125. on finding home & community, so far from home

Laying starfish in the perfectly sun-warmed water, I allow the waves to carry my thoughts away, away from anywhere, but here. Today. Now.

Looking up, the sun just beginning to set, my eyes land on the floating bamboo raft carrying our motley crew of international characters. Kids splashing and jumping off the side, some strapped in pink life jackets, each practicing their version of a dive. Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” is being strummed on a guitar, fish stuffed with garlic and lemon grass caught earlier this morning grilling on the BBQ, a joyful game of cards being played at the back in the shade, another is reading a book, yet another catching a few moments of quiet rest.

How, just how, in a world of 8 billion people floating amidst the vast cosmos, with layers and layers of histories and everyday moments and decisions, did the group of us from all over this world end up together in this very moment, in this very place … continues to mystify me with awe and wonder and gratitude.

“Clara,” I overheard Piper say, as we begin to pack up our bags this morning to move on, as we touch each and every memory of our time here with grief and gratitude, “Remember how you didn’t want to come to Thailand, how you didn’t want to be here, how you wanted to stay home?”

“Yeah,” Clara replies, “and now I don’t want to leave.”

What is home?

The kids have played this song from the movie Ferdinand over and over again and the lyrics come to mind in this moment …

Home is where you're happy
Home is when you're right where you should be
Find where you're happy
Cause I'm happy to call this…

Home
No more running
I'm good knowing
That I belong
(Happy to call this)
Home
I got loving
Inside this island
Don't care who knows it
(Happy to call this)
Home
Happy to call this
Home
- nick jonas 

We’ve developed a rhythm of being here. The walking street market on Saturday nights, the Sunday market just beside the train station, early morning breakfasts down the street, watermelons on Monday, a wave to the car repairman across the street, noodles and thai tea – what a gift it has been to be here long enough to peel back the layers of “just a city” and get to be in and with a place a little deeper for a little longer.

On Saturday night, I watched as the girls walked ahead into the busy crowd on their own off to find the popsicle man who makes ice pops with soda, and I searched out the person selling chicken kebabs aways in the same spot and of course we ran into a lady who comes from Watson, Saskatchewan … an hour from the farm while we’re halfway across the world. And I think about how we humans, or this human, shifts and flows from comfortable to uncomfortable and back again, but that finding myself, the anchor, in all of it becomes easier and easier.

That home isn’t out there anywhere, but again and again, home is here, in here. Right here.

This morning I greeted Niels as we met each other outside of our houses in the new day sunshine, each stretching and practicing our own forms of yoga, the kids walked out saying “sawadee ka” to those they meet reaching down to pet the animals, our neighbour in her bright blue wide brimmed hat bicycles by and Ella cleans off her scooter wheels for today’s big race, Blake turns the corner with our daily breakfast of omelette with rice, and Clara returns with a bag full of peanuts given to her by Mama Orawan who we’re staying with.

Each evening, at 6:30 we gather, multiple generations together in the open-air kitchen to chop and cook, fry and mix, that evening’s fare. Oh, how I’ve witnessed beauty and delicious five star meals being made from two simple woks. The food is incomparable. We eat, as more and more food continues to find it’s way to the table and we’re asked again and again, “Aroy mai?” (Is it tasty?) and we all answer again and again, “Aroy mak!” (It is delicious!)

Then the kids play – cards and hide and seek, musical chairs and tag, music is played both in English and Thai, animals are pet, dishes are done, laughter is abundant, floors are swept, conversations with all sorts of beautiful accents flow, more snacks appear, and our heads hit the pillow tired, full, satisfied.

Francis Weller teaches about primary satisfactions, core necessities, nourishments that are “part of a healthy psychic and physical life – like adequate and available touch, comfort in times of grief and pain, abundant play, the sharing of food eaten slowly; dark, starlit nights; the pleasures of friendship and laughter … continual exposure to and participation with nature; storytelling, dancing, music, attentive and engaged elders; access to a varied and sensous world.”

Yet so few of us have frequent or enough access to these core necessities of being.

It is very likely that I can see short-term community with rose-coloured glasses, we can do anything for a few weeks, right? And that perhaps this isn’t the “real world,” as they call it, but why isn’t it?

The more I experience the world, the more I see and experience that at the very basic core of our being, we need each other, and life is meant to be shared, to be lived in community. That we all need to know without question, that we belong and have value and gifts to share and offer, that we are connected, not separate. A way of being that allows the learned strategies of competition and comparison, scarcity and individualism to dissolve if we let it, or at least shrink. Where there’s no proving oneself, but simply showing up with what you have to uniquely offer in simply being you, is your contribution.

We need long table times, we need cooking together, we need porch chats and times gathered around fires. We need to catch our fish for supper together even in the blistering heat, to see each other when we wake up in the morning and wish each other sweet dreams (“fun dee” in Thai) at night. We need to live in the sometimes mundane rituals of daily living together, we need to see the value of living inter-generationally, we need to forego achieving and prioritize being together one layer deeper, even with the discomforts and challenges this closeness, this intimacy can bring.

Together we learn how to receive and offer love to others, and to ourselves, exactly as we are.

“We are not doing anything glamorous, extravagant or exotic. Just living together in a way that called forth our souls: becoming more and more connected, more and more intimate, less and less separate, day by day.

None of these satisfactions, these experiences of being nourished and fulfilled, are connected with things. They are objectless. They are all about relating, about the nature of authentic community, a culture full of soul.”

Shayla Wright

“Mom,” says Ella –

as we circle together as a family this morning to begin the transition of leaving here, of saying goodbye to this community, to this now, of honouring the life/death/rebirth cycle we find ourselves in again and again and again, of allowing and honouring impermanence and grief, of letting go. Of course, we all wish for more, and yet how deeply satisfied and grateful we are, as seeds of curiosity for community and receiving continue to be planted within each of us.

“I know you said that there is nothing but change that we can really count on lasting, but I’ve decided that there is one thing, well besides plastic that lasts almost forever … the one thing that lasts forever … is love.”

In deep love and gratitude and openness –

Until Next time …

N