Full Circle

Well, we made it back to our wonderful and humble straw house on Grateful Way. We've spent three nights here now. Getting things re-organized, cleaned up, re-entering. The culture shock we thought we'd experience coming back to the States didn't happen in New York, where we spent time with my family, and it didn't happen in Florida, where we spent time with Nancy's family and with our new daughter-in-law Saly. It happened when we drove out to the house our first evening back to have a look see, not planning to spend the night just yet. Both Nancy and I felt as if we had just run into a wall. For her it was a lot about all the dead plants outside. Plants that she'd nurtured for years in some cases. For me it was a feeling of utter overwhelm in being struck by my internal story about the enormity of what it takes to live here. Things, I subsequently said, I don't ever want to have to think about again.

We returned to beloved Nina's house in town where we had soft landed back in New Mexico, after what was not a soft landing at the Albuquerque International Sunport the night before. We arrived late, after 11PM, and were scheduled to take an 11:45 shuttle to Santa Fe. Well, we were a few minutes late getting to the shuttle desk, and they hadn't waited for us. Nancy was told they would wait till 11:59, but they didn't. Which meant, by  our choice, that we would spend the  night on the floor in the arriving passenger waiting area. By the time morning came, and we had arranged to take a 7:15AM shuttle to Santa Fe, we hadn't slept, and we were beat. This no doubt contributed, later that day, to our sense of overwhelm when we drove out to Skyland.

We spent the day in shock, using every thing we had to make the smallest decisions. Taking a shower was too much for me to organize. Nina was a gem. So welcoming. So supportive. So glad to see us.

We've been at the house now for less than 72 hours, and all that shock and overwhelm is gone. We're settling in for the time being, all the while talking about, planning for, and anticipating our next departure. As well as whether or not to sell the house or rent it. We think we're clear about it, and then something happens to upset that clarity. Yesterday it was a conversation with Aaron, in which I told him that my new strategy to sell the house quickly, before we would depart, was to slash the price from 190K to 160K,  with a bottom line of 150K.  He didn't think this was a good idea, and the conversation turned toward his idea that he might want to buy it as a rental property for himself. He'd have to work up the numbers to see how this might serve all of us. He'll get back to me.

Well that might be a way to go, or it might not. What it did for me though was open me back up to the possible preference, for now, of renting the house instead of selling it. I did a little math of my own, and it looks like we could live comfortably - and very simply and modestly - in Santa Fe if we wanted to, and if we played our cards right, on the fixed income we now have, and if we rented the house we would have additional income as well. It got me thinking about living small in Santa Fe, or anywhere else we might like to spend some time, with a lot of flexibility and no long term commitments. Our community is here in this area. People we care about and who care about us.

Which leads me to Saturday just passed and Game Day on The Land. What a joy it was to see our friends here after 9 months away, and to be the beneficiaries of their good will and affection and generosity and genuine welcoming. Not to mention the good sport and rowdy good fun of playing Guesstures (highly recommended). Thank you all for being the caring and wonderful people you are, and our good friends and neighbors for so many years. We just a few days ago marked our 25th anniversary on Cerro Chato, and many of you have been a part of this adventure from near enough to the very beginning, while others are more recent friends and neighbors.

So good to see you, Lou and Susanne, Tish and Dave,  Bud and Tomoko, Mark and Puck, Luann, and new-to-us neighbors Claudia and Gyana, and Steve.

So we're continuing to clean up - our tenant did a pretty good job of things, really, at least in my view (Nancy seems to feel a bit differently about that) and nothing, with  the single exception of one of the refrigerator legs,  is broken or abused - starting to organize stuff to give away, and just relax back into our lives here. For now!

THANK YOU ALL!!!!!

(I didn't think to take pics of you all. I haven't been thinking in terms of the blog lately, but some of your comments about your enjoyment in reading it led me to this post. I'll get pics when next I see you, and include them here later)

OUR HOUSE AND 10 ACRES ARE FOR SALE

Hey you all, whoever might by chance read this blog any more...............and because I'm wanting to use whatever means, even unlikely ones, that I have at my disposal to sell our house and land, here's the news:

Listing price is $190,000, which, by the way, is already $8000  below Nusenda Credit Union's official evaluation (not an appraisal) related to our home equity credit line with them. We are very flexible, and very motivated to sell.  There seem to be two ways this can happen.

