June of '26
This is Thailand. No, it’s not like kindness is exclusive here compared to other places in the world. It was just when I saw it, I was not surprised… at all. I am sitting in the back of my taxi coming home from class. I see, out of the corner of my eye, this older man in a walker contemplating crossing a busy 6-lane street at an intersection. He takes his first step to cross and I thought “oh no!!!”
Immediately, a guy on a motorcycle pulls his bike over and simply helps out another human being. The driver of my taxi barely noticed, while I was held captive, watching the beauty of humanity.
I’m glad we live here. I’m glad for a lot of things. Thank you to whoever is in charge of these kinds of things.
The month of June is settling in like a kitten sleeping in the crook of your neck. The rules of life clearly state you are not allowed to move until the kitten wakes. So, you just remain. Yep, June is just like that.
We’ve not made any future traveling plans for this year. Not only are we waiting for our renewed passports, I think subconsciously we are still feeling the pain of jetlag from our Seattle trip. Too tired to lock-in to South Korea or anywhere for that matter.
I agree, from the point of view of someone else, this might seem crazy. We have the money, time, and we enjoy traveling to other countries here in Asia. The deal is that we’re treating June like that time right after you take a post-lunch nap and decide to doom scroll on your phone. It is kind of part of the nap, but not really. It is the space between dreamworld and reality. It’s comfy, with no ‘have-tos’ or penalty for ‘not doing nutting’. There, I said it.
The Seattle Series:
These are parts one and two of six featured in May’s blog. (Last Month’s)
These are parts three and four of six on the ongoing Seattle series.
Or just read it below:
The $6,300-a-Year Museum of Things We Forgot We Owned…
Throw away, give away, keep, recycle. These four words were the judge, jury, and executioner for every relic we owned. Our storage unit was a burden of $6,300 a year for a 10-by-20 money pit filled with memories. That sweatshirt, full of stories but never meant to be worn again, certainly deserved the two or three minutes I took to decide its fate. Unfortunately, we had thousands of these decisions to make. So, off it goes to the giveaway pile with a dash of regret and a smidge of betrayal. This led to a series of tiny emotional negotiations. Every item seemed like a small argument between sentimentality and good sense.
Feng shui teaches that removing the unused from your life makes room for something shiny and new. These items sat in that rented tomb for almost three years, and we easily survived without them. I think of past generations who went down the well-trodden path of accumulating belongings, only for them to be dealt with by surviving children. That is decidedly not our destiny. I can only hope that when we finally shuffle off this mortal coil, the cleaning lady will have to pack our belongings into only one sturdy cardboard box. We are an unmoored ship currently settled on foreign shores, drinking from the keg of calm adventure.
The familiarity of one’s former place of work:
Diane and I worked for the same company for a combined 85 years. No, 85 is not a typo. After retiring and living in Thailand for two and a half years, returning to walk down those familiar halls and offices then getting hugs from the people we worked with was certainly a warm and welcome feeling. Time had left its mark, of course. Hair had silvered, yet strangely, many colleagues seemed more defined, as if their arms were hardened by holding back the years.
We spent decades in the trenches, socked our money away, dreamed up a hopeful plan for freedom, then executed it. We aren’t just retirees, I am just hoping we are the blueprint for a successful escape for others.
Strategically, we now have a place for recycling and garbage as we continue to empty that rented box that held our former lives. Our social calendar is full of coffee dates and lunches with friends we worked with for decades. I was asked by a good friend who also lives in Thailand “Is there anything that makes you think you should return to Seattle?” My knee jerk reaction was ‘oh no!” But as I chat with these old friends we left behind, I realize the city may no longer hold us, it’s these people who were the heart of our old lives…
Seattle:
I don’t remember the Emerald City being so cold. Not metaphorically, do not worry, I was not going down some diatribe about the personality of the city I grew up in. I mean literally, I’m freezing my ass off here! We left Chiang Mai at 101 degrees only to arrive at Seattle’s famous misty, cold, miserable NW weather. I suspect my brittle old bones won’t thaw until we return to the north of Thailand. Yes, I’ve changed. I was that Northwest sweatered, layered, Costco white-sock-wearing Seattleite. It took only 30 months for me to morph into what I am today. In Thailand, for two and a half years, I did not don socks, nor drive a car, and was shocked as I had to wear a long sleeve shirt when it dropped all the way down to 60 degrees at sunrise for my habitual morning walk. The high today in Seattle was 43 degrees. Because of this I am wearing every single article of clothing I brought and now look like a disheveled Michelin man.
