05/24/2013 Tonsai Beach, Thailand

29 June 2013

Home, Sweet Home!

I come out onto my patio and see a root of a banyan tree wiggle. Wait. That's no root. That's an iguana camouflaging as one – humbly looking for breakfast. A big one. Craggy karst rocks pierce the horizon in Pandora-esque starkness. The sky is crochet with a white-to-lilac cumulus nimbus, the temperature gently hovering around the “just perfect” mark. A hammock rocks gently under a leafy tree in the winds of the Andaman, as the milky-turquoise steamy waves sing a hymn to this paradise. In that hammock no more than a few metres from the shore, lays a blond girl clad in diaphanous raw silk holding a furry black cat. She is me.

Azure butterflies sprinkle themselves like oversized confetti throughout the jungle. The bull frogs vibrate the jungle with moans that would put most peacocks in heat to shame. The cicadas cast their hypnotic spell over the fecund forest on the shore...Multicoloured elvish lights shine through the trees signaling to the weary traveler to take a rest by the bonfire...Slack-ropes hang amidst the palms, and toned natives with beautiful core muscles play with fire upon them to the beats of eternal reggae lounge. Local maidens with powerful hands massage one into bliss. Jack-Sparrow-hair donning natives' mellow kindness is like a nurturing cocoon here. Life is sublime.

Yes, after a 5 months of the frozen, brazen, harsh nightmare of Korea, I feel like, at last, I'm waking. The chilled-out home of mine is Tonsai Beach in the south of Thailand. The rock-climbers' heaven I wrote so much about before. For the third time, I find myself here. How many times I've envisioned the beauty of this place while shivering in the moist -15 C of Jeonju! The hammock, the rocks, the butterflies and the fresh fruit! And here I am – inside my dream. Once again, feeling grateful to be alive!

Fresh fruit! Fresh veggies! All cooked with delicious Thai spices and coconut milk – a feast for the palate, truly. No more spicy-pickled meat-infested cuisine of the freezing climate. Honestly, I've never been happier to see a place in my life. The cats so plentiful in this primordial jungle seem to share the sentiment. They lay on tree roots all blissed-out, completely maleable to a loving hand, welcoming kind attention in the warm sea breeze.

When I was a child, my Papa and I would go to a magical place near Feodocia on the Crimean Peninsula. The Third Bay from Ordjonikidze, near the mighty Kara Dag and Koktebelle, the hang-gliders' mecca. For many years, we would spend a month out of each summer on that blessed beach. We lived in a tent and fed upon the gifts of the clear, warm Black Sea and ripe fruit from the local market.

For years after moving to the West, I would dream of that precious time, of that timeless shoreline studded with agates and carnelians washed up by the sea from the great volcano looming in the distance, standing guardian to the coast. That sea that fluoresced at night. The sea full of oysters, crab and abalone, and beautiful sea glass – smooth and transparent...a natural mosaic. I'd dream of the clay mermaid sculptures with algae hair we'd build by the shore and the giant Sagrada Familia-like sand castles we'd erect by the edge of the waves.

And now, I have found my new home. My “Third Bay” in Thailand. It's amazing to feel a place in which every cell says “home.” It's as if every particle releases a lead weight of being in a hostile environment and drinks up an elixir of life, exhaling with relief. There is exactly what I want here – no more, no less – in perfect harmony. It's amazing to think that the two reality bubbles – of the dream of sadness and frustration and one of joy and balance are but a plane hop away. To celebrate this reunion, I lit up the fire poi I've been practicing with for my first fire dance. And there, amidst the glowing circles whooshing by me, I knew, I've arrived.

I send gratitude to my dear ones who made this transition so much more gentle for me with their presence – their love and support is what makes the world go round. A kind word, a sense of encouragement at a critical moment can make such a difference... What amazes me about the people in my life is that they believe in my vision even in the moments when I temporarily loose sight of it. With you, I am stronger.