One, a buyer's conventional bank mortgage situation in which case we get paid off all at once, and finis.

Two, we finance the sale ourselves - owner financing - in which case we take a much smaller down payment than a bank would require  -  we're thinking something in the neighborhood of $20K  -  we can sell for a considerably lower price (since we'll be making interest on the deal over some years), and then we can work out some very attractive numbers with a buyer which make us all very happy, and we have a lovely win/win scenario.

We're easy. We'll go either way, but we're hoping that our willingness to finance the sale, with very attractive terms for the buyer, might provide just the fuel needed to get this rocket into orbit.

So................please keep this in mind, in the midst of all else that you have to keep in mind. Spread the word, so to speak, and mention it to anyone you come across who might be interested, or who might know someone who might be interested, etc.

Also, please give people the address to my website for the property, where they can find lots of information and photos:   www.gratefulway.net

We'd like to sell quickly, and we're willing to make the deal very attractive in order to close by, say, end of July.

Love to you all, and we'll be seeing some of you before too long now as we'll be back "home" in New Mexico after June 16.

See ya!

"Skyland" is for sale!

Back In The States....For Now

OLD NEWS

We're in New York safe and sound, and a bit worse for the wear of a 16+ hour flight from Hong Kong, and about a 42 hour journey door to door from Thung Wua Laen. This is only day two of the return adventure, and of course my mom is so very happy to see us. Yesterday we started our foodie re-entrance with a stop at a local market and a $100 bill, which has fed us both for a week in Thailand,  for some of the items we've been without for the last 7 months: tahini, fresh made green juices, blueberries, rice cakes, fresh olives, avocados, pears, hummus, coconut oil, kale, etc. We're both wanting to detox from sugar and salt and whatever msg we haven't been able to "mai sai ponchoorot" our way away from, as well as load up on fresh greens and green juices for a while. This level of our time away speaks directly to our plans to return to Thung Wua Laen and rent a house with a kitchen for a longer - one year is what we're talking about - stay next time, so we can cook and control our food to a greater extent. Eating every meal out for 7 months, while it is a great luxury and a great pleasure on the one hand, is also a great bow to the whims and exigencies of a different way of being in the world.

The nearly 96 year old Mother, Mary

The Sister, Marcia

The Brother, Bob, and his D-I-L Felicia

The S-I-L Vicky

The Cousins Maury and Randi

UPDATE
Now in Florida at MaryAnn and Dave's, where we'll be for another month. We met Saly! After a year or two of skype meetings, we at last have her in our time and place zone. If we think we're having to adjust to being back in the States, all I have to do to remind myself of relativity is to think of her experience of being here for the first time. Meeting new people, eating new foods, not speaking English much at all, dependent on Aaron in so many ways - and he's in Japan for two more weeks, having a hard time with the "cold" weather, and on and on. She so far is sweet and accommodating, cooking traditional meat or fish dishes in a vegetarian variety for me, on her best behavior no doubt what with being surrounded by Aaron's extended family of aunt and uncle and cousins and parents, and tonight, at the "party" we're having, meeting half scores of new and instantly forgettable friends.

Saly

MaryAnn and Dave leave in less than two days for their three week trip to the UK, France and Iceland. Iceland? Ask them.

Dave, MaryAnn, Saly and ???????

After a few weeks  now of non-stop activity and socializing I was able to drop into what I'm actually feeling about being back in the States, and it's sadness and grief. "I don't want to be here" is what it becomes in words. When Nancy spoke the idea many weeks ago now while we were still in Thailand of returning to TWL, making it our "base", and staying for a year, I was very happy to hear it. In that context I'm just eager to get back there, and just not looking forward to what all we need to attend to over the next 4+ months. Oh, I recognize the petulant part of me in this, but really that's not especially strong. I'm immensely grateful for what we've discovered and experienced over the last 8 months, and for what we have ahead of us. I'm just "feeling my feelings" and acknowledging my desires and preferences.

We have another month here in Florida, and then back to New Mexico, about which I'm saying pretty clearly, and Nancy is saying just a bit hesitantly, "I don't want to live in NM any more". So I believe this is our  future speaking, and for a while once we leave in the Fall, we will live perhaps a little in India and a year in Thailand. Beyond that, we're still leaving it open, but anything can happen in a year and a half.

