want

We have less than 2 weeks left in Thailand....the countdown has been strange. We realized we only had 2 weeks to go while we were in the forests of Northern Thailand, visiting a hippy backpacker bubble where we easily could have stayed for a week. We left the next day because of how much more we want to do while we're here. There's just not enough time. Whenever one of us says out loud, "only two weeks," there's a mix of nostalgia, sadness, and a touch of relief at the prospect of returning home.

To be home will mean getting to wear more than the same three outfits over and over again. We can reintroduce simple steamed vegetables, Mexican food, and Italian food into our diets. Bike rides and grocery shopping on the weekends. Having weekends. And at some point, I'm going to take a bubble bath again. I'm thinking now of the hand-held shower heads fixed above toilets for showering, but also that cold bucket shower I had in the hills which wasn't honestly all that bad, since I did feel refreshed....but Oh, to have a bubble bath. The word "heaven" comes to mind.

It's easy to get caught up in these kinds of fantasies when I'm sitting in a cold, pale-blue and naked-steel bus station at 4:30 in the morning, after a 6 1/2 hour drive and awaiting the next 5 hours of travel. There's only dark around the silent station. We could be anywhere or nowhere (but hopefully somewhere close to the ferry station--they did tell us to get off the bus). I'm not uncomfortable right now so much as spacey and timelost, turning my thoughts elsewhere, like to how the money I've been saving by cutting corners will ultimately help me out in New York. Having a little extra in New York is worth the grunge in Thailand.

New York in 2 weeks...crazy.

Christmas time in New York, New Year's Eve in New York...I'm so happy we had the insight back in September to know how exciting it would be to end on that kind of note. From genie pants and muddy TOMS, tuk tuks and Thai temples, the smoke and steam of the tropics...there will be scarves and leather boots and my fantastically impractical lace gloves, champagne and the Soho art scene, ice skating and the vintage of Brooklyn...and of course, the people I care about who are spread across the United States and who I'll get to see again first in New York and then eventually in California...

I will miss Thailand, but I am also looking forward to what comes next, both in heading to all those things back home (more than just the small comforts) and to all that I want to start up--and continue--once I am there. The groundedness of appreciating all that I have and can nurture and sustain in my connections to people and education and opportunities for my future. I can't help but think about the future, even living as much as I am in the present moment (but I think my futurethoughts flourish the most when the present is something like this, a bleak bus station).

It is actually in realizing how I miss home and in discovering what can ground me, that makes me realize why this trip has been so important for me, beyond the opportunity to see other ways of living and stretch my perspective through the changing scenery. The missing, itself, is what I'm talking about.

Missing somethings or someones is necessitated by their absence, and--taking a small leap here--what is desire, if not a byproduct of absence? You can only desire what you don't believe you currently have. Desire--thirst and attachment--is an issue I wanted to explore on this trip, which made going to a place like Thailand, where Buddhism is the predominant religion, particularly attractive. As long as I have admired Buddhism, one of the principles I have found most intriguing is the intention to overcome desire. I have tried to wrap my head around that and to embody it in myself, because I believed that it was a higher mode of consciousness. Letting things go, letting go of my attachment, my wants, etc.

Suffering arises when thirst arises. Suffering ceases when thirst ceases. These are the second and third of the Buddhist Noble Truths.

But right now I am in a Buddhist nation, wondering if desire is one of the most important gifts I have in this life.

Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, Suffer the pain.

Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.

--Rumi

Yes, discipline is important for growth, and yes, all things in time are sacrificed, but--can't desire also be productive if you nurture it and think about it in the right way? Missing something, wanting something doesn't have to be frustrating or painful. If I am patient with my desire, if I understand it clearly, it can serve as an empty space for fire to burn: when I desire something, the mindful attention I give it has the potential to lead to action. There is something beautiful about the suffering of thirst...

Think that you're gliding out from the face of a cliff
like an eagle. Think you're walking
like a tiger walks by himself in the forest.

You're most handsome when you're after food.

--Rumi

Before I came on this trip, I was not writing as much as I wanted to, but I desired it. I wanted to practice writing regularly and the craving of something missing from my life motivated me. It's a small example, but my desire gave me the spark I needed to start a blog.

In a truly inspiring example of desire at work, I think of Lek, the creator of the Elephant Nature Park that Emily and I visited in Northern Thailand. She saw the suffering of supposedly holy animals (the brutality that elephants often suffer at the hands of humans is tragic), and her desire for their salvation motivated her to dedicate her life to the cause. She says that she will work on saving elephants until the day she dies. There are so many animals that she cannot save; her desire for their healing and safety is an unquenchable thirst. But it has turned her life into something awesome and beautiful. She has 34 elephants at her sanctuary and that is a staggering number considering how much work goes into their care. First of all, they each eat 200-250 tons of fruits and vegetables a day. They also go through the same issues of illnesses, neuroses, and injuries as humans do, which makes a full-time medical staff necessary.

