that solitude if it comes with the option of a Get Out Of Jail Free Card. During my time alone in Ubud, stereotypical as it sounds, I was faced with my demons: I met the demon who wanted me to have a cell phone to play with every time I sat alone at a restaurant, the one who believed that good-looking couples had set up a cloning laboratory right around the corner for the sole purpose of highlighting my heartache, the one who thought every creak in the floorboards was Freddy Krueger, and--most frightening--the one that told me over and over again that there was no way out. 

The interesting thing is, when there is no way out, you're forced to sit with the way things are; and now that I have spent some genuine time in the company of myself, removed from the language and clothing and food that makes me feel comfortable, I realize that things aren't so bad. And yes, I realize I sound like a pretentious idiot saying that things "aren't so bad" when I am traveling for free in one of the most desirable tropical locations on the planet... but I'm nursing a broken heart, and sometimes that makes it hard to see past the underside of my own pillow. With each day that goes by, though, it gets easier. With each stone I turn over, I find bits of my self-esteem hiding underneath. I've learned that, when it comes down to it, learning how to be stinkin' lonely once and a while is about one thing in particular: learning to like yourself. Not to 'love' your material existence, like you'd ask for a parachute before jumping out of an airplane, but to actually LIKE the person who gets up in the morning and accidentally squirts toothpaste all over the toilet paper. It's good. It's really good.

So after my weekend at Ubud Aura Retreat Centre, also known as the accommodation of the Guru who healed my elbow after I was hit by a motorbike (which is the reason I stayed there in the first place), I was ready to venture back into the world of social interaction. On Monday morning, Alicia's driver Nyoman picked me up for the airport... we made polite chatter in broken English about whether Michael Jackson was really dead or hiding out in a trailer park somewhere, listened to a lively mixtape of Tracy Chapman and Pitbull, and I lugged my overstuffed backpack through Denpasar airport. It was a long day of travel for such a relatively short distance, but I found I didn't mind so much... for me, air travel is an excuse to eat whatever I want and spend absurd amounts of money on gum and People magazine because I haven't yet figured out what the currency equals in terms of American dollars. Case in point: along with two lovely Swedish girls that I met on the flight to Kuala Lumpur, I think I spent about $14 on Hershey's chocolate. It was enough to get me to Suvarnabhumi Airport, anyhow, where--after a delayed flight and10 minutes of wandering around like a chicken with my head cut off--I miraculously found my cousin Bobbie (no telephone or pre-arranged rendezvous spot required!), and we set off for 3 days of sightseeing.

I am going to take a moment to acknowledge all of the nonbelievers out there, especially those familiar with the Paddleboat Incident of '96, who were convinced that Bobbie and I were destined to screw up our travel arrangements. It's no secret that the two of us together represent a magnet for the type of screwball mishaps that make movies like National Lampoon's Vacation seem not only plausible, but boring. I'd be lying if I wasn't worried that we would be the first people in history to wind up in two different cities with the name "Bangkok." Still, against all odds, we managed not only to find each other but to execute flawless travel from Bangkok to Ayutthaya with all our hostels booked and not so much as a hairbrush lost in transit. First of all, it was wonderful to be in the company of family... someone my own age to, you know, make words at (a novel concept at that point, you have to remember) and to drink in the scenery with. After a beautiful train ride through the countryside--for 20 baht--we arrived at our HOSTELLING INTERNATIONAL guesthouse (Woo hoo! Represent!) and proceeded to explore the local flavor. We wandered through a night market, ate our first real plates of pad thai, and I got bitten by approximately 3,000 mosquitos. I spent most of that night awake in bed, listening to a storm so intense that I was sure our little treehouse of a hostel was going to break in half. Not coincidentally, it was the night that Sandy wreaked havoc on the East coast; in a weird way, it made me feel that much deeper for all those who endured that terrible storm. Brief side note: My heart goes out to all of you who have been affected by Sandy, and I am sending lots of thoughts and prayers your way.

