This is another piece that came out of our February writing retreat in Khanom. It's a bit more personal than the things I normally post, but sharing is caring, right? So here's the deal with this letter. The activity was a "movement and writing" exercise. We all went our separate ways for a 20 minute walk, and during the walk made note of (or photographed) three things that stood out to us. After we all returned we pulled a letter prompt and incorporated the three things we recorded into the letter. My prompt was to write a letter to my passion, and the three things I noted on my walk were: 1) Road safety mirror (that helps you see around a curved road) 2) Rooster - Right across the street from the resort was a plan concrete and corrugated steel building surrounded by a grass lot. Truckloads of men were arriving, carrying roosters inside. Despite the love the men appeared to display toward the animals, it turns out this was a cock fight, the roaring from which we would hear for the remainder of the afternoon. 3) An old gas pump on the side of the road. Dear writing -
I've never really known how to communicate with you - which is funny, because I use you to communicate with others all the time. It's almost like there's this thin veil separating the two of us, in a way that allows us to intertwine and interact without ever coming into direct contact. I've never found the eye that is the window to your soul. I've only ever seen you peripherally, some vacant version of you cast like a reflection through a mirror on the side of a winding road. One that twists your line of vision around a corner, for safety's sake. But I'm ready now, I think, to walk around that bend and take a look at you for myself. To see you for what you really are, and for everything that you could be to me. I want to understand you, even if all that means is understanding that you could never really be understood. At least then you would no longer be such an anomaly. I'm sorry for the distance that has always pitched itself between us. I know it's my own fault; I've been reluctant. I listen to doubt, I allow myself to be distracted. Sometimes I downright neglect you; even on the inside, I fall asleep. But I'm telling you, there is an awakening now. I can hear the roosters crowing from across life's serpentine road. I can feel my insides stirring. I'm awake, I'm here, and I'm ready to let myself go to you. It's easy to say, and it's hard to do - maintaining this creative momentum, following through on these intentions. Life puts so many things in our paths that we come to label as obstacles. Time speeds by us, and in the rush of it all, we loose our charge. I do. I run out of gas, in the middle of nowhere, hopeless to find my way back. For a long time now, I've been there. Lost, with an empty tank. But out of nowhere comes the help we need - a beat-up old gas pump on the side of the otherwise empty road. For me, I guess that pump has been Esther - a source of love and my muse - and the creative space that we have nurtured together. Or maybe just Thailand in general. For both, I am eternally grateful. They have given me the fuel I need to push forward, to bring myself around the corner, to see you. To feel you. To love you. And that, dear writing, I do. Forever yours truly, Christine
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AuthorChicago-born citizen of the globe, rich in the things that really matter. Let's get weird. Categories
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