Yet the interactions between humans and elephants in this lush valley does not feel laborious. It is a place full of love. I could see the evidence of old suffering on the elephants' thick skin, dark scars cutting into their deep wrinkles, some of their eyes long-ago blinded, punctured ears and the marks of hooks that went through the tops of their heads...but here, they finally had their own piece of paradise. They were given a second chance at life and at creating unique little tribes amongst themselves, through the desire of one tiny woman whose happiness depends on their happiness.

Maybe desire is a gift when you see it as a function of the divine quality within us all, love. If your thirst is a heartfelt desire born out of love, then it has a certain energy and truth to it.

Love is the way messengers 
from the mystery tell us things.

Love is the mother. We are her children.
She shines inside us, visible-invisible,

as we lose trust or feel it start to grow again.

--Rumi

Throughout my travels, I have thought just as much about love as I have about desire...the blurred line between desire and love...the way love moves me and moves everyone around me, whether I can see it or not.    

I definitely haven't met a single traveler who hides his or her love for life...there is little room for apathy in exploring the world. Perhaps that is much of its appeal for me. The travelers I have met love trying new things, they love adventure, and even if they don't love all the places that they have seen, they love something about their experiences there. As humans, we are all captivated by whatever in life feeds our cravings and fills our hearts.

It has to be love that has kept me engrossed in the last few days of jungles and elephants and buses and schedules. It is certainly not sleep (I am truly exhausted). I simply love what I am doing. Especially with the time restraints (the urgency of temporal reality is a great motivator as well), I am trying to absorb all that I can from my experiences before they shift yet again.

Lanterns and fireworks and cracked city sidewalks, giant tree canopies laden with vines, soft-footed elephants floating like dark storm clouds over grassy seas...

And the people, the fusion of generosity and greed, of reverent and rude, and everything in between. People really are people wherever you go, but--I don't know, maybe it's because there is a glittering, golden temple on every block, and all the fireworks we have seen, and I can literally taste the spices in the air--living with Thailand's people reminds me of being at a big festival every day of the week. Every day is a carnival. There is just such a raw madness--good or bad--with every interaction, in every facet of daily life. Even getting a taxi leaves me feeling like I've just gone through something...like last night, however many hours ago, just getting a ride to the first bus station was such an event. (Unless you have tried to get a metered taxi in Bangkok on a Friday night, there is really no simple way of explaining this one....it's just mad mad mad.)

That taxi episode was only hours ago...and the bus chaos that followed...here I am, absorbed first in Rumi and now in my writing...I really don't understand how I feel so wide awake and settled here in my seat on the ferry (there was a spacial transition sometime in my entry that did not seem important to note). I'm pretty sure we're supposed to be at the island, Koh Tao, in an hour (or two?) but all I see around us is a flat steel blue ocean and a clear sky on the horizon. Only a moment ago (or was it an hour or two?) I was on a dock watching the world shift into day with the dramatics of a painting. Pink blush on the horizon bleeding into a feathery gray curtain, rising above, and there, jutting at an angle right through the middle of the opposing shades, like a searchlight coming out of the ocean looking for the moon, was a streak of cerulean. Mystical Thai Madness.

There's a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.
Is the one I love everywhere?

--Rumi

still

Imagine thirty-eight American Jews riding camels through the Israeli desert. Our Bedouin guides unabashedly laughed at us while they led the despairing creatures along in a haphazard line through the sandy terrain. Our steeds angrily nipped at legs, howled with frustration, and provoked howls of laughter from all of us with their determined acts of rebellion against the injustice of the situation. Fortunately for them (and for anyone whose legs were subject to the nipping), our group made a quick U-turn only 10 minutes into the trek. Back we trudged through the camel poop and towards the touristy Bedouin campsite awaiting us. Equal parts ridiculous and hilarious.

Photo credit: Casey Kaminsky

Emily and I took a camel that will heretofore be known as Gabe. Em rode shot gun while I rode in the back and felt up-close camel breath on my shoulder for much of the walk. No concept of personal space, that guy.

With this kind of slapstick introduction to the desert, it was difficult to anticipate how profound the rest of our time there would be. Spending the night in Negev was my favorite part of the Israel Experience, coming near the very end of a whirlwind tour. It was a climax of spiritual awareness, camaraderie, and self-reflection blooming silently in the darkness of a warm windy night.

The tour officially ended yesterday, and it was so crammed with activities and memories that it would be hard to compile into a concise little blog post. I barely had time to sleep, let alone write, but I am now on the other side of the journey and resting at "home." Home, in this case, is an apartment in Tel Aviv where Emily and I have settled in for a few days. We're staying with an Israeli guy named Shaked, who we met through couch surfing. He is a very kind host to accommodate us, especially since I am also very sick and sniffly (too little sleep and too much hookah). Today I made an expensive trip to a local vitamin shop and stocked up on homeopathic meds with labels I cannot read. My favorite remedy at the moment is the cough syrup because it tastes like honey...I've been doubling the doses recommended to me by the cashier.

