Arriving back at the airport this morning was a strange feeling for sure. It was almost like coming back home, in a way. I mean, I spent so much time in Airports during my Thailand adventure. It was so bitter-sweet. But this upcoming journey is not nearly as monumental as my most recent. I'll be visiting friends in LA and San Francisco for ten days. Fantastic it will be, I'm sure but most people at my destination will be able to speak my language. I wonder if JFK has a secret cafeteria where all of the locals go to get the authentic American food. Seriously ... finding that gem in Bangkok is what kept me going through some frustrating times.
I've been back in NYC for a month now. This past Sunday was my thirtieth consecutive Bikram class since my return. I still practice yoga everyday; that hasn't changed. Things are returning to normal but the transition has been long and slow. Life is completely different when the only thing for which I could possibly be late would be making it to a good vantage point in order to see the sunrise. The culture and vibe of New York City varies dramatically to what I had become accustomed in The East. And my body certainly let me know about it on a physical plane.
For several days, I would waken from dreams of frolicking with elephants and booking hotels; I was seriously dazed upon waking up. The momentum of my body was so misaligned with the momentum of the city. Plus, I was experiencing tired like no tired I had ever before known. I'm talking halucinatory-tired. It was unreal. For the first two nights back in my own bed, I didn't even have the energy to tuck myself it.
But the body adapts and that's what is so incredible to experience. One night —while hanging out with my good friends at the airport in Bangkok — I was watching a team of white body suit-clad pros as they systematically cleaned the floor. It was a white tile floor, the size of a football stadium. Even the parts that were considered unfinished looked clean and white but I marveled as the team cleaned, rinsed, polished, and buffed to the point of absolute gleaming perfection. It was a ballet. Every square inch was scrutinized. They transformed a football stadium to gorgeous ice rink. And for what? So that traveling tourists could traipse the Bangkok grime all over it as they waited in line to check in for their flight? That's the thing; there's a constant spectrum in Thailand. The streets are dirty, filthy, stinky but the airport is an Emerald City. It's a culture obsessed with coveting a slender figure and pale skin: delicate and pristine. Walking the streets, you constantly encounter people sweeping with their hand-made brooms. Sweeping, sweeping, always cleaning. This practice, I'm assuming, is in place because when the monks set out to wander the streets collecting the day's offerings, they don't wear shoes. They roam the streets completely barefoot. So it's dirty but it's somehow clean. Again, a dichotomy ... the full spectrum. Just like my trip overall.
The bacteria on the street food stands is undoubtedly rampant. Yet the body adapts. Eating food for two months which sits out in the sun on the street for hours, absorbing carcinogens from exhaust pipes and pathogens from little girls lifting their skirts to pee on the street ... right out in the open. Two months of this and I didn't get sick once. After only three days back in New York and I start losing weight, lacking energy, and proceeding through life in an absolute daze. I assumed that I had brought back a freeloading parasite in my intestines but then it mysteriously disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived. A colleague of mine suggested that perhaps it wasn't a parasite but instead, my body reacting to the food in this country. Sure, Thailand is dirty and completely unregulated in terms of food preparation but the food is fresh. There are no pesticides and GMO's, and antibiotics. Perhaps it was my body simply adapting, once again, to another abrupt change.
I learned a lot about the far ends of the spectrum. I learned that, in times of despair, the extremes are exaggerated. I learned — while in the back of a taxi for three hours, desperately attempting to fulfill the desire to get to the airport in time — that every split-second decision becomes the infrastructure for an entirely new path. Each delicate decision appears to have been maneuvered incorrectly, leading closer and closer to demise. Yet once instilled with some hope, I'm flying high. I learned how, as these decisions are acted upon (regardless of how subtle they may seem,) the forward-moving momentum of the universe coerces a dramatically new trajectory. It's difficult to avoid referring to life as a journey because that's precisely what it is and with each new moment, a new crossroads.
I'm a bit more self-absorbed now. Or at least, I was during the trip. How could I not be? It was all about me. But I'm also looking up more. I'm looking around more. Trying to be engrossed less exclusively in what's going on in my world. Trying to fully acknowledge the ramifications of each of my actions. I'm being more observant. I've opened up into something at least slightly different than what I once knew. In the first six hours upon re-acclimating to my city, I was asked for directions from foreigners four separate times. I kid you not. Did they know something about me? Did they see something in my eyes ... knowing what I had just endured? When you're lost on the streets, who do you choose to stop for assistance? Is it the person who appear to be most knowledgeable and helpful or the person who seems most understanding and empathetic? You'd better believe that I stopped in my bath in order to provide very specific directions for them ... reviewing each detail with them three and four times in order to foster a full comprehension. I have a brand new appreciation for helping people in whose shoes I've now tread.
Granted, there was some pressure for this trip to have a profound effect on me and the way that I progress in life. So, was some fabricated? Who knows. There are certainly things that are exactly the same. My neighborhood has changed even in the few short months of my absence. There's a 7-11 on my block. Can you believe it? A 7-11 in the East Village. So many culturally diverse food options on the streets of Downtown Manhattan and added to the list, rotating hot dogs and Slurpees. I suppose that I shouldn't fight it; there's a 7-11 on every corner in Thailand. Resisting for as long as possible, it was just about a solid four weeks before I set foot into a Thailand 7-11 but ultimately, it's just too damn convenient to avoid. Granted, I have not yet patronized the new gleaming 7-11 on Bowery and 2nd. I'm still facing some of life's challenges in the same way that I once did. I think I'm probably just a little bit more aware of it while it's happening.
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