Sunday, March 21

Bangkok at dawn

I was spoiled with an abundance of personal contact this morning! Michelle, Martin, and Ellen called me via WhatsApp and amazingly—to me anyway—the Wifi was strong enough that we were able to do a facetime call.

And then, after breakfast, my Mom and Scott called me on my room phone!

It was so nice to talk to everyone, to see their faces (on the first call, at least) and hear their voices and actually have a conversation. I was a little giddy over it. I called Roman afterwards (he'd been calling but my phone was busy! Land lines!) and I was a liiitttttle overexcited.

And it seems they're all reading this blog, so now I just feel like I'm continuing the conversation by writing this.

OK, OK, I know you're dying to see breakfast:

I actually only ate the cornflakes, plus some more cornflakes I had stashed away from other breakfasts. I felt guilty about leaving the croissant and bread, so I kind of shredded up the croissant, and I threw the bread away in my in-room trash. Hmmm, I am not sure this behavior is in-line with me trying to live with intention and honesty and all that shizz.

At 9:20am, I called down to the front desk and asked if I could get my room cleaned (they'll clean rooms starting on Day Seven, which is today). The woman I spoke with said yes and that they'd come at 9:30am. I asked if I could go to the rooftop, but she said I could only go to the garden with the red wristband.

Which is totally fine! I mean, I don't know the garden from the rooftop, and yet the mystery of the rooftop had held some allure for me. But it looks like we aren't allowed to see it until Day...hmm, I just looked through the materials they gave us on arrival, and it seems that maybe there is no rooftop hangout spot. Did we just make that up? You can visit (but not swim in) the swimming pool starting on Day 13...but there is no mention of a rooftop. Did Roman and I just say the word rooftop back and forth to each other often enough to make it seem like a thing?

Weird. Anyway, after a few minutes, Roman joined me in the garden.

We admired the frangipani trees and their strange, almost porcelain-like blossoms.

And then I returned to a sparkling clean room! I had tried to rein in my expectations, but it turned out to not be necessary—they wiped down and swept everything, and (especially exciting because I can't do it myself) they changed the bed linens on Lounging Bed and Sleeping Bed, and replaced all the towels! Happy day!

Then I did a Hatha yoga class with longer holds...in truth because I didn't want to do yoga and I thought the longer holds might make it go faster, since there would be fewer of them? It actually did help me get more into my body & breath. By Day Seven, sometimes I don't want to do things I have told myself I am Supposed To Do.

I got green curry with tofu and vegetables for lunch.

I had mixed feelings...it was nice to get vegetables, but the vegetables were mostly Thai eggplants, which I find kind of unpleasantly seedy, and these little green pods that are totally unfamiliar to me, slightly bitter, and not my favorite (anyone have any idea?). BUT the tofu and the green curry itself were good, and it was pretty spicy.

After lunch, I read some of the other book I'm reading right now, The Art of Happiness, by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler. Really, it was written by Cutler, who's a psychiatrist, in conversation with the Dalai Lama, but his picture isn't the one on the book cover.

I have been reflecting a bit on my earlier musings that I seem to enjoy isolation, at least to a degree, as well as my feelings of guilt/sheepishness over enjoying it. I realized that this isn't any kind of new idea to me. I already know that life can be easier without other people in it. It can be easier to never have to ask for help, to never have to accommodate anyone else’s wishes, to never have to hear about someone else’s unhappiness. Easier, but a lot less fulfilling.

A part of me always wants to do what's easy, and avoid the things that are uncomfortable or unpredictable or scary. Which other people are. Thankfully that's not the only part of me, and not the only part I listen to.My life would be really boring if I could make it as easy as I want it to be.

Anyway, something I read in The Art of Happiness gave me a different perspective on this so-called isolation. In a chapter on intimacy, the author quotes the Dalai Lama at length:

...the other day I spoke about the factors necessary to enjoy a happy and joyful life. Factors such as good health, material goods, friends, and so on. If you closely investigate, you’ll find that all of these depend on other people. To maintain good health, you rely on medicines made by others and health care provided by others. If you examine all of the material facilities that you use for the enjoyment of life, you’ll find that there are hardly any of these material objects that have had no connection with other people. If you think carefully, you’ll see that all of these goods come into being as a result of the efforts of many people, either directly or indirectly. Many people are involved in making those things possible. Needless to say, when we’re talking about good friends and companions as being another necessary factor for a happy life, we are talking about interaction with other sentient beings, other human beings.