There is a part of Seattle that has greatly improved. Though maybe this could be compared to being proud of a serial killer only killing one or two people, but I have noticed the lack of blue tarps along Interstate 5. One could surmise this is nothing more than cleaning up before a date with the 2026 FIFA World Cup. But having small villages of people living in tents along the main freeway in our Emerald City should never have occurred. Providing proper services and simply enforcing the law seems simple, but that conversation has come and gone. For now, though: bravo!
Jetlag:
Ok, I’m dying here. Some people are susceptible to getting colds, others are allergic to animal dander, while some even have the paralyzing terror of astraphobia. Go ahead, look it up. What is my kryptonite? Jetlag. Did we cross over the Pacific Ocean eastbound for a total of 14 time zones, known as the most grueling gauntlet of air travel known to humanity? Yes, but man, we’ve been here for more than18 days now and I’m still feeling this combination of light flu, occasional vertigo and plain feeling yucky. I’m still getting the work done, still moving boxes, and still going through belongings. But I’m not alone in this; we are both suffering. Diane is doing better… I think. She’s like that. Not me, I think “the end is near.” I don’t know where the area known as Circadia is. Nor am I familiar with their rhythms. But I hear they have something to do with this. Also, to save you time, astraphobia is the fear of thunder and lightning. You… are welcome.
We have times of acceptable energy. But there is no support group for jetlag. The most people talk about this is a dismissive nod, “Oh yeah, I had a little of that once.” Which is infuriating! The more I think about this, the more I think of the lack of empathy one receives when one is in the throes of a cold. Yes, I’m talking about a man cold. You know what I’m talking about. You are still expected to show up to work when all you want is to lie on the couch and moan at anyone who will listen. When I don’t have the energy to even get a glass of water, I’ll just lay there pouting and being thirsty. “I think I’m gonna die.” That’s where the half of society that doesn’t get man-colds is helpful. You know, get the water for you and listen to your whining. You don’t know how loved that makes us feel. Apologies for the digression. I should get back to the story.
Don’t forget to check out Diane’s YouTube channel: Ate Diane at Sacred Heart Cathedral
Passports are sort of a travel diary when you look at the stamps you’ve acquired. Of the 20 pages available for stamps, I had only four blank pages remaining. Both of us each had 40 or 50 various stamps and stickers signifying entering or exiting a country, long-term residence visas, and extension stamps added by local immigration offices. The document has been good for 10 years. At the end of its usable life, I had to acknowledge that this document was pretty much the “Last of the Mohicans.” As much as the world has gone to e-stamps, I didn’t even notice as we exited Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore that we were not given a stamp. If they had, we’d certainly have had to upgrade our passports a couple of years ago. Those countries have joined much of Europe in saying goodbye to ink on a piece of paper as proof of a decade’s worth of travel.
Our new passports will never reach such glorious heights. It’s not like I would take them to show-and-tell at an elementary school to share with the class, but I recognize the changing world. I’ve said goodbye to a landline and having my name in something called a phone book. I no longer must give a clerk at a photo lab a cylinder of film and wait a week to get my 24 or 36 carefully staged photos in a form other humans can see. Thankfully, I no longer must drive with a Thomas Guide on my lap as I dangerously turn pages while navigating traffic. The list is much longer, but I do remember.
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