That first word, Reveille, is the name of that bugle call that wakes up the troops, and yeah, somehow the correct spelling was in my reservoir, though I did consult Senor Google to be sure. (Gracias Senor Google). And is there any deep meaning attached to today's title? Perhaps... I'm feeling quite peaceful this noon hour, though I'm off my previous routine of up, coffee, internet, swim which served me so well for the first month in Chiang Mai. Felt the desire to shake things up, so I'm now less pinned to a specific schedule and more ready to let things unfold as they will.
But I did make my way down here to the internet place eventually, where I now sit and listen to the traffic whizzing by and prepare to dig in some... But it will likely be a short one as I'll be wanting to get back to the room, wake up M, go for our daily lunch around the corner, speak a little Thai, grab a cappuccino with her and then say farewell as she goes off to work and I go back to the Guest House to teach another ten dollar music lesson.
And now that I think about it, I realize that there are three daily stops where I've been establishing a kind of social routine, and as the weeks go by, I'm deriving more and more pleasure from the deepening understanding and connection at each place. First up is the cafe where Noi holds down the fort. It's just down the soi (street) from where I stay, and since my place only serves Nescafe (undrinkable for a coffee snob like me), I always start my day with a phenomenal cappuccino at Noi's place. (30 baht, but I always tip her an additional 10, for a grand total of $1.35). Best cappuccino ever as her brother runs a coffee plantation outside of town, so the coffee is fresh, local and great). But what makes the experience extraordinary is the cast of characters who are in and out of there on a daily basis.
Her friend Eck is a 38 year old waiter who works at a guest house nearby in the afternoons, but in the mornings he comes by the cafe to help out, play his guitar, do errands etc. He leaves his steel string at the cafe, so I tend to go in there and strum, sing some, add the ambience. Noi jokes that when I'm playing music, the coffee costs 50 baht because of the entertainment. (just part of the shtick). Eck loves what I do, asks me questions about music, and I show him stuff whenever he wants. His English is pretty limited and he tends to make up words in Thai while I'm singing, it's like we're doing an indecipherable duet when the music starts.
Noi has another friend Ooee, a cute 32 year old woman who just quit her massage job at a local spa. The money wasn't good enough. Her name is the exact sound from the song 'Sea Cruise' Ooee, ooee baby, won't you let me take you on a sea cruise. She's got a boyfriend who lives in Poland who will allegedly be back in a couple of months, ya never know, but you hear that story a lot. (Yeah, if I was single, Ooee and I would likely be having dinner together, know what I'm sayin'). Then there's Si, a gorgeous 26 year old who runs a little beauty salon. She's a regular before work, buzzes in, takes over, acts like a cute girl with that self-confident, gets-what-she-wants air about her. She's being wooed by a 50 year old Norwegian, Terry who also is a daily visitor. Good guy, good looking with blue eyes, ''we're just friends' is how he describes his thing with Si, but one gets the feeling that maybe there's more... (and that it will cost him an IPhone or the equivalent to seal the friendship, as it were)
The Italians show up for their daily espresso, some old Farangs show up for their daily cappuccino, a nice mix of locals and tourists with Noi at the center, a 46 year old single woman, extremely good humored, lots of laughter around her, as well as intelligence and kindness. She's the reason for the good energy, folks are drawn not only to her coffee, but to her. Here are a couple of local drivers who make their way in, we know each other by sight and exchange smiles and greetings. Eck starts singing the hook to my song 'Same Same', so I grab the guitar and start jamming. He loves that song, that Latin groove and makes me do it on a daily basis.
This morning I was in there with my Thai worksheets, wanting to practice some and he was playing a Thai song on guitar, so I started doing what he does to me, singing along, making up my own words over top of his playing. Oooee and Si were cracking up as I was singing my vocabulary lesson, the text was something like, 'Where are you going, do you love me, I love you, where am I' And then I grabbed the guitar and played a typical Thai style ballad but used the words I knew, and it was pretty darned entertaining to the group.... Hmmm, interesting possibilities....
