The Joys and Pains of Pleasure

 I've been lighting incense and buying a lot of coconut milk lately. I'm not in Thailand anymore, but I don't want to believe it. The other day, I ordered tom yum soup and was able to say "korp khun ka" just one more time. I continue to struggle to hold on to Thailand as long as I can before it slips into the recesses of my mind and my Canadian roots anchor my feet back to the ground. Thoughts of moving there have been playing mean tricks on me.  Extreme pleasure... is it different from extreme pain?

When something big happens in our lives, good or bad, it changes us. The unfolding that follows is the recovery period: with pain, it's healing from hurt, with pleasure, it's contracting from expansion.  When we heal we find wisdom, when we contract we find possibilities. With further thought, I guess we also find possibilities with healing and wisdom with contraction.

In the forest at Wat Umong, Chiang Mai

Extreme pleasure and pain involve personal rearranging and growth and both processes cannot be rushed because they have a timeline of their own, however one must take care to not let the present moment slip by unnoticed. It is in the present moment of healing or contraction that action is the most powerful. In fact, action becomes more like ritual and helps the process along.

Many years ago, my husband and I had a very sad ending to our first pregnancy, bringing extreme pain into our lives. To help recover from grief, I felt drawn to buying myself a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers every week. It was my way of remembering our baby boy and attempting to stay in the present moment. Deep down, I knew when I was ready to let go, I wouldn't need to buy the flowers anymore and of course, that's exactly what happened. I don't remember the exact day it happened, but I just stopped buying them. I do remember being able to notice beauty all around me again... in hindsight, buying flowers had become a ritual of hope.

My friend, Mae Bua Tong

Thailand, on the other hand, was all about extreme pleasure, to the point of being mystical: looking into the eye of an elephant as my daughter and I bathed her, listening to the chanting of buddhist monks– the sound soaking into my bones, breathing in the air of a rainforest thousands of years old, feeling the marble beneath my bare feet as we entered every wat (temple), tasting exotic spices and fruits that have never touched my tongue before, being alone and lost, but finding my way home... the Buddha images... the Buddha images.

Something has happened 'back there' and it continues to penetrate the deepest parts of who I am, beyond language and rational thinking. Cooking and eating Thai food has become my ritual as I navigate my way through the more mystical side of life. I feel compelled to read about Mystic Christianity (there's more to Jesus than you know) The Kabbalah, The Lotus Sutra, etc., etc., to revisit the truths beyond religion and to deepen the way I choose to live them. Don't ask. That's why I'm eating Thai food, because I don't get it either, but somehow it's all connected. The smells and tastes of the food is my way of remembering Thailand and what started all of this. I'm well aware a day will come when months will have passed since I've ordered a good dish of pad thai and on that day, I will be able to find out what this ritual has been about. In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy the space I'm in: eating my Thai food, feeling my faith deepen and my connection to humanity and earth strengthen. Life... is... good.