My 80%, Hello Singburi

And so today I said goodbye.  Goodbye to kao soy and spicy lemon grass sausage and all those delicacies that are only found in northern Thailand.  Goodbye to Sak, to Jaen, to the woman down the alleyway who makes me coffee every morning and sings in the kitchen while she cooks.  Goodbye to my favorite tuktuk driver who remembered me even after not seeing me for an entire year.  Goodbye to the pancake trail, to the hordes of falang wandering around all sweaty and confused but smiling because they all feel a common sense of adventure, yet with the town being so westernized these days they also secretly know they aren't really being that adventurous at all.  Goodbye to the spas and the insanely cheap massages and the discos and the early morning strolls along the 13th century moat that still surrounds the city.  Goodbye to Chiang Mai.

And hello to Life.

Chiang Mai is a beautiful place.  It’s fun and thrilling and decadent and all those things I desire from a good vacation, a good holiday.  But it’s not my home; it’s not where I want to live.  And that’s why I feel good boarding this bus and heading down to Singburi, to real Thailand.  It’s why I feel just fine saying goodbye. I will see you later, friend.  Laow pope gahn.

A friend once told me 80% of life, of living, is simply showing up (I believe it’s really a quote from Woody Allen, but Woody isn’t the one who said it to me, Elliot did).  I believe it’s true.  It seems I already have a job teaching English in Singburi, and I haven’t even arrived yet.  Friends of course have helped out with this.  A classmate and beautiful friend of mine back in OU used to work at the school there so she of course gave me a hand (actually a BIG hand).  And others , too.  Sak called for me and translated some of the contract details and whatnot.  Things like this.  But I can’t help but think the Universe or God or Chi or Energy or whatever you want to call it is working in my favor.  It’s because I showed up.  It’s because I’m trying.  And sometimes I think that’s the best we can do, and incredibly it’s so often enough.  Maybe more than enough.  It’s my 80%.

I don’t know what lies ahead really.  I don’t know what this town will be like, whether I will hate it or love it or something or somewhere in between.  But for now, I’m going to sit in this comfy chair on this giant bus hurling down a highway towards a place unknown to me, and I will trust in that 80%.  And when the world is ready for me there, when I meet these people and this school and look out over the river and (hopefully) smile, then I will think about the other 20.

And then I will tell you about it.

Oh and one more thing....there is a rooster in a box in the back of the bus and it's really loud.  No, really...a rooster...in the back of the bus. And here we go...