Second stop on the daily tour is our lunch spot, where we tend to go most every day. It's 50 meters from the Guest House in the other direction, our buddy, I think his name is 'Poon' is the owner and cook and he has a woman assistant who serves the food and clears and washes the dishes. M and I are super comfortable there, lots of friendly banter, she is happy, I'm happy, the boss is happy, lots of laughter, and it's a place where I practice Thai, especially lately. Once again, the customers are a mix of Thai and Farang, and it feels really nice. There's something great about being a regular, as opposed to someone wandering in off the street. It's the relationships.... that sense of belonging.
And nowhere is that more obvious than at the evening spot, AKA the CU Corner. (M just bought me a CU t shirt from the shipment that just came in, and I love it). Talk about a one-act play, there are so many interesting characters it would be impossible to capture them all, but I see them most every day: Peter, sixty something ex-Navy guy, loves the lady boys, and is highly intelligent, great story teller, great appreciator of music. John, tall Irish guy living in Majorca where he captains a sailboat and earns his living taking tourists for cruises in the Mediterranean. We met last year, hit it off big time, same same this year. He's only here for a short time this year because there's a good gig back on Majorca in a couple of weeks and he needs to do it. Michael from Yorkshire, sixty something, loves music, loves Oot, a lovely thirty something Thai woman who he's doing his best to woo. She's a regular too. Vegas Bill, sixty something, always talking politics, sitting in the same seat night after night. Jeff and Dao running the show, people love them, they have great social skills and have created a place that folks keep coming back to. It's a gold mine at this point. It's on a street with about 4 other bars, and they do more business than the rest combined. It's the music, the crowd, the ambience, the waitress (M) people adore her, she's phenomenal.
And I have my place in the mix, even though I don't drink. I've been adding a ton of music to the place, two regular gigs, but lots of stints backing other people as well. I belong there, I have friends and laughs and as long as I get out of there before it gets too drunk and stupid, it's awesome... JUst got a call from a student who bought herself a guitar and wants to come for a lesson. That's two lessons today, it will pay for my daily expenses and then some... Nice! Time to wake up the lady sleeping in my bed and get on with our day.... Feeling really good about things at this moment....
But I thought I was so fucking good with languages
Got my first sense of getting just fucking pissed off at my inability to get a grasp on this language... and yes, I use the word 'fucking' to express frustration and self-anger. It's a sort of pressure release, though often people take it as a sign that I'm out of control... (stupid fuckers, but I digress). I've been feeling the need to make some progress in the language area; it became clear to me when I took a walk last week, ended up in a Thai's only part of town by the river, thought it was a nice place to sit on a bench and take in the scene, and then was utterly unable to say anything of consequence to the folks who were interested in me. (ordering fried rice with pork wasn't really much of an option, though I could have done that much)
M has been helping me recently, and we've been spending the last few lunches working on the language. She is a great teacher, works hard on my pronunciation, which is pretty good for a foreigner, I have the ability to mimic sounds well. But as far as recalling stuff an hour later, terrible. I'm starting to feel like those folks who just can't place it and retrieve it in the brain, the ones who are 'bad at languages' or who have no musical aptitude. I'm definitely unwilling to put myself in that group, but I have been getting a first hand look at what it feels like to be adrift and floundering and 'bad at languages'. (It couldn't have anything to do with my high expectations of myself and my immaturity as regards frustration, could it? No of course not!)
So I got some 3 by 5 index cards and have begun to write the Thai word or sentence on one side and the translation on the other side. This is a suggestion given to me by a friend Dominic who quizzes himself like this as part of his daily practice, and now it will become part of mine. He has a pile of cards and he goes through it frequently. If he gets the answer right, the card goes into one pile and he'll add a new one to the deck. That's the plan, and my goal is to be able to have the most rudimentary of conversations, where I'm going, what I need, who are you sort of stuff. Slowly slowly, he said without much conviction. I've got some good anger-fueled determination going now, and I plan on using it to make progress... to make some fucking progress, alright?
I've been accumulating more guitar students and I could see being able to nearly pay my way here if I put my mind to it (and steered clear of the authorities who would frown on a work permit-less Farang making money in Thailand. I tend to get about $10/lesson, which is nothing, but when you figure that many locals work all day for that $10, it takes on a different flavor. And my $10 is 'earned' sitting by the pool with a guitar in my hand... hmmmm where's the justice? I give a lot of music away for free, mind you. I've backed a lot of people on bass, have added quite a bit to the scene at CU Corner by being a focused and supportive accompanist to a wide array of 'talent', so I feel just fine about making some cash along with that.