This isn't a new idea to me either, but it made me reflect on my isolation in my hotel room. Someone built this room—people plastered these walls and affixed the moldings and installed the sprinkler system. Someone hung the curtains, someone mounted the television set. And how many people does it take to bring me my meals—to grow the vegetables, raise and slaughter the chickens and pigs, transport the products to the hotel? Make the plastics, the paper napkins, the packets of creamer? Which doesn't even get to the cutting, peeling, and cooking involved in preparing my meals. And how many people's labor went into the iPhone and tablet that keep me entertained? And how about the labor that went into making those tv shows? And on and on.

I supposed I've contemplated interdependence before, but at that moment I really felt it. The thousands of people who made it possible for me to sit “alone” in my hotel room.

Because I was thinking of the Dalai Lama, and because a lot of my usual meditation podcasts have started to seem dull to me, after I put down my book, I looked for a meditation led by the Dalai Lama.

I'm not really sure that's a thing that's available, but I did find a gratitude meditation that the host said was based on a practice done by the Dalai Lama.

It wasn't what I expected from a gratitude practice. There was no mention of the things one might feel gratitude about, only a discussion of the heart chakra and the color green. I dutifully imagined a kind of opening of my heart space and the color green, but I was skeptical. What was this? Chakras? It wasn't even being led like a typical guided meditation—there was no real instruction on how to focus the mind. Did the Dalai Lama really do this practice?

And then something odd started to happen. I began to feel a warmth, a kind of tingling in my chest. Perhaps, I thought, it was all those chilies in my lunch curry, warming my chest. But there was something else to it—a joy, tinged with almost euphoria. I realized that for the first time in days, my meditation didn't feel like a burden. I wanted to weep with gratitude.

The meditation ended and I turned it off and kept sitting. I felt a calm that was more emotional than physical—I could feel some pain in my legs and thoughts kept streaming through my mind, like—Was I really experiencing this feeling? Would thinking about it too much make it go away? I don't want it to go away! But I didn't feel a lot of emotion tied to those thoughts, and the pain in my legs didn't bother me.

I don't believe in god, but it felt like a kind of blessing—that with a practice that had become a little dull and grueling, suddenly I had this reminder of what being present could feel like. I've had these moments before, but only rarely, and I just felt so grateful that it had visited me.

I did another Hatha yoga class, mostly with my eyes closed, and I was surprised to find I went deeper into several poses than I knew I could. Were what I thought the limits of my flexibility really just the limits I imagined for myself? I mean, I really don't believe that—it sounds like some obnoxious entitled self-helpy “the only thing holding you back is you” kinda shit, but, well, I was surprised at how deep I went into forearm runner's lunge.

I stayed in Shavasana for a long time. I realized how my narrow, rigid demands on myself could take the joy out of experience. Routines can be deadening for everyone, I think. I know that I can kind of whip myself with a routine if I think it's part of my self-betterment. Like, I decided I want to do an hour of yoga every day in quarantine, which means that if I do a 38 minute routine in the morning, I try to find a 22 or 23 minute routine in the afternoon, not a 21 minute routine. I know it's a meaningless distinction—or one that only matters in my brain, not to my body—but I have a hell of a time releasing myself from it.

So I create a very narrow tightrope that is my one single path toward self-betterment. And then I am so busy staring at my feet, trying to balance, that I don't notice the life happening all around me.

I got up from Shavasana and wrote this all down.

I hesitate a little to share this. It feels very intimate, and I also worry that sharing thoughts about my meditation practice can seem self-congratulatory, or boring, or hippie dippie.

But I am inspired by the Dalai Lama's habit of openness—in The Art of Happiness, speaking about himself, he says, on a personal level, being open and sharing things can be very useful. Because of this nature I can make friends more easily, and it's not just a matter of knowing people and having a superficial exchange but of really sharing my deepest problems and suffering. I want to make a choice toward openness instead of self-protection.

I do not want to use this insight to be down on myself. I want to be grateful for these moments, however long they last. I want to treat myself with compassion, and try and make it a practice to stop and look up. I want to be aware that the taskmaster is not the only one making decisions here, and try and trust that even if she's not running the show, I will still be okay. I want to release my grip on self-betterment for something else. Presence, maybe. I don't want to miss what is happening all around me.

OK, then. Dinner was pad thai and it was delicious.Not because I was feeling all mindful and shit, but because I was hungry.

I also wrote some new pre-meal reflections that feel a little more organic to my way of thinking.

I washed some clothes in my clean clean room, watched an episode of Project Runway, and chatted with Roman on the phone before going to bed.

In case you're interested, someone (not me) has gotten real into photo editing in quarantine...