drive out

3 hour drive out to bath ranch dead house.
fire on the way.  filling a whole half of sky, like something from war.
then clear skies, all the stars.
then a hill, and a redder reflection in the clouds beyond.
deep deep red fire, glowing soft but wide.
cresting the hill, wondering what fire makes that shade of light.
then blinking.
the moon.
a full minute later it was finally the orange of the giant fire.
a strip of black cloud in front like a belt, several layers of black behind.
i could not understand how that object, the moon, was not sitting here, in the fields, on the earth.
it was surrounded by clouds on both sides.  how is that possible?

throat wind bone

the flight that lands december

waking up to a brick wall

touching the lense of this eye

waking up to a reminder

that by now i am cassidy without the sex

without teeth

i am invented meat

fictional

i have become an oscar meyer weiner

Padang dreams

• painting a snowman (on the side of a fridge?) .. white paint diluted and not showing up very well against the background

• large high ceiling room, probably in the u.s.  Sean Gude and others there (Alyssa?).  recent times.  end of something like a small version of comic-con.  long steep floor without mats or bleachers after the event was packed up, serving as a natural slide.  door at the "top" of the hill/room, led into high school hallway.  one long slide from the hallway all the way down the "hill" in the room.  going back up to the hallway for another run, hearing footsteps slow in the hall, probably high heeled.  scooting quietly down the hill then looking up through the open door: a woman walking very patiently, slowly, deliberately, with a self-occupied child, the woman lost in thought.  looking at the others who are watching the woman pass by the open doorway above, one of them is suddenly japanese, and/or reminds me of a japanese festival (that i'm meant to attend?).  something about a black rubber-like surface with high grip.

old notes

siem reap (5 nights? .. more?)

install "assassin’s creed 2” and finish

swollen feet, esp. left foot

see the town doctor, weird super blue contacts in lady from west virginia

bangkok 2 nights (1 serabaya hostel, watch “inception” / 1 welcome inn shit place, watch “inside man”)

bangkok moto->train station

train bangkok->butterworth

may 3-5

georgetown days

stardust guest house

train tix station closed sundays, stay one more night

stuck in mall during big storm, flooded streets

reggae bar (coke & chips) Nicky and Nick - 'arizona girls / fake tits / blow jobs'

watch “a single shot” + “the winning season"

mfc 500 tokens on red head, good laughs

last day = Belarus couple, 9 hours at good WiFi in mall…

...Emilia russian, couchsurfer + invitation to st. petersburg (lives in hollywood?)

ferry georgetown->butterworth

train butterworth->kuala lumpur

watch “the way, way back"

may 6

train kuala lumpur->johor bahru

email from serena ‘long hello'

reply on train

listen to new ray ‘supernova’

watch “everybody’s fine”

walk johor bahru, expensive, 3-4 times kuala lumpur prices

lunch in Mariner’s Cafe to make room booking (via agoda)

pencil-looking wall art of giant whales and small creatures

CIQ hotel (17e, cheapest option), no internet, no pool, closet room but clean, cut hand on toilet paper dispenser

night walk, cigarettes everywhere, guy in yellow shirt singing at cafe…

eat giant plate of ‘tagine’ egg-covered pancake thing

...introduces himself later: Dali, ‘beautiful women’ ‘you should do drugs’ ‘want to go to hollywood'

watch “gentleman broncos”

*nostalgia song from childhood in film screening scene*

may 7

schindler’s lift

ferry johor bahru->batam

1:00 ferry “broke down” = missed 3:00 connection to jakarta

5 different check points for tix/visa

booked room on web at mall cafe (black canyon)

“welcome to padang” hollywood sign on hill

4 hours total walking, no sidewalks, whole centre under construction

location on map wrong, address widely unknown

asked total of 15 different people re: address + 2 phone calls to guest house

finally found with no name, and asking for cash

walked back to mall / change cash / walked back to guest house

no internet “i don’t know” guessing ssid+numbers

walked back to mall for snacks

watch “a case of you” + “snow angels”

book flight for padang, sleep 5 hours

may 8

flight batam->padang

falling asleep during cheerful flight attendant announcements, waking up to ‘something something the penalty is death'

on plane start watch "12 monkeys"  (emily birthday, retrace long-lost steps, see what happens)

cigarettes absolutely everywhere at airport, inside, outside, everywhere

tries from taxi men, following me all the way past air traffic control tower and back again

‘you name Ivan?’ ‘i take you no bus’ ‘you take bus?’ ‘you name Rudy?’

idea for perpetual motion system with water wheel + archimedes screw

young man approach, ‘i take you my guest house, 100,000 rupi, padang 250,000 one room, i take you’

bought the bait, nice quiet clean room

finish movie

6 codeine downed w/ rainwater

long sleep

may 9

rooster bringing up the dawn, try to fall back asleep

no dreams (?)

trying to write notes / wake up / nicely fogged head at 6:55

apparently 7am is late!!

Rudi at the door at 7:03 with travel plans ‘do you go here, do you go there, you pay me, i driver, no ticket, i take you, do you bakitinga, do you lake, do you rent car no, i drive,' breakfast coming right behind him at 7:05, power saws & hammers at 7:30

Lightfoot

What a pleasant day.  Woke up in time to check out without penalty.  19-year-old Belarus knockout fucking her boyfriend in the adjacent room.  Put a flame under me and drove me distracted for an hour or so until I passed them in the street and suddenly snapped out of it.  Smiled.  Reset.  Whistling along.  Got my train ticket down to Kuala Lumpur without a hitch; bought at 12pm and the train sets off at 11pm, so a bit of time to kill.  Decided to hit up my spot on top of the big mall with the excellent WiFi speed and reception, dig in and get some Sam Rockwell films uploaded for Sean.  Spent ages on art work and details, not to mention bouncing and shifting details around to build a new YouTube profile and get it verified, and spent several hours uploading a few films there, only to find they were immediately recognised and pulled (even though everything was set to Unlisted and Private .. guess that just doesn’t fly for them).  Oh well, then used the account bandwidth allowance to just push the films into the online Drive and then share the link to the folder with Sean instead.  Easy.

Meanwhile, a lovely blonde Western lady in an aqua pattern summer dress got herself a drink from the kiosk and smiled at me.  We ended up talking a bit, sharing websites useful for travelling.  Emilia, Russian, has been everywhere.  Says she wants to go back to Europe next and do a trip from Finland on down south.  She’s been before, but never made it to Greece, so she wants to give it a go.  She was sweet and unassuming and wanted to tell me about the things she’d seen recently in Malaysia, the people she’d met and water she’d swum in and food she’d tried and where she’d stayed.  I was glad she just wanted to share, easy like, without feeling lonely or asking me anything.  In fact, before we even got into it, she said she was headed to Kuala Lumpur the next day, and then back to Russia, to St. Petersburg, to get some visa things sorted and a few bits of paperwork, and she invited me with her, on the spot, dead serious.

I’m still kicking myself, but only a little bit, that I didn’t say Yes right then and there.  I told myself, before leaving for this journey, that I wouldn’t go following women around and get distracted by them — no white rabbits of the Western Eyes variety for this Mr. Alice -- and I would like to stick to that plan.  But I liked the upfront nature of herself and her kindness, and the upfront invitation, very much.  It’s very tempting to look up prices to St. Petersburg and my own visa requirements and then see if I can find her once in Kuala Lumpur … just see what happens, yes?  Very tempting.  But I’ll leave it at just being made happy by the invitation.  That’s enough.  And I want to get my head and my body and my attention back in balance on top of a surf board, probably in Indonesia, preferably soon.  Chasing a lovely lady up to Russia and beyond, that would honestly just be backtracking, and isn’t the kind of adventure I’m looking for.

Well, I got nearly all the films uploaded and sent the link for the folder to Sean.  I also emailed a response to an ad I’d seen pasted on a phone box on the local street.  A yacht, 42 metres long, looking for some crew, no experience necessary, for travels around this side of the world.  Price negotiable, see the sights, learn to sail, etc.  Now THAT is the kind of thing I have no problem saying Yes to.  So I shot off a little essay about me and my dreams and why I’d like to join the crew on the boat.  It all felt a bit strange, coming out; probably too dry and serious.  But I’ll cross my fingers anyway.  We’ll see.  They say okay and the price looks right, I’d be there in a heartbeat.

Over nine hours in one hard mall cafe seat; the snickering and flirty little giggles from the guy and girl behind the nearest counter turned near the end to looks of concern and a sort of nervous pity.  But while I was uploading and waiting I was also collecting old inspirational songs from movie soundtracks, the likes of Last of the Mohicans and Chariots of Fire.  Remembering my youth, my craving for climbing, for exploring, my intense spiritual focus in the opening days of California mid-childhood.  Reading and reading and sitting and listening and emptying my head and focusing all my energy, before grasping or dealing with a vocabulary that included “energy” or “meditation” or similar.  It was simply the response to what I felt was a calling, close and blood-deep, from Life.  This is you, this is your life, this is what you do, go deeper, go out there, you’re built for it.  Without those words, that was the magnetic will I couldn’t help but respond to, say Yes to.  Somewhere along the lines I came across the word and idea “shaman” and this ripple of recognition shocked through me like an earthquake made of light, and suddenly the things I was learning and feeling and exploring that I didn’t have words for or a means of sharing with other people made a lot of sense.  This hardcore spiritual sensitivity, without the branding of a prescribed religion, and (so) at the cost of a certain kind of current-world-ly social community.  But it felt positive, felt fitting, and like a direction that made as much easy sense as breathing.

So, I spent some time with some of the music that coloured those emotions and journeys back then, and some recent tracks that have reminded me of that exquisite response to my nature and my calling, and even, with their own tone and colour, feel like they are calling me back, from way over the other side of my life’s horizon.

Walking out of the mall, feeling lighter on my feet than I have in a long time (oh perception and perspective, you are such worthy human body toys), I was singing and untouched by concern for what anyone might think.  I love that space.  Like a child.  Like when I used to sing Dave on the streets, and just let those screams roar out.  It lifted me; it made me lighter.  Singing and singing, all down the street to collect my backpack, then all the way back to the ferry terminal, not minding the light rain, actually finding it refreshing, where the night before it simply bothered me until it stopped.  Tapping and humming and spitting out some of the lyrics on the ferry crossing over.  Then down to my 11pm train, near the end of the album, at this point listening to old David Gray.  How I love his sounds when I’m on the move.  I thought of Sara.  Wondered where she’s gotten to and let a silent tear of gratitude slide down, so thankful to have met her.  Got washed over by, washed up in, and overwhelmed by Flesh.  “It’s simply now or never, putting flesh on the bones of my dreams.”  Had a good cry in the gangway outside the sleeper hold between the toilets, warm fists and pounding knee, feeling the train pull away, the movement underfoot, that blessed sensation of movement, of transit.  Picturing how brittle those bones have become, and feeling how tender and delicious is this dressing of those bones with the flesh of action, of response, of breathing life into my dreams.

“This diamond in our hearts / there’s no need to nail it to the ground / there’s no need to smother it with sense / Just listen to the rhythm of your heart that pounds / and trust it all to chance / Cos we’re standing face to face / with the angel of grace / and don’t it / just / taste / so / pure."

Bamboo

A planned stay of months, or at least one month, on Koh Russei (Bamboo Island), turned into a mere 18 days’ stay.  I’d taken a solo trip back to town to gear up, with a bit more cash and some reading materials.  The collected works of Pablo Neruda, some extra soap, a first aid kit, and around $250 USD — after three nights in the dorm, paying $3 per, your accommodation was free, indefinitely.  It didn’t make great business sense to me, but that was the way they had it laid out, so with each meal costing around $4 and a refill of water on 50 cents, I calculated that I could live quite comfortably on around $10 per day, until my 30 day visa ran out, at which point I could opt to extend, or move on.

But the western company became smothering, unbearable.  Kind people, at heart, all three, Melissa (Philippine but raised in Madrid), Andy, from England but well-travelled, and Andrea, from New Zealand, who was at least 50 years old and only now just starting to travel the world.  I enjoyed Melissa immensely, her positivity and general glee-faced openness and enthusiasm.  Andy was a wake-and-bake stoner who rolled his first spliff around 8 a.m., after breakfast, and didn’t stop rolling or puffing until around 23:30, when he eventually trailed off to sleep.  His capacity for run-on sentence storytelling and arresting all other voices and trains of thought and hijacking them with his own thread increased the more he smoked, until, every evening around dinner, whether I or anyone else in the vicinity liked it or not, we were forced to sit and wait for the deluge of words to end, some people waiting very patiently for enough of a significant gap in breaths to say their “good night” and scurry off to their dorm or bungalow; some risked judgement and simply walked away when they’d had enough.  There was no point trying to add and opinion or a thought to the monologue: everything that wasn’t his idea was automatically wrong.  I remember one of the first nights there when he’d gotten on to the topic of Formula 1 racing, and I told him I didn’t follow it, but that I had seen it in Kuala Lumpur, where it was being held for three days, during which I’d recently been staying in the city, and it had affected all the traffic and public transportation.  He said he didn’t think it was the right time or season for Formula 1 to be running, then, after mulling it over for about 10 or 15 seconds, decided out loud that I was wrong, that it wasn’t on this time of year, even though i’d physically been at the arena, out near the airport, and saw the words “Formula 1 Racing Kuala Lumpur” done with multi-coloured flowers arranged in the soil of the hill on the south side entrance to the track.  Andy had his own ideas, and insistently shaped reality and the facts at hand to suit those ideas.  It got very tiresome, very quickly.  And Andrea, bless her heart, liked very much to use open-minded and open-hearted sounding words, but she was as scared and closed up as any other bird who had never before left the nest.  All music playing in the cafe during dinner time (the only time the Khmer family would have the generator running with the stereo on), if it was’t by a selection of known, familiar artists, say a list of 20 or so from the 60s and 70s, then it was the wrong music, and she would put up no end of fuss.  The dogs, three males and a female in heat, were her enemies, given all that noise they made and the way the males fought each other and left puss-filled wounds and bulging scars on each others’ paws and faces.  That was wrong, and someone ought to do something about that, according to Andrea.  The way they worked, or didn’t work, and who was doing what work and when, that was all wrong, according to Andrea.  The way they raised their children, the way they handled tourists, when and how they did their shopping for supplies, and how it was delivered, that was all wrong, according to Andrea.  The way the tourists who visited the island behaved, and even the sounds from the fishermen out on their boats at night, and the bass beats that could be heard, carried over from the party clubs in the mainland across the way, that was all wrong, according to Andrea.  It was quite impossible, I found, to make a noise near her, let alone a whole word, without prompting a complaint about some thing or some one … though she was always overtly kind and warm-hearted with whomever she was, at the moment, speaking.

All this western bullshit, this politeness, this two-facedness, I just wanted to scream.  I spent as much time as I could in the water, snorkelling, swimming, or hiking around the island with the dogs, or just reading in the sunlight.  Sometimes I would play, around the restaurant area, with Kontia, the little four-year-old girl who was the daughter of the army captain who ran the place with his mother and sister and unpaid “hired” help.  Kontia was a delight.  Giant smile, giant voice.  Essentially spoiled, she had a firm grasp on the fact that her scream, the scream of a small girl being slowly murdered limb by limb, was not something that the customers / tourists wanted to hear or were willing to tolerate, and so any time she wanted something and it wasn’t forthcoming — be it a picture drawn for her in her notepad, with coloured pencils, or for another can of Red Bull to be opened for her since her fingers had neither the strength or the shape to lift the tab — she let out this almighty siren, and her wish was immediately granted by the parents who didn’t want to make a scene in front of their guests.  I had good play time with her, though, and I think she learned to respect me fairly quickly, when she learned that her screaming simply didn’t wash with me, and if I said No, I meant it, and that was that.  In less than a week she was giddy and goofy with happy-to-see-you moves whenever I made my way over to the restaurant, the same as it was with Melissa, who played with her much more often.  We built leaf and sand castles on the beach, played house on the restaurant dining floor area with her tea set, which included a plastic egg and an electric-pink rubber hedgehog toy.

There was usually a delivery on Mr. Pro’s fishing boat in from mainland once a day, sometimes during breakfast, sometimes during supper.  Blocks of ice in burlap-like plastic sacks that smelled of fish, large cellophane wrapped bundles of kitchen supplies, cases and cases of beer and soft drinks.  I’d get my shirt off and lend a hand when I was on hand during the delivery, which I normally was.  Andy would say things like, “Oh, don’t get the ice, I’ll get the ice, it’s awkward,” or “No, no, sit down, I’ll do it,” or “No, don’t bother, oh look now you’ve gotten your clothes all dirty with petrol,” or some such similar line.  Later he would complain about being duped by Mr. Pro to being obliged to help him with the delivery, or some similarly coloured self-complimenting complaint.  It drove me to small fits of rage.  All this western politeness again, saying one thing while meaning another.  All this telling people what to do and how to do it, though they require no instruction and are not his to instruct in the first place, and then later complaining about having to “do everything” and complaining about being left in charge.  I’d come there to participate, with the people who ran the place, not wage war between my patience and another visitor’s ego.  So, after the night that Andy purposely didn’t join the restaurant at the customary time for dinner, having asked Andrea to pick him up something chicken in a takeaway and bring it back to the bungalows for him, and I found him deeply stoned and drinking, and telling me to watch out for Mr. Pro, to not let him “push me around” and “get things for free” out of me, and asking me in so many roundabout words to help him “teach Mr. Pro a lesson,” and then declaring that his takeaway dinner will probably be spit in, I made my decision to leave.

I want to return, though.  I want to learn some more Khmer, and to teach the sister and Kontia some english, if they want to learn.  And to sit, in the quiet, in the rain if it’s rain season, to swim, to think, to pass the hours without much company at all.  Despite all the trash that collects all around the edge of the island, it is a beautiful and quiet place, and excellent for a retreat.  The bungalows on the other side from where we stayed are essentially defunct.  Both areas, our side and the other, have had their contracts bought out, one by Chinese, one by French, and will undergo development within the next to years, probably beginning sooner than one year.  I want to go back while the simplicity still exists.  Before the air conditioning and the digging and drilling and the swimming pools and the facades.

When I travel, I don’t want more of the same from where I’ve left.  I want something else, the way things are in some other place already, not a prescribed experience.  I want to participate.  A sign in the little hung-up library in the common area between the bungalows there features a quote that I agree with, that say, “Life is a book, and those who don’t travel read only a page.”  What I can’t wrap my head around is this, what I understand to be, fear that so many travel with.  Fear of being forced outside of their comfort zone.  Why would I travel thousands and thousands of miles just to find the exact same thing I left behind?  I don’t want anything like that.  I just want to participate, no matter how uncomfortable or off-putting or strange the experience.  I want to be blown clear of my own comfort zone by the very cannonball of experience.  However, if the discomfort comes from the clash with western judgement and western ego than I can find anywhere in America or Europe, then I’ll just happily move along, until I find something more local to participate in.

Some Glue

Moving, building breaking.  Where have I been.  About time to start (continue) keeping track.

Landed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia a few days ago.  Before that, Ranong, Thailand mainland for a week.  Before that, Koh Payam island, Ranong, Thailand, a two hour boat ride off the coast.  The mainland stay was my favourite place so far.

I found a room with a double bed, toilet cum shower, large wall-mounted fan, wardrobe, clothes rack, table and chair, for 300 bat (about 6.70 euro) per day (including a fresh bottle of water in the morning.  The place only offered nightly rates, not weekly, and most other lodgers only stayed one night before moving on (often connecting to ferries or buses that would take them island hopping or over to Myanmar for a visa run to extend their stay).  With so many transients surrounding, I finally felt I could sit still for a while.  The food on the streets was delicious and cheap.  The town was quiet enough, but busy enough during the day with shop keeping, and the locals were soft-featured and generally friendly, though very little english was every spoken.  I set still, I watched films on the one english channel late in the night -- Air Force One, all three Damon Bourne films, Ocean's 11.  I also watched Jet Li's Fearless.  It was much more blatant and blunt than my beloved Unleashed and Hero, but managed the same effect of the latter two: I looked up Jet Li again and tried to find a way to contact him.  Apparently he lives in Singapore now, having gained citizen ship there for the sake of his daughters' education.  I considered just catching a bus or plane down to Singapore and having a look around, maybe even lean on a large chunk of faith that I might be able to run into him on the street.  I want to do something with my inspiration that he gives me.  I want to ask questions of these people who inspire me.  Taking John Green's advice to "find someone who is doing what you want to do, better than you can do it, and listen to them."  I want to write a letter to Jet Li, asking for an hour or so of his time, just to walk and talk.  To listen to him.  Similar for Chris Smither.  I've asked myself what the connection is between the two, and I believe the answer is Grace.  These people to me are a paragon of grace in action.  The message in Jet Li's three epics, that of true power being the mastery, indeed the artistry, of your own potential, rather than excercising force and domination over others to prove one's might.  It's the message I found in that oddly great animation about the dinosaurs We're Back, and again in my beloved Iron Giant.  These beasts who have the potential to be quite powerful, given this potential without control, learning to contain it through the lessons they receive in grace.  It's there again in my well-thumbed and well-mulled story and film A River Runs Through It.  "My father was very sure about certain matters of the universe.  To him, all good things -- trout as well as eternal salvation -- come by grace, and grace comes by art, and art does not come easy."

In that same town in Ranong mainland, walking every day, I stumbled upon an open-air boxing gym.  I gestured and pointed and half-talked with some local children on their way home from school in the evening to learn that I could come back the following evening at 5pm to meet a teacher, or trainer, or somebody associated with the place.  I went at 5 the next day, and waited around until 6, stabbing my bare feet into the sand and walking slowly across little patches of sharp rocks, trying to toughen up the soles of my sensitive feet.  Eventually some men came by with puppies on short leashes.  Soon after some women, daughters or wives or friends, came to take the puppies off their hands and the men started stretching and half paying attention to me doing the same.  The sun set and we were boxing in the dark under the fluorescent lights with moths overhead.  A very young and stout child took charge of me.  He had not one single word of english, but I eventually figured out that his name was Fuat.  He was very serious with me, and I respected him immediately.  Attempting to take his gestured instructions on how to execute the cutting kick, he stopped me mid-stance and motioned for one of the other boys, who was just watching, to come over and help him.  The boy steadied the bag against my shin and Fuat worked me from ankle up to my spine and shoulders, shaping me like he was about to make a painting of a model.  Then he stepped back, looked me in the eye, and nodded, satisfied.  I kicked again and again, trying to replicate the pose he'd moulded in my bones.

The next day I arrived at 5 again, and this time an actual trainer was there.  He was Thai, though he'd been away somewhere, worked as a doctor in the local hospital, and spoke with a soft German accent.    He took the whole class, about six of us, through stretches and then exercises on the ring mat, entirely in english, for my benefit.  He worked out cores, our legs, our hips, our necks, our arms.  We were pouring sweat in the evening heat before the form lessons even began.  He started with the stance.  Then the jab, paying attention to the shoulders, explaining how the chin must stay down, shoulders up, to protect the head.  If the chin is stuck out and gets knocked, your brain has a much better chance of getting mucked around in your skull.  Shoulders up and chin down, it's harder to get the brain to rattle.  So every jab, the shoulder covers the ear and the chin tucks in.  Then he taught us one-two, with the more powerful punch being the second blow, gaining energy and momentum from the hips up.  He got us twisting our hips and feet, while keeping the steady triangle stance.  Then the uppercut and the hook as a third in the combo.  He built us up, piece by piece, and we practiced each set in tens while moving across the ring.  After that, we got out of the ring and over to the bags.  We practised the combos on the bags.  Then he moved on to kicks.  He explained in essence and physics what Fuat was trying to teach me with gestures the evening before.  He taught me how to pull the energy up from my hips, and whip the leg out like a rope, and aim through the bag, not just to the surface, like the punching I'd learned long ago in some quick karate class as a kid.  You don't aim for the surface of your target, you aim behind it; if a face is your mark, you aim the blow for the back of the head.  I kicked the bag with my shin, hard, until the the surface obtained a pale lustre like unchewed bubblegum.

After class, we watched the other older trainer with one of the older students taking his kicks in the ring with arm pads on.  Then one of the younger students got in the ring and they practised some holds.  "This, I need to think about more," said my doctor teacher. "See how he's holding his head like that?  In Muay Thai, if you control the head, you control the whole body.  Like this."  Suddenly he had me in a head-to-head lock, with his fists around the back of my neck like thick rope, pulling down, like the two figures in the ring.  He explained that he studied Judo, where they deal much more with grappling, and you have your hands free, so a shirt or extremity is a legal hold, but in Muay Thai, no shirt, and you have the gloves on.  "I want you to move left, I move you, or right.  I control the head.  So what do you do?" he challenged.

"Okay.  Well, the instinct is to duck down, to get out."

"Yes.  But you do that you meet my knee on the way up."  He brought his knee up to what would be a very awful blow directly to the face.

"Okay, so the next instinct is to pull back, retreat."

"Yes.  But then you're giving me momentum, and I still have my knees, here."  He shot a knee each up to my rib cage like engine pistons.  "So you're all target.  So what do you do?"

"You close the distance."

"Yes."  And he demonstrated by suddenly pressing himself right up against me.  "No more target, both equal, see?"

He let go of the hold and smiled back up at the teacher in the ring showing something similar to the young student.  "It's like life, isn't it?" he mused.  "You try to duck out of your problems, they hit you harder, you try to run away from them and they come back at you with momentum.  The only way is to stand up and face them, walk right to them."  He demonstrated with a quick few sturdy marching steps forward.  "Yes, I have to think more about this."

It was all so clear to me.  The combination of elements that something deep in my soul or self or skin has been looking for.  The discipline, without the brutality and regime of the military.  The concentration on self-improvement for its own sake, as a way of moving through the world and among them.  Learning not only how to anticipate and defend, but also to participate and dance along with what is happening around you.  This, without hanging your hat or your shirt or mind out to dry on some rack of prescribed religion.  Relating to nature the way it already is, and taking all these magical human insanities on board as part of the same natural soup, and learning how to move with it.  Jet Li says he has never had to use any of his mastery of martial arts in a an actual fight, and he hopes he never has to.  See, it's not about turning one's self into an unstoppable weapon, it's about balance and wisdom and reserve.

I moved on from Ranong, just to keep seeing a bit more of the world, but I miss my little room on the hill already.  The faces that were already becoming familiar to me in that little town.  The natural way I began to fall into a routine that my body actually enjoyed.  Stretching and exercising in the morning before my shower, the same exercises the teacher showed us on the mat at the boxing gym ring.  Then down to the little lady in the kid's clothes shop who also had a juice & shakes kiosk just outside for a huge cup of watermelon and ice shake.  Then over to the hard-working family down the road for a bowl of noodles and veg or soup with a bit of meat in it.  Then picking any old direction on the map that I hadn't explored yet and simply walking, walking, walking, for hours.  Meanwhile working on my orientation, keeping my bearings, a sense of where north is.  Then my date with the sunset, often enjoying a cigarette while I watch that old friend sink below whatever counts as the horizon line by then (sometimes a mountain range, sometimes a building in the way).  That's when the starlings come out.  Watching them scatter and dance, silhouetted against all that burnt gold, thinking about the speed of their beating hearts, and wondering why the dusk, why the dusk, and then clearing my thoughts of everything, any of the clutter that might be left even after the long walk, and quite simply watching the birds and the light while thinking nothing at all.

In the hostel in Kuala Lumpur I've tried talking with a few people. The words come out like they're covered in marshmallows or mushrooms, warbled and muffled and frumpy.  Sentences like bad hair days.  But at least I feel a bit more relaxed about it.  Since starting this routine with my stretches and exercise in the morning after waking up and before doing anything else, I've felt much more energy and even a tiny bit more flexibility.  I'd love to magically get all my flexibility back, but I know it will take time to re-do what has over several years been slowly being undone.  So stiff and covered in such heavy layers in that sunless Irish land.  I now look forward to my morning stretches.  Even on the sleeper train, when I woke up at 8am and still had four hours to go before our destination, I found a place between the cars that served well enough for everything except my jumping jacks.  Even the two sturdy steel hand rails on either side of the two steps were perfect for some lifts for my arms and core, especially with the train rocking and throwing off my balance, so I had to use my stomach muscles to keep in place.  See, I've been experimenting with an idea that I had on one of my walks, where I keep remembering to look for opportunity.  This requires a general direction or desire, in order to fill in the blanks.  But it's interesting when something doesn't go the way I expected it to (a missed or full bus so I have to wait in an unknown town overnight, for example).  I wouldn't necessarily get steamed or annoyed, depending on the expectation.  But I also wouldn't quite know how to dance along with the re-direction, and often would end up walking myself into a spiral where I could plant a little frustrated seed of Having Been Hard Done By.  Instead, I've been experimenting with the idea of filling in the blank to "Well, this is an excellent opportunity to ________," and seeing where that takes me.  I know myself well enough to know that it isn't a false optimism patch trying to patch over some actual anger that I'd like to pretend I'm not feeling.  It's like my other memory projects; it just gives me a little direction and something useful to do.  I've been filling in the blanks with a lot of stretching, and exercising my arms and legs, and my stressed out scatterbrain that was fearing it had lost all abilities of memory when I arrived here has been slowly coming back into sharper focus.  I've been able to keep better track of myself, and my thoughts, instead of filling in idle time with blankness and a general sense of feeling lost while wondering how I got somewhere and where I should be instead.