Sell our house and land (which is what we believe we want), or "failing" that (this is all up to God, don't you know), lease it again. We need a cheap, but worthy car for three months in NM. We need to go through our two full-to-the-rafters storage units and release ourselves from possession by our stuff. We need to help Terra, to the extent that we can, get settled in San Diego this summer. We need to spend time with friends, and again with my family in New York, before we depart. We need to figure out, again, the US details of living abroad for a year or more. When I remember to say Thank You a lot none of it seems all that daunting, of course. Even in the midst of my sadness I do remember, and my gratitude and sense of humility for what is available to us continues to astound and overwhelm me. Take nothing for granted, not even the simplest of ordinary things.

In significant part it is this simplicity that I'm eager to return to, and the inherent and multi layered complexities of life in the West that I'm happy to leave behind. And the pace. My experience of being with Nancy in her daily experience of a pace and tenor of life that feels natural to her, at long last, and that feels healing and nurturing to her, is something I can't put into words. My gratitude for this cannot be measured. My delight in this cannot be spoken. Amen.

The Adventure Continues..........

Have you ever tried to wrap a gift that just wouldn't hear of it? A stuffed animal for example, arms and legs splayed out, ready for a human hug, and not willing to be contained or confined inside wrapping paper...Only a box would make the task more manageable, but who wants to be put into a box? None of us, I realize. And that's how I feel about our time in Thailand: a gift that is a challenge to pin down or define...a gift that won't be wrapped or boxed up. 

 

We have been here in the Gulf of Thailand for the last couple of months. The soft green lush of this small beach village is a wonderful deep breath, and the surrounding jungle feels like a protective mantle. And yet the sun is also a powerful force. We are in the tropics, after all.

I've been taking my morning meditation reverie walks on the beach earlier and earlier. And now, late April, the mist is clearing and dissolving into vast open skies where the sun reigns down. Ready or not, with temps around 100 F. and 150% humidity...Close to an hour after I've started my trek along the shore, my body is dripping wet in a shield of salty sweat.

The water is so very translucent, in spite of occasional bits of styrofoam and plastic rubbish and dead jellyfish that often drift in on the changing tides. Dipping in, dipping under feels like a baptism in the Mother Womb. Salty sacred beginnings that remind us that we humans are interconnected with all life-forms, above and below the water. It has been a most amazing healing time for both Matthew and I. Each of us on our own individual journeys that are powerfully aligned in synchronicity and true partnership. 

 

I have been resting in this tropical classroom of the elements: heat, water, air, earth, sky, with all the heart-beating beings my teachers, my guides.. And all I've had to do is show up. What a remarkable gift this is: allowing moments to unfold with my body's wisdom, my heart's knowing and my mind's nudge toward lucidity, showing me how to dance with Nature, my nature.

We face our imminent return to the States with some trepidation, and yet deep gratitude in the same breath. Like all of us, we are unsure of our future. But we have found a new “home” here, which encourages us to trust in the not-knowing, allowing our lives to unfold as they will, and greet the next steps as the adventure continues...

Traditional Thai Dance And Chumphon Rising

Last night we got to go to a performance of traditional Thai dance, this one called the Menora, or bird dance. Whatever it's called, and whatever it is intended to represent, the performance was exquisite, and it was done by some pretty young folks who have obviously spent hundreds or perhaps thousands of hours learning the dance and developing their considerable capabilities.

This was a grand opening event, and so it was free to all, including a buffet dinner and transportation into the city and back. The Mayor of Chumphon was their and spoke, along with other dignitaries and no doubt wealthy business members of the community as well. At one point they all lined up on stage for the obligatory photo op as civic leaders of Chumphon, and there was a lot of talk about promoting Chumphon as a tourist and as an expat destination, rather than just the place which people come to in order to be able to get to some of the well known islands.

It's interesting that we have also met a small group of maybe five Thai guys previously, who were starting a vegetarian restaurant and also a Railway Station free food buffet (pay what you like) and live music venue. Last we heard about them they have put the restaurant on hold and are focusing on the Railway events, which are now nightly, and are so successful that they apparently don't see the need to develop the restaurant. What's interesting about having met these guys many weeks ago now is that they are also very interested in promoting Chumphon as a place to be, and as a cultural and nature destination. There's a new and active movement afoot here, which clearly has the backing not only of local small fry, but of the top political and commerce figures.

