what make of a man are you? what is your spirit held through? my spirit will be held by all of my lovers in my flowery bed. what makes the body be close?

i am still struck after watching a certain film. i've been trying to explain to everyone how it has affected me, but i can't do the impact justice. i hasn't been quite a week, but i think about the film all day long, replaying the very sad scenes of human relationships. on my last day of my accidental three day religious pilgrimage in chaiyaphum, sitting on a big tour bus back to bangkok, stuck in traffic and watching 21 firework shows and hitting one car during one of our three u-turns, i came up with an anecdote/answer that relieved me a little bit of the curse/blessing this film has given me: you need to find someone that you can call home. and then it totally makes sense to go to all the amazing/scary places that relationships go to. if you don't have that, then what do you really share? that was the only answer that made me feel better. and even then you don't always change together, grow together, at least there's a hope for respecting each other. that's the scariest thing about any kind of relationship- it's whatever chance there is to lose respect for one another- this applies to your work, your boss, your friends, etc. i like the idea of finding someone who embodies a home because i can't think of better metaphor for a person that just gets better and better with time.

on my pilgrimage, we walked three days straight. it happens once a year, for 8 days, in different rural provinces of thailand. we wake up at 4:45, pray and meditate until 8 am. pray some more and let the monks eat. walk with all of your belongings until 11 am where we pray before we eat and then walk until 4 or 5 pm. we don't eat dinner, just a hot herbal drink, or ovaltine. and then we meditate and listen to lessons for the day. and then off to bed in a tent.

my favorite part was seeing the agricultural/forest side on foot and visiting forest temples. if i stayed through the end of the trip, we would have landed at the big mama forest temple, but oh well, i was due back at work. there is one thing that i lost the chance the document which was a field of dragon fruit being propped by big upside down dead tree trunks. other than that, i think i took a few alright photographs. well, actually, you just don't know. they could all be horrible.

actually, my real favorite part was getting off the bus at 4:30 am, getting picked up by my friend's friend to take us to her hut in Tatton national park, where she works. we ride in the back of her pick up truck at 5 am, the start of the morning markets, and we're stopping for breakfast errands on the way to the national park. it's actually freezing, and absolutely dark except for our headlights and the stars and the wind is making my hair whip like crazy. we wake up and take another truck bed ride only now it's 7 am and i had gotten 2 hours of deep sleep and i'm happy to see this kind of golden light in the middle of young forest. i can identify cassava and rubber trees like the back of my hand now.

(it was an accidental pilgrimage because i thought it was a work trip. i guess my thai still isn't that good)