At the moment, I'm at my guest house awaiting my newest student who is a woman around my age, recently moved here from Geneva. She watched me teach her French friend a lesson, and wanted to get in on it too. So we went to the guitar store, I helped he pick out an instrument and a tuner, and now she'll come by for her first lesson. Hope it works...
M and I are in a good phase and for the first time, she is making statements about definitely wanting to limit her drinking and wanting to 'do it for me'. This is new territory, up til now it's been more like, 'Accept me the way I am', (which I can't, sorry), but through a series of events, negative and positive, we seem to be evolving into something new. I surely don't believe it yet, there have been too many instances that set us back, but I'm still wanting to see this thing through. I guess I'm being dogged about it, (or am I just a dog?). Either way, after being alone for the past year in Oregon, it's nice to interact, struggle, love, work stuff out, communicate, learn, grow and try hard with another person. It could end in any kind of way; and there have been a few times when I'm ready to check the bus schedule and do something different, but I keep hanging in.... Aha, the student has arrived and I'm off to teach...
M has been helping me recently, and we've been spending the last few lunches working on the language. She is a great teacher, works hard on my pronunciation, which is pretty good for a foreigner, I have the ability to mimic sounds well. But as far as recalling stuff an hour later, terrible. I'm starting to feel like those folks who just can't place it and retrieve it in the brain, the ones who are 'bad at languages' or who have no musical aptitude. I'm definitely unwilling to put myself in that group, but I have been getting a first hand look at what it feels like to be adrift and floundering and 'bad at languages'. (It couldn't have anything to do with my high expectations of myself and my immaturity as regards frustration, could it? No of course not!)
So I got some 3 by 5 index cards and have begun to write the Thai word or sentence on one side and the translation on the other side. This is a suggestion given to me by a friend Dominic who quizzes himself like this as part of his daily practice, and now it will become part of mine. He has a pile of cards and he goes through it frequently. If he gets the answer right, the card goes into one pile and he'll add a new one to the deck. That's the plan, and my goal is to be able to have the most rudimentary of conversations, where I'm going, what I need, who are you sort of stuff. Slowly slowly, he said without much conviction. I've got some good anger-fueled determination going now, and I plan on using it to make progress... to make some fucking progress, alright?
I've been accumulating more guitar students and I could see being able to nearly pay my way here if I put my mind to it (and steered clear of the authorities who would frown on a work permit-less Farang making money in Thailand. I tend to get about $10/lesson, which is nothing, but when you figure that many locals work all day for that $10, it takes on a different flavor. And my $10 is 'earned' sitting by the pool with a guitar in my hand... hmmmm where's the justice? I give a lot of music away for free, mind you. I've backed a lot of people on bass, have added quite a bit to the scene at CU Corner by being a focused and supportive accompanist to a wide array of 'talent', so I feel just fine about making some cash along with that.
At the moment, I'm at my guest house awaiting my newest student who is a woman around my age, recently moved here from Geneva. She watched me teach her French friend a lesson, and wanted to get in on it too. So we went to the guitar store, I helped he pick out an instrument and a tuner, and now she'll come by for her first lesson. Hope it works...
M and I are in a good phase and for the first time, she is making statements about definitely wanting to limit her drinking and wanting to 'do it for me'. This is new territory, up til now it's been more like, 'Accept me the way I am', (which I can't, sorry), but through a series of events, negative and positive, we seem to be evolving into something new. I surely don't believe it yet, there have been too many instances that set us back, but I'm still wanting to see this thing through. I guess I'm being dogged about it, (or am I just a dog?). Either way, after being alone for the past year in Oregon, it's nice to interact, struggle, love, work stuff out, communicate, learn, grow and try hard with another person. It could end in any kind of way; and there have been a few times when I'm ready to check the bus schedule and do something different, but I keep hanging in.... Aha, the student has arrived and I'm off to teach...
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