A Look At Our Thailand Budget

This is an edited version of several postings I've made recently on the RetireCheap.Asia forum, which has been a rich source of useful information for me about all things Thailand for the past year now. I've received  numerous expressions of gratitude in reply to these posts there, so I thought I'd share some of this information here as well, in case anyone might be curious. ("JC" below refers to the creator/owner of the RetireCheap.Asia website and forum, whom we've met with several times here in Thailand).

I thought I’d share some budget information, since there seems always to be interest in this topic, and understandably so. I know Scott has shared his info, which is highly detailed and of great value. I’d like to share something less detailed but I think still of interest to at least some folks on this forum.

We all know about JC’s “categories” of budget for Thailand: 1 ) US$500-750; 2) US $750-1000; and 3) over US$1000 per month. People on a Category Three budget can live pretty much any way they wish, because money is not an issue. I’d go so far as to say that people on a Category Two budget can pretty much do the same.

What I’d like to share, and really to re-iterate and to validate, has to do with the possibility of living in Thailand, comfortably, on a Category One budget, which always seems to arouse doubt. I believe this doubt is aroused because the people who do the doubting probably wouldn’t be able to see themselves living comfortably on a category one budget. Fair enough. I’m here to testify to the truth that may be applicable to others, such as Nancy and me.

We’ve been traveling around and living in Thailand now for just shy of six months, and we’ve done it consistently, month after month, on a Category One budget. When we left the US last October, I had set a budget for us, in Thailand, of $1500 a month/$50 a day for both of us (not for each of us). We’ve come in consistently below this monthly figure, even in Pai, our most expensive location for 5 weeks, because we allowed ourselves to enjoy the natural and health foods available there, and were willing to pay the higher farang ("foreigner") prices for these meals. Nothing else there has to be meaningfully more expensive, so if you weren’t interested in this diet, you’d have no trouble spending less than we did.

Our expenses have included all the basics: food, with eating ALL meals out – we’ve cooked literally one or two meals the entire time we’ve been here – accommodations; transportation – we rent a motorbike by the month; train and bus fares, songthoau’s, a very occasional taxi, in country flights - splurge groceries items, local market shopping; we typically wash our own clothes, although we did use a laundry service once for about 250baht; electricity, wifi, drinking water, phone, even more or less regular massages, travelers insurance; and even “fun” activities like an all day snorkeling outing which cost $70/2400baht for the two of us.

In other words, we haven’t been scrimping every penny, but we haven’t been eating 1000 baht meals either. We’ve lived in one room mostly, but not always. And we’ve discovered that for about the same amount of money that we pay by the month, or somewhat more, we could be renting a one bedroom cottage with a living room and a bedroom and a kitchen and a bathroom. We will likely do this on our next round. Our needs are very modest in comparison to many people, and what we need in order to feel comfortable is probably less than many. Of course we want a clean and roomy place, which we’ve always had – we don’t like to be cramped, especially in one room; we want nice managers, which we’ve also always had; we want to be within walking distance of where we like to spend time, like the beach for example, or restaurants; and we want regular cleaning service. Other than that, we can be pretty satisfied with little else.

Here are some daily/monthly summaries of our expenses in the places we’ve spent time:

Chumphon/ThungWua Laen Beach: $39/day or $1170/month

Cha-Am: $43/day or $1290/month

Chiang Mai: $38/day or $1140/month

Pai: $48/day or $1450/month

I've discovered that our monthly budget of $US1500 taken over six month’s time even includes “extras” like:

*medications $200;
*US Consulate fees of $100 for our sworn affidavits for non-o visa application;
*visa fees of $115 and our visa helper person fee of $170;
*an exploratory first trip to Pai for a couple of nights $110
*a little “vacation” to Cha Am for three nights $150;
*a couple of car rentals (from friends in Chiang Mai, so cheaper than the commercial rates)  $40;
*fees for our retirement extensions and our multiple re-entry permits in Chumphon of $340;

total of about $1225 over six months, or an average of a little over $200 a month. Because our average daily expenses were consistently under budget, this $200, or about 6800 baht a month got absorbed into the overall monthly $1500 or about 50,500 baht, keeping us still within the maxed out limit of our monthly budget.

Of course personal preferences and needs will determine what choices anyone makes regarding spending money. It would be very easy to imagine spending even less than we have, without much effort. It's rarely any challenge to imagine spending more.

