If you have yet to discover the wild and whimsical creature
that is Tom Robbins, take this as your cue. I took mine (along with several
others that, ultimately, have led me to where I am writing this post from, jet
lagged and wide awake at 3:26 AM on an overnight train from Bangkok to Surat
Thani, Thailand) about a year and a half ago from one, Patrick M. Niedermeyer.
For those of you who don’t know Patrick…
…now you do; my dearest friend, my favorite travel partner,
and the biggest goofball I’ve ever met.
Anyway, Tom Robbins has been something of a literary idol to
Patrick and me for a while now. If you’re wondering why I keep bringing him up,
it’s because I have a tendency to talk too much in the lead up to whatever
point I am trying to get across, which in this case, is this: the title of our
travel blog. The “there out there” comes from one of my favorite lines in his
novel, Jitterbug Perfume, which
reads,
“Perhaps the most
terrible (or wonderful) thing that can happen to an imaginative youth, aside
from the curse (or blessing) of imagination itself, is to be exposed without
preparation to the life outside his or her own sphere – the sudden revelation
that there is a there out there.”
We’re big fans of the there out there, and whether that
makes us two more “lost souls” in a generation of “over-privileged and
misguided youth” avoiding the seemingly unavoidable transition to adulthood, or
just a couple of kids with an insatiable appetite for exploration and
adventure, we don’t care. The world is our never-ending buffet and we plan to
take full advantage, with fingers, forks, and chopsticks, of every last slice,
serving, and bite of life. And if our eyes are too big for our stomachs? All
the better. Because right now, I would far rather be vomitously full on existence and experience than stuck at point X
with my heart at point Y and my mind at point god knows where with my stomach
growling, unsatisfied and hungry.
Which brings me to my next point: why I’m on a train
traveling to southern Thailand in the middle of the night. (Side note: Patrick will introduce his part of the blog and why he's here in a separate post!). Two summers ago,
after taking (and bombing) the MCAT, I was sitting opposite Patrick in a secret
hot spring in the middle of the desert in southern California. Actually, let
me back up a few months; at a research conference in Austin, Texas during my
senior year of college, I met this crazy guy with a mullet and a tattoo of a
wild strawberry on his arm who asked me “why?” Why did I want to
go to med school right out of college… to put aside my dreams of trekking
through the Himalaya and backpacking through Southeast Asia and driving a van-turned-mobile-home
from British Columbia down the west coast into South America, and ensure that
they remain dreams for who knows how much longer? Why was I so afraid of doing
the things I wanted to do, when and in the order that I wanted to do them in? Why should I forsake the adventures and
experiences I was ready for, for
those I was, and still am not? Fast forward eight months later to Deep Creek
Hot Springs and I found myself at the tail end of what had been a constant
internal battle over the answers to those questions. In that moment, it became
as clear as the water I was soaking in that the answers were, in fact, as
simple as they seemed: I didn’t, I’m not, and I never will. Now of course, I’m
twenty-three years old and I’ve got a lot to learn… but then again, I’m
twenty-three years old, and I’ve got a
lot to learn. And as expected, I still haven’t really gotten to the point I’ve been trying to make, which is that
when I realized that – that I am so god damn young and that, contrary to
popular belief, there is absolutely no reason I shouldn’t take advantage of that
fact – I decided to start making decisions for me. And now, one year and more than a few wrong turns later, that
decision feels more empowering than ever.
Yesterday,
I packed everything I saw fit into the 65 liter pack I’ve carried up and down
mountains, across deserts, through forests, and into wilderness all over the
U.S. and took a twenty-something hour plane ride to Thailand – one way ticket,
no return date in sight. My only goal is to live fully – to take every
experience, good and bad, as they come; to take grounded pleasure in the light,
to dance through the dark, and to savor it all; to allow myself every opportunity
to learn and listen, to speak and watch and grow; to be open to outcomes, not attached
to them; and to be present with every emotion – every sensation – from fear and
discomfort to that overwhelming feeling of serenity and fulfillment that comes
with being exactly where you need to be (in both the physical world and the
mental/emotional amusement park) exactly when you need to be there.
So, here I am, eyes wide open with every combination of
nervousness, excitement, and jet lag, in the most intimate hours of the morning
on a poetically boisterous train, racing through southern Thailand. Ten minutes
ago, the sky was a pitch black pincushion of stars and now, it is every shade
of blue, gray, pink, purple, and that electric orange that paints the sky,
fleetingly, at best, outlining clouds you didn’t even know were there and
bringing the sleeping world to life. I am no further and no closer to an “end
goal,” whatever that even means, and yet I feel an almost startling sense of security
in light of the perceived insecurity of being in such a foreign place. Security,
by conventional standards, is not my priority right now, though that is subject
to change (as are all things in life). Every ounce of fear and anxiety I felt
in making this move vanished the second I stepped off the plane. It was as if
another of a great many veils was removed (name that Tom Robbins novel), allowing
me to experience a more heightened perception of the world around me and bringing
me one step closer to wherever I’m going. And I am so ready for it. All of it.
All this to introduce a silly travel blog… oy ve.
I promise you, if you’re still reading, that the subsequent
posts will be far more interesting – like for example, we'll tell you about the
recovered meth addict we sat next to on the plane from JFK to Taipei who,
before the plane left the tarmac, told us about his low sperm count and then
invited us to join him for lunch when we got to the airport. Or about how we’ve
eaten Tom Yum soup with prawns at least once a day, every single day since we
got here. We'll even tell you about our first Thai massage in Bangkok (which, conveniently
enough, goes hand in hand with our first experience with lady boys). Point is,
Thailand is rad and we're going to be here for a while doing cool things and if
you want to come along for the ride, the Tuk Tuk is all yours.
Stay tuned for a follow up post with stories and pictures from
our first week of island living on Koh Samui, including the 5x daily torrential
downpours, liters and liters (and liters) of Chang, learning how to teach
English as a second language, and nightly karaoke (think “Thai-tanic”).
Until then,
Sawatdee!
L&P
L&P
