Finding "Home"

One of the stranger things about traveling, or just leaving home in general, is finding your new definition of home. Whether that's the hotel room you use as your orbital hub, the classroom you tend to sleep in, or the cafe that remembers your iced coffee order with no sugar- it holds some sense of belonging, an anchor in your wanderings.

Awful (poem?) tag found in
the night market

In Thailand, I've been looking for that. Trying to find some place that really resonates, allows me to find peace and think, reflect- allows me to just be, rather than constantly looking, observing, experiencing. Trying to find some place that resonates with who I am, and with what I'm looking for.

This becomes exponentially harder as I don't really have an image or even a ballpark for either of those inquiries. I've been in Thailand for just over two weeks now, and I'm in the process of picking a region and school for the next few months. I'm in the process of moving again, trying to find a new home.

Here in Hua Hin, we've found quite a few places that are "home".

A little food stand in the night market- selling
balled, fried banana fritters on a stick

There's the night markets, a mish-mash of shops and carts and stands, random and delicious foods fried up before you, and the possibility to find the most obscure items. From bartering for elephant pants, eating grasshoppers or nutella pancakes, sampling dessert platters, laughing and awful english translations, scurrying away from the rats, picking up the latest pirated DVDs and CDs, ogling beautiful jewelry or just staring as sequined ladyboys dominate a stage- the night markets have it all. Each night has the potential to discover something new and exciting- but it has become such an element in our lives that it holds a strange familiarity.

There's the coffee shops, little air conditioned havens from the heavy, humid heat of Hua Hin. They generally boast free wifi, iced coffees, and a variety of Western pastries and comforts. It feels like home because for a while, you can pretend that it is- just a starbucks around the corner, or a cutesy little art cafe that makes a mocha just right.

Some delicious (blech) dried sea creature at the market

There's the simple wooden chapel, a peaceful, quiet call back to Notre Dame and a rare find in this Buddhist nation.

There's the little puppies and dogs that interrupt the classroom to get your attention or a snack, there's little YaYa yipping to welcome us home to the apartment. There's a relationship there, a pet that invites you to establish yourself, to stay and care for them.

There's beaches and mountaintops, there's monkeys and elephants, there's friends, teachers, westerners and English speakers, McDonald's, Starbucks, KFC