Part One: Long Term Residency; Part Two: A Day In The Life

 PART ONE

This whole thing dropped into our slightly irritated laps a little over three months ago in Chiang Mai. It was time to do something about being able to stay in Thailand beyond the limit of our initial 60 day tourist visa and the 30 day extension of that that one can get pretty much automatically, and I was griping about probably having to leave the country after the 90 days to do a “visa run” to Laos to get another 30 or 60 day visa for The Kingdom. I didn't want to do it, and was saying that I wouldn't, and that if we had to leave the country we might just as well go back to India and start heading back West toward the USA. Earlier than I would have thought, but less hassle and less expense, it seemed to me. I was wanting to be able stay long term and at the same time I was talking about undermining this ambition prematurely. At more or less precisely this moment we received into our lives, serendipitously (HA!), the lovely and capable Ms. Wenika Thumkoom, Aimmy, who's work it is to assist farangs – foreigners – and others with Thai visa requirements.

Saphli (closer) And Thung Wua Laen Beaches From The Raptor Mountain View Point

No, we wouldn't have to leave Thailand at all. She could help us, in stages, to obtain first the Non-Immigrant Visa we would need to be able to remain a second 90 days, and then, within 45 days of the expiration of this new visa, she would help us obtain a one year Retirement Extension of this visa. Huh? We hadn't planned on this at all. Didn't even know about it; in anything other than the most vague of terms by way of discussions on the RetireCheap.Asia forum.

Well, to make this long story a bit short, last Monday, the 21^st of March, Nancy and I spent several hours at the little Immigration Office in Chumphon (Aimmy could have helped us with this in Chiang Mai, but we were able to do it ourselves in Chumphon) and left with our one year Retirement Extensions, which allow us to remain in Thailand until April 24, 2017.

This may not sound like a big deal, but it is. We are now long term residents, presumed to be now living in Thailand for the purposes of retirement. We also obtained multiple re-entry permits which allow us to leave and re-enter Thailand numerous times (one long timer says the actual number is four) within this next year without having to bother with additional visas. This is what most expats to Thailand work to achieve. From this vantage point it is only a matter of renewing this one year extension annually, and presumably indefinitely. One can now live perfectly legally in Thailand for the rest of one's life, should one wish to do so.

Jao Meah Kwin Im (Quan Yin), TWL Wat

We aren't calling ourselves expats – although this trip has brought me to the point, not previously a possibility, of being willing and able to say that I could be - because it isn't our current intention to live in Thailand, or to live abroad (India and Thailand?), permanently. It is our current intention to return to Thailand later in the year however, and we are now in a legal position to do so. Was it worth it? The time, the bureaucracy, the cost? Why not? Otherwise we'd have to deal with new visas whenever we might want to return, and pay for these anyway, and then have to be concerned, again, with renewing them after a short period of time. It dropped in our laps,and we accepted the gift.

Now there is the larger significance of this new state of grace. We have a new, or second home if we want it. We know we can live comfortably, simply, modestly and well on the limited amount of retirement fixed income we have. We know we can have access to high quality and affordable medical care if and when we will need it. We have a friend or three here now. We have discovered two beautiful locations in which we would be happy to spend extended periods. We would have no need to own a car, unless we really wanted to for some unknown reason. If we rented a place with a kitchen and cooked at least some of our food we could eat more healthfully than we do now, what with eating every meal out for the past six months.

                                                      

A New Look: Nancy Says She Likes My Mouth, Which She Hasn't Seen In About 20 Years

In other words, we have viable options for how and where we might like to live without needing to earn money. I'm thinking, contrary to when we left the US, that I am indeed retired. I have no current desire to return to the practice of psychotherapy, or to have to work at anything else. Might this change? I suppose it could, but why would it? Out of boredom? From a desire to help people? In order to be engaged in meaningful activity? Please see my last post.

In less than three weeks I'll be 69 years old. I will have completed nearly seven decades on this planet, and entered into the 70^th year of this life time. That seems significant. I don't feel the need to accomplish anything. I have in fact accomplished pretty much everything I've set out to accomplish in my life. I'm a “success” by my own standards. I have a loving wife and life partner, whom I love as well, and we actually get along pretty well, as clearly evidenced by our last six months in close quarters together. I have two inspiring children who are well on their ways in their own blessed lives. I care about people and people care about me. I love and I am loved. I am relatively healthy and vital, with only certain organic concerns to keep an eye on. (Well, I assume I am. An annual physical when we're in the States will provide a more comprehensive picture). I suppose I'll be a grandfather in the coming years. Am I missing anything?