So here I am, a total degenerate in my comfy clothes while Emily and Shaked are out shopping for groceries. Our host claims to make awesome schnitzel, so I believe that is what we'll be having for dinner. While I trust his abilities with chicken, he has also confided in me that he hates cucumbers and Indian food, thus decreasing my overall faith in his culinary preferences. Stay tuned for word on the schnitzel.

Really, though, it's amazing to have this kind of hospitality from a total stranger...couch surfing is a life saver (or at least a huge money saver). Instead of a hostel or an expensive hotel, I'm staying at a local's apartment. I'm listening to the voices and traffic from Rabin Square through wide open windows, and enjoying a moment of stillness and solitude. It's the perfect atmosphere for reflecting on the hustle of Birthright and the past week since I last wrote.

It's hard to put into words exactly what Israel has meant to me, but I think that what is most important for me to share is my experience in the desert. That part of the tour basically concluded the entire trip (although the real conclusion was a drunken night of debauchery that peaked with a 1:30AM dip in the ocean and ended at 4:00AM, with a tearful send-off to some of the best people I have ever known). But back to the Bedouins and the magical desert....

After we kicked off with the camel ride, our little traveling Kibbutz cleaned up and reconvened in the dining tent. We sat on floor cushions, around communal plates of vegetables and meat as the sky darkened. The Bedouin hosts plied us with tea, pitas, and fruit, and we feasted hand-to-mouth style until we were full. But the carefully planned schedule ended there, and our Birthright family transformed into a freeform state of group activities and smaller gatherings. Our interactions flowed into an easy sort of rhythm that was different than anything we had yet experienced.

I was a part of the larger group that walked out into the desert away from the lights of the campsite. We wanted to see the stars. At first we blinded ourselves with flashlights as we aimed to sidestep the camel debris and whatever rocks were lurking in the dark, but as soon as we realized our mistake in using bulbs to see, our eyes adjusted to the moonlight. It was a world of blues and purples and shadows. The bushes glowed like tropical sea coral and I could see the rocks from a distance before my feet were close. Emily and I hopped between the rocks like rabbits, trying to get a momentum going as we dodged the unseen obstacles. But as our eyes adjusted and the sand sloped down, we slowed our pace and walked until the entire group settled into a flat area surrounded by sweeping hills. We all laid down with our backs on the desert floor and looked up at the stars.

It took a minute or two for them to become visible to us...bright lights still stained our eyes and the moon was glowing more than anything from the campsite, but as we lay there on the rocks and the dust, the sky opened up to us. We were staring at the universe.

In a group like ours, with each person presenting a distinct personality and with a short amount of time to spend with so many new friends, conversations were always going. Even in down times when we were all exhausted, there was always at least one voice that could be heard. So when our tour guide Yoav requested our silence there on the desert floor, it was especially poignant that we did experience total quiet. It was the first moment of stillness that I can remember from the trip, and it was beautiful. I hadn't realized how much I needed a moment of peace.

As much as I loved being a part of a group of people to share the big moments, whether we were walking through Yad Vashem or welcoming Shabbat at the Wailing Wall, it was really special to connect with what was going on inside myself for a small moment and to realize how big that actually was. 

The desert changed the pace of Israel for me. I came back to the campsite on my own when I was ready, with a new appreciation for the community we had created. On one side of our space there was a big bonfire with most of our Birthright family sitting in a close circle, singing and playing instruments for each other. It looked like a really nice time, but I was still feeling the silence and solitude...I made my way to the other side of the camp. 

In a small little group that shifted a few of its members periodically, we sat around a table under a tree that dropped pink petals shaped like ginkgo leaves. We had our own music, a volunteer DJ who provided us with mellow songs that fit perfectly with the atmosphere. We smoked hookah, we drank tea, we shared stories, and we sat quietly listening to the sounds around us. It was such a perfect, comfortable silence. There was something freshly intimate about that circle of friends that made me feel like I was home. 

After about four hours of sleep, I (struggled to) wake up and wandered out of the sleeping tent to find a sky full of stars that rivaled anything we had seen on our desert walk. They were so clear. We all packed up and headed to Masada so that we could hike to the top in time for sunrise. The stars had all but faded by the time we got to the base of the cliffs.

After a short, steep hike and in a delirious state, our group settled on the ruins with a view of the Dead Sea stretched out below. The sun rose over the Eastern wall, peaking through a shield of clouds with the brightest shade of pink. Emily and I met the new day in our own way, stepping aside from the group for our personal version of prayer. In quiet unison, we did a short series of sun salutations and bowed yogi-style to the dawn.

There's a morning where presence comes over you,
and you sing like a rooster in your earth-colored shape.

Your heart hears and, no longer frantic, begins 
to dance. At that moment soul 
reaches total emptiness. Your heart becomes Mary,

miraculously pregnant, and body, like a two-day-old
Jesus says wisdom words. Now the heart 
turns to light, and the body picks up the tempo.

Where Shamsi Tabriz walks, the footprints
are musical notes and holes you fall through into space.

--Rumi