Crossing the River

My friend Rosie told me a story about how she made it through her divorce after a lot of heartache and self doubt. And after a period of a few years, she returned to the place where she lived and went to her old church on a Sunday morning. One of her friends saw her and was so impressed that she had 'made it across the river' into a place of calm and good energy. This gal was in the midst of a very unhappy marriage, and something about seeing Rosie come through seemed to make quite an impression on her. It really hit home.

Just the other day I heard that the friend is now sick and dying with cancer. She never made it out of the marriage. She'll get it now, I guess.

I'm not writing to be maudlin, but to think about crossing the river. We each have one to cross, and that concept had been 'up' for me in the preparation for this trip. Just today, I'm getting the feeling of leaving some dark places behind and watching the light increase. Tis the season of the solstice, and maybe it's coincidence, but likely not. Maybe it's a Christmas cookie, who knows?

But I have a joyful feeling of opening and good, and it comes after a darkening and dread. I've been going through a phase of mortality, 'what if I don't make it back?'
I taught myself Violetta Parra's tune 'Gracias a la Vida', she she wrote to give thanks to life..... before taking her own life. Heavy stuff in that song, and it was my soundtrack a month ago. Not that I'm ever considering taking my life, but there's something about this time in my life that needed to express that feeling, and that fear.

But now that I'm 9 days away from getting on a plane to Bangkok, it's a new tune, friend. And I'm gonna play it on my Spanish guitar, which is one of the decisions that I've made. I was thinking about maybe getting a 'backpacker guitar' that Martin makes.... until I actually played one and couldn't wait to put it down. Lousy sound, forget it. Meanwhile I have the guitar that I bought in Sevilla in the year 2000. That guitar has some soul, I love it. It's light and delicious to play and it sounds good, que mas quieres? (What more do you want). I had it with me on one of those trips to Costa Rica, and it was a great friend on the road. I wrote a lot of music in that season. Now I just want to share, use music as a way to connect and basically be what I am, which is a guy who sings and plays the guitar. (that would be a 'blessing')

I have some friends in Hanoi and Phnom Penh, and it turns out that the timing works well for me to take a big loop around Southeast Asia that looks something like this:
Arrive in Bangkok, and immediately hop a plane for Chang Mai in the north of Thailand. That's where I'll get my immersion, rather than in the capital, which sounds really enormous and polluted and I don't really have to deal with it. I could, but I don't really have to. This advice to fly out immediately came from a Thai friend named Siman, who runs the pad thai booth at Saturday market, and is a super good guy. I like the idea. I can book that flight from here, and since I'll be flying all day and night anyway, why not end up where I want to be? That's the plan.

And since Chang Mai is such a travelers' hub, it would be a great place to find someone to travel with on a journey across Laos into Vietnam and the city of Hanoi. I have a friend there who came to Eugene and stayed at our place for three weeks this past summer. She is an awesome disabled woman from Hanoi who was in Eugene for Mobility International's WILD conference (Women in leadership and disability). Her name is Lan Anh and she works for the government in some 'disability' field, I'm not exactly sure yet. Anyhow she had a vacation in the second half of January, so it sounds just right to take that trip that is once in a lifetime, to cross the river, if you will. In this case, I hear there is a two day leg on a boat along the Mekong river. Holy Moly! Sounds ridiculous, and I think I gotta do it. And I'd like to find a travel partner in Chiang Mai to make that journey with me. It would be good to have someone to watch the bags, share a room etc. I little security seems like a good thing.

But I think the real crossing of the river happened already. It's from darkness to light, from fear to confidence. Gracias a la vida! Gracias a Dios!