It seems to me that the possibility of being able to live well – you have to think in modest terms here to understand what I mean by “well”; our needs are pretty simple, unlike many others'; our strategy might not work for other people on our level of finance who have more conventional needs - on the money one has; of being able to “get more life for less money” as the tag line of RetireCheap would have it; of not having to be concerned with making ends meet or earning extra money or more money for an indefinite period of time – like the rest of one's life, for example – is a nice place to be in. And to be able to do this on a small amount of money, or of fixed monthly income like what Nancy and I have, is a blessing indeed. When we sell our house and land and pay off some significant debt, which is the current plan, we will be in the perhaps enviable and certainly priviledged position of even having money to invest, should we wish to do so, so as to provide us with a home base in the States say, and/or additional income to save, say. Hell, by the time we die we might actually have something left to leave our kids. They might like that.

PART TWO

Yesterday, after six weeks of steady, daily work, Nancy finished her Flower Essence Case Study "Dissertation", about 150 pages of assessment, analysis, discussion, summary and clinical justification relating to three clients with whom she'd worked over a period of up to three years. I'd just like to say that I am so immensely proud of her, and duly impressed with her focus, her effort, her dedication and her talent. This is a huge achievement, and it sets the stage for her oral exam and, ultimately, for her recognition by Flower Essence Society as a Certified Practitioner in their methods of deep healing work using her counseling and flower essence consultation skills. Whooooowee!!!!

So what have our days looked like, for those of you who might wonder, or be interested in the day to day form of our current lives? "What do you do all day?"

We've been waking up somewhere between 7 and 8:30 AM lately. We stretch, move more or less slowly into the day, have our toilet, drink some water, and, separately, take the five minute walk down the paved country road to the beach. I've taken to walking through the Wat grounds which is on the way and just off the beach so as to pay my respects to the big Black Buddha and to Jao Meah Kwin Im, and to be able to enter the beach at a spot that I've come to prefer, and from which I start my long meditative walk down and back up the length of the coast. This takes about an hour and a half from door to door. Nancy is doing her version of the same. This walk is a highlight of my day. I love starting out this way, communing with the ocean and the Earth beneath my bare feet, maybe going in for a cooling off dip if it's hot, maybe not. Most days I'm singing the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra as I go, lowering my voice if I approach other people so as to not draw attention or confuse. At the time of day we walk - for Nancy more so than for me since she goes a bit earlier -  there are almost always very few to literally no people on the beach. It's a version of the mythical deserted tropical "island", at least for a while, and even when it's "crowded", like on the weekends when Thai people, like people everywhere, go to the beach, it's very tame compared to any beach I've ever walked on.

This is actually TWL beach

We return to our roomy room at the Albatross, Nancy maybe procuring a coconut to drink at our favorite little corner restaurant on her way back (it's confusing to us how difficult it has been to regularly obtain coconuts here at TWL; we had assumed that this being a tropical paradise of sorts they'd be readily available, but alas, they are not) where we turn on the aircon for a while cuz it's the hot, dry season here and by nine or ten it's already pretty toasty outside most days (high's these days of about 35C), unless it's overcast and cooler, or unless it rains, as it did a couple of days ago (yes, I know, I said it was the dry season; thank global climate change for the demise of all "normal" weather patterns). 

For the past six weeks, until yesterday, Nancy would set about to work on her dissertation, and I  might read a novel or listen to/watch, lately, my new "favorite" musician, Willie Nelson on Youtube. Having recently listened to Willie's audio book autobiography, I've become a fan of a man I've never listened to before, so I'm catching up. Sometime between noon and 2, typically, we'll decide to head down to the beach road for something to eat, many days going to our new friend Dtu's for his home made brown or white bread and green tea, sometimes eggs or French toast, or if it's a very special day - we can declare these as and when we see fit - his home made pasta and sauce.

The lovely Dtu in front of his simple kitchen

Quite often, if we go to Dtu's we'll meet up with our other friend Sidney. We've become good friends over the past six weeks. Sidney is another New York Jew, having grown up in the city and then on Long Island, while I grew up in the other direction, in Yonkers. He and I have discovered that we actually have a lot in common, including having attended the same undergraduate university, the State University of NY At Buffalo, he a couple of years after me; and both of us having a background in Philosophy and sharing a love of logic, Sidney having earned his PhD in Mathematical Logic, and having taught mathematics here there and everywhere for 40 years, including in Bangkok for many years.