The next day, we ventured out on foot for the Ayutthaya Floating Market, which turned out to be one of the greatest sights I've experienced thus far. In spite of the fact that it resembles a scene out of the "It's a Small World" ride, it is easy to lose an entire day walking around the market; everywhere you turn, there is a woman making fresh Thai iced tea or Tom Yum or some sort of gutted fish-stick-thing. While the latter is perhaps more fun to look at than to eat, the vast majority of Thai foodstuffs have proven incredible; fresh fruits, creative seafood, slippery noodles. After exploring, Bobbie and I treated ourselves to Thai massage--and hands down, it was the best decision of the day. We were led by two deceptively strong women to beds overlooking the water, where for the entire hour, a breeze came in and brushed against our faces. Now, when I say 'deceptively strong,' I actually mean that these women could have easily wiped out an NFL quarterback. In case you don't know, Thai massage involves a lot of concentrated pressure and yogic stretching... which means that at certain points, the masseuse is putting the entire weight of her body on a tiny muscle in your calf or neck. It's one of those hurt-so-good kind of things that leaves you feeling like you've just been run over by a semi-truck, but it's the greatest semi-truck in the world and you can't wait to go play in traffic again tomorrow.

We spent that evening on a bike tour of the Ayutthaya ruins, led by a more-than-competent guide who was willing to brave the mosquitos in order to give us the historical scoop on each and every site that we saw. We went to about five spots in total, biking underneath the full, orange Halloween moon; it was deliciously spooky. It was amazing to see the places affected by last year's flood, and to stand inside moments of history that continue to represent so much to the Thai people. The amount of reverence that the average person has for a temple that houses a handful of ashes of a long-dead queen--famous for saving her husband's life in battle--is unmatched by anything I've experienced in America. At home, I've seen people get more excited about the new iphone than some of our country's most esteemed landmarks. (Insert embarrassment here).

Anyhow, our tourist appetites whetted, we returned the next day to Wat Maha That: the Ayutthaya Historical Park. Mainly, I wanted to see the famous Buddha-head-in-tree; a statue's head that, just as it sounds, is lodged into a gigantic Bodhi tree. In historical context, this landmark--and the entire site--takes on new significance; when you think about the fact that this kingdom was the site of mass murder and destruction, the fact that anything remains is remarkable. Walking around the ruins, there are dozens of Buddha torsos that have been stacked back together after what was a clear attempt (and success) by the Burmese to hack them to pieces during the invasion in 1767. Knowledge of this fact makes it all the more eerie and powerful to see the two or three Buddhas that still have faces. Despite the fact that their eyes are downturned in the classic meditation posture, it really makes one wonder what they have seen.

Walking around those ruins, I was met with a feeling of overwhelming awe... but also, unexpectedly, of prickliness. Here I was, hundreds of years later, imagining what it must have been like to walk around those buildings when they were painted and grand and began ten feet below the ground I now stood on. They were hundreds of years old, and they looked it--but they were still there. The bricks, remarkably, still resembled bricks. The care and dedication that was put into every square inch of that former kingdom is unlike anything I have ever known. At one point, I found myself wondering what it would be like to walk around the ruins of our modern world... and, sadly, whether there will even BE humans to walk around them. I'm not trying to be dismal, but it's an odd thought to think about the fury with which we seem to be destroying our planet. Here I was, a speck in the course of history, standing on the site of the destruction of the Siamese people, reflecting on the fact that the human race is probably going to pull a Dinosaur and evaporate from the face of Planet Earth before that Buddha head is going to disintegrate from its tree--and yet! I didn't feel upset. If anything, I felt reverence. For a brief moment, I felt that I understood the nature of impermanence; and instead of defeat, I felt gratitude. We are here for only a brief moment. One moment, it will all be gone. In the face of that kind of realization, we have a choice--we can cling onto the way things 'could be,' or we can choose to live fully in the moment that we have been given, because it is a gift.

So yes, for a whole second, I felt that I understood this. An hour later, I went straight back to caring how many calories are in a Pepsi and wondering if you could see my underwear through my pants. Spoiler alert: I'm not enlightened. But since coming here, I have been gifted with moments of clarity that have reminded me that there is something bigger than what I feel I've lost.

For the past few days, I've been thinking about ruins. Yes, Ayutthaya was the site of horrific brutality (re-enacted disturbingly well by a troupe of child performers at the Floating Market, complete with fake blood, in case you were wondering)... but now, centuries later, two cousins can nestle themselves into a Bodhi tree and talk about philosophy, take a Tuk-Tuk to the market, and fall in love with Thailand. On a much smaller scale, the life and relationship that I left at home can only be the site for growth--for someone to pick up a broken stone and think it is the most beautiful thing in the world--if they are seen for what they are: ruins. Life comes out of death, out of letting go of the idea that the pile of stones is a kingdom, and seeing it for what it is: something that used to be, something that will be something else one day. The same Buddha head that would make its sculptor say, "Shit! Three-quarters of my statue is buried beneath this massive tree!" is now a sacred relic, and costs 30 baht to buy on a postcard.

It all depends on how you look at the tree.