The Farewell Tour (with only one stop....)

I can hardly believe that it has been almost a year since I returned from Thailand. It has been a loooooong year, filled with a lot of adjustments and never enough time. It has also been tremendously rewarding and full and lovely. This year has been spent using the new viewfinder that I acquired in Thailand and applying my gaze to familiar locations and situations and experiences, and somehow recreating and deconstructing and reconstructing them and realizing that I have miraculously become a grown-up.

The year since I returned from Thailand was by far my most successful year of teaching ever, both in terms of the academic achievement and overwhelming love of learning obtained by my Superstars, and in terms of finding a true home for myself in this career.....this is the first year that I was able to drown out the voices of society at large wherein teachers are devalued. And while it still irks me to receive the "You're a kindergarten teacher? That's so cuuuuuuuuuuute!" reaction at cocktail parties with big wig academic types, I've learned to brush that off. They don't get it, and that's not their fault.

Truth be told the ability that I acquired in Asia to live fully in the present moment has sort of messed with my memory a bit. I find my memories of the details of my life in Asia slipping away as each day in MA brings with it new experiences, new challenges, and a crapload of work. I realize that this is the way of things, and our brains are not equipped to carry the minutia and the particles of all of our previous days, regardless of their seam-bursting richness. However, I feel a great sense of grief at these small losses, and I also feel grateful that I worked diligently to document my two years. The day that I left Bangkok I felt a tremendous sense of satiety and satisfaction. I felt that I had done everything that I wanted to do and seen everything that I wanted to see. Of course, now I wish that I had crammed even MORE travel experiences into my time there, and shipped even MORE exotic treasures home. But, well, I did what I could with the energy and resources that I had at the time. But man.....am I envious of the version of myself that got to be there. That sounds ridiculous and somewhat psychotic, but I am indeed jealous of the Brooke in my memories, the Brooke who will always be bombing around Bangkok on the back of motorcycles, weaving her way through markets, thumbing through travel guides, and getting thrown from elephants.

However, at the same time, my time in Thailand was tremendously complicated. I had many isolated stretches, and I now realize that I needed that time to serve as a retreat of sorts. I crossed paths with the people that I was meant to cross paths with, and they all entered and exited my life at the exactly right moments. And, well, my job was terribly difficult. Not only in terms of the workload and the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of expectations and responsibilities, but also emotionally. I knew the entire time, however, that that entire experience shone a spotlight directly onto my weaknesses and created an opportunity for me to fix them without making excuses or procrastinating (two activities that I loooooooove). Fixing those weaknesses was a matter of survival. But it sucked at times, and I have to admit that I wanted to come home on more than one occasion. However, my inner-Viking (I'm Scandinavian, after all) forced me to dig in and keep on trudging, and I'm glad that I did.

So my two years were filled with highs and lows of epic proportions--unlike anything I'd ever experienced--and while I have made peace with it all, and truly love and cherish each and every memory as they are preserved in my mind like a shelf full of crazy and spectacular china dolls, some of which are missing eyes and others that seem to watch you as you walk across the room and that sort of creeps you out and still others that make you smile in spite of yourself, part of that peace comes with knowing that it was a highly imperfect time, and that's just fine.

It is strange now, however, to now know the conclusions to many narrative threads that were dangling while I was over there. While I knew that I wanted things to work with Peter more than anything, and I had a feeling that they would, I could in no way have predicted what it would have been like to live with him. I thought, in the back of my mind, that there was a small chance that things could just unravel like that scarf that I crocheted for him in Thailand and then never quite finished because, as it turns out, I'm not so good with the ol' crochet hook, and besides, who the hell wants to work with wool when it's 800,000,000 degrees?

I think you catch my drift.

But things didn't unravel. Nor are they absolutely perfect. We have our own cozy setting for our own human dramas, and we have forged a solid life out of our flaws and our strengths. And while I was in Thailand I had no idea what my next job would be, or how long we would be able to stay in MA. Turns out, both of those things worked out better than I ever could have imagined. Also, while I was in Thailand, I didn't know what was going to happen with my family. And while we are a private bunch, the fact of the matter is that my father's depression and his well-intentioned mistakes have played themselves out in a very public way, and the sacred half-shell that seemed to encompass my family (much like the ones that encompass statues of Mary in the neighborhood where I work) has cracked and shattered and been reduced to a fine dusty powder which has then been snorted and has then caused a dramatic overdose complete with the foaming at the mouth and the eyes rolling into the back of the head and the convulsing.

I think you catch my drift.

However, as much as we are a private bunch, we are also a stubborn and strong bunch, and we march doggedly through any obstacles in our path. And my time in Thailand taught me everything about acceptance, and really, that's all you can do sometimes. Just breathe.....and accept.

So......I clearly have a lot to say. However, this space now feels like it belongs to the Brooke who lived in Asia, who didn't quite know how the story would end, whose head spun with the absolute devouring of details and the crafting of descriptions and the questioning of identity and the wrestling of demons and the infatuation with cultures and languages and ways of being in the world that were so different from her own. And while I like to think that that Brooke played it fairly close to the chest on this here blog, there is still soooooo much more to the story, and it wouldn't have been appropriate to share my personal, familial, and professional struggles in such a public way at the time.

And I will tell that story all in good time. This summer I plan on having my Virginia Woolf moment (minus the suicide) and I shall go out and find a room of my own in which to write, write, write. It may lead to nothing but frustration and the drinking of copious amounts of whiskey, it may lead to something that I might someday share with my children (if they're well-behaved), or it may lead to something that I plan on sharing with the world.

In any case, my time blogging here is over. In all honesty, the blog never felt quite the same after I left Thailand, but I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye yet. This blog provided me with a tremendous amount of comfort, and was an excellent outlet for my joys. Thank you to those of you who read it faithfully (there were at least five of you!!) and shared your thoughts.

I may return to blogging one day, but if I do, it will be in a new format and perhaps with a new address (but probably not a new title.....I am *totally* the milkman's daughter.....).

I would like to dedicate the entirety of this blog to my sister Molly. I know that I posted some things on here that upset you, and for that I sincerely apologize. You always supported me and my writing, and I am so grateful that you came and visited and helped me get organized and we got to spend time on that beautiful, beautiful beach. I'm also so glad that we have woven an ironclad camaraderie out of difficult circumstances, and while I never would have imagined that you would one day be a kindred spirit during our many hair-pulling/clawing matches that we had as kids (and, um, occasionally as adults....), well, it is clear that life is just full of surprises.....pleasant and unpleasant. I love you!

Sawadeeka!!

xoxoxoxo,

Brooke