Sidney is a lovable rationalist curmudgeon with a secret longing for a more genuine mystical experience and a more or less active interest in Buddhism, and we often argue about the differences between the knowledge that can be attained through the analytical capacities of reason and that which cannot, but which can be grasped all at once through intuition; about dualism vs. non-dualism; about flaws in logical arguments or the ultimately meaningless circularity of academia (his world) vs. real life. He's a pretty good sport and puts up with my wrathful attacks with something approaching a reasonable grace. He's been some 12 years in Thailand (quite possibly too long in his case), the last three of these in TWL, and has been throughout most of SE Asia, as well as Nepal and Tibet. Sidney is now my private Thai language tutor and I've begun formal lessons with him, which are quite fun, and which fulfill a desire I've had for some months to study Thai in a "classroom" situation, and which gives Sidney an opportunity to engage his teacherly self in a good cause.

Dr. Sidney himself

On some regular basis, perhaps 2 or 3 times a week, he and I will ride together on my motorbike to Saphli, the nearest "town" or "village" a few kilometers away, to go to the 7/11 there (yes, 7/11's are ubiquitous in Thailand, and a source for many routine items and services, as well as owning and/or controlling a significant portion of the Thai economy, we're told), or to the Sunday Market for fruit or for an odd kitchen item he needs, or for sum thaam, the spicy Thai green papaya "salad" I quite enjoy. Sidney is a cyclist, but these last many months he has been either seriously ill with some mysterious infection or recovering from it, and his energy has been and remains compromised, so he appreciates riding on the motorbike rather than pedaling his way to and from Saphli.

On some days Nancy and I will ride to "the magic coffee shop", so named by Sidney and our other new Canadian friend Gail, who we met last November and who is now back in Canada. This is a lovely place to sit for some hours and watch cattle graze in the large pasture adjacent, to read or write, or................to have the unanimously agreed upon most divine Thai foot massage on the planet. The young woman who provides this experience is, indeed, a divine being, and her work is a true gift and holy blessing to anyone fortunate enough to receive it. Oh, and just by the way..............this is also the place to indulge in some of the most heavenly - I didn't say "healthy" - on site made cakes in Thailand, baked by one or two head scarfed Muslim women who own and run the place, and which is really a hangout for local Thai yuppies and young families.

At some point in the later part of the day or evening it'll be time for dinner, and then the decision about where we will have this meal needs to be made. It could be at Oy's place, the aforementioned little corner restaurant, or at White Beach, also close by but more aggressively touristy and pricey, or our newest find, the Curry Shack/Crooked Palm, where one can get a version of an Indian spinach potato curry which I like well enough for a change, but which leaves Nancy cold, and a piece of (frozen, not fresh) apple pie.

There might be, on some days, an evening walk on the beach together, or just an early retirement to the Albatross for a movie - Netflix is now available in Thailand! - or a read or a listen or a phone or skype call with Aaron or Terra or my mom or friends in the States, and, of course, Nancy will use this time, if she hasn't done so earlier in the day, for her practice.

Most of our interactions with Thai people here are business oriented. Aside from Dtu, with whom we can have some personal conversation as well as buy his food, our relationships with Thai's are about our spending money, of course. I like to say that, aside from behaving respectfully and enjoying our status as guests in Thailand, our only other obligation is to keep spending. It is understood that, legally, we are forbidden from earning any money here under our current visa status (people do ignore this legality, but at their own risk, which may be virtually none, or small or large) so that the reason we are allowed to be "retired" here is because we can spend without having to earn. We feed the Thai economy without depriving any Thai of gainful employment. Fair enough. And because we don't speak Thai, naturally our ability to penetrate more deeply or meaningfully into Thai culture, or to readily develop relationships with Thai people, is severely limited. Time will tell.

We don't have a night life, although we could at TWL if we wanted to, what with a number of bars available, sometimes with live music. Well, we don't have much of a night life in New Mexico either. Apparently we're not night life people. Duh. So that's what a day in the life might look like these days, with of course variations as they arise. For example we've been invited to go snorkeling in a few days with our local friends Jane and John who own a diving company and will be heading out to sea with a few people for a day's outing. 1200 baht (+/- $35) each, all inclusive. We're assured that this is a wonderful experience, and one not to be missed. Looks like we'll go.