Choreography

It is not a lack of things to say that has kept me from this space recently. Rather, I have been afraid that the near-bursting basket of thoughts and feelings that I somehow manage to lug around with me all day long will manifest itself in a soupy porridge of crazy if I allow myself to dump its contents all over a blank screen. And, well, I'm getting a little tired of lugging it all around. So, um, get yer soup spoons ready......

Let me just first say that I walked behind a ridiculously adorable (and way too young to be away from its mommy and on the mean streets of Bangkok) baby elephant on my way home from work today. I was also almost hit by a motorcycle. I am sure that most people do not have the luxury of such adventure on the way home from work.

The perfectionist in me wishes more than anything that I could shove my experience here into a neat little shoebox labeled The Best Experience of My Entire Life and set it on a bookshelf right next to the shiny silk photo albums that document my lovely travels here in Asia. But the fact of the matter is that my understanding of these two years will end up as scattered and varied bric-a-brac, occupying all kinds of shelves and tables and any piece of furniture that will have it.

Meditation teaches us that stress and worry and anxiety are optional. And so I am learning to let all of this roll right off my back.

Each day brings with it a new feeling, a new thought, a new way of being in the world that I hadn't previously discovered. Each day is still rich and full and HOLY CRAP I'm taking a weekend trip to Vietnam as a birthday present to myself. And I feel like the mental wardrobe that the different facets of myself must don as they constantly rotate and display themselves might resemble something that the illegitimate lovechild of a 1980's Cyndi Lauper and a pre-prison Martha Stewart might wear.

As I write these words, my family is gathered at the bedside of my grandfather as he takes his final breaths. Doctors always said that he would live to be 100, but the cancer in his bones is hungry and impatient, and the end has arrived before any of us were truly able to prepare. Somehow 94 years on this planet, 94 years of his vivacious energy and perpetual optimism and entrepreneurial spirit and ladykilling charm and poetry and long-winded ramblings (hey, I had to get the latter and the former from SOMEWHERE) and deep belly laughs and love of uncouth humor and vodka martinis just doesn't seem to be enough. I said my goodbyes to him over the phone, across a million time zones, choking and sputtering on my words as they ejected themselves from my throat like panicked fish. He told me that he loved me, that he had gotten the letters that I had sent, that he was proud of me. He called me "sweetie pie" for the final time, and said that we would always be family. Forever and ever. No matter what.

After he returned the phone to my aunt he fell into a deep silence. And there he remains, just waiting, unable to speak. Those final words that he said to me--the final words that he will truly say to anybody--have become a permanent part of my body. They radiate in my cells, they have encoded themselves into my DNA.

Last night I switched on the living room light and immediately the beams of the eye-frying, industrial bulbs turned solid with a swarm of insects--beautiful bugs with translucent wings jigging in a strange geometry of movement, frantically absorbing and refracting the light that I absolutely abhor. I watched them, feeling utterly unsure of whether or not I wanted to retrieve the Raid can and put a stop this strange and enthralling dance. And then, just as quickly as the dance began, it was over. The bugs dropped dead in a sweeping, collective motion that seemed painstakingly choreographed and purposefully executed. I almost wanted to applaud, but instead stood in a surprised silence, staring at the wings that were scattered like bits of glittering glass on my floor. They made a sad and crisp sound as I swept them into the dustpan.

Somehow there is sense in all of this. There is sense in everything internal and external that has been brought forth by timing and circumstance. There is a beautiful poetry to all of this, which is sung to me in a language that I cannot understand and yet still has meaning to me anyway. Everything Is as it Is, and it is somehow perfect.