Visiting past comfort zones is an interesting phenomenon. It is almost like running into an ex-boyfriend. One immediately resorts to intense scrutiny of all the improvements and degradations and begins to see this once familiar entity through eyes twinkled with a bit more wisdom. This afternoon I laced up my running shoes and took to the the streets of Chiang Mai to find a room to rent for the next few weeks. Twisting and turning through the small alleyways of the old city, then out the famous Tha Phae Gate, I found myself enthusiastically running towards the neighborhood in which I lived 8 years ago. I stopped at an intersection to allow myself to be completely shocked by the three story Starbucks on my left, and the golden arches of McDonalds on my right. I kept going, wondering what else had changed in this neighborhood that once defined my early twenties-self. I soon found myself at the gate of the house I once called home. A sign saying "ROOM FOR RENT" hung crookedly from the front door. My old room upstairs was already rented out but they had a dark dingy room in the back available for really cheap. A sign leaning up against the wall said "Kiwi Guest House" with the New Zealand Fern painted on the side. I considered renting the room just for the sake of nostalgia and the Kiwi connection...but decided to keep exploring my old hood. I ran past my favorite hair wash place, my laundry lady, my favorite noodle shop and when I rounded a corner I was hit with this intense wave of emotion as I spotted the familiar ruins of a huge old brick Stupa at the end of the street. Nearly everyday for a year I would walk around this Stupa and slowly run my left hand along the jagged bricks. It became my icon of peace and comfort in the crazy Thai life I was living. Today I did the same. As I circumvented the Stupa, I tapped into my 22 year old self, and introduced her to my 30 year old self. When my hand reached the point of origin, I could really feel the sense of coming full circle. I even said out loud, "shit man, that was kind of intense". I looked up to find a brand new guesthouse just on the other side of the Stupa. My bags now reside in a room with a balcony that looks directly down onto the Stupa.
On Tuesday I head to the border for a few days. If I felt overwhelmed at all that changed, and all that remained the same, about Chiang Mai....I can't imagine what it will be like to be back in the small mountainous village of Pieng Loung and see the grown up faces of the kids who taught me how to speak basic Thai, harvest garlic, chop the heads off snakes, pick tarantulas up with my bare hand (I never quite got the hang of that one) and catch fish using two cheese graters a battery pack and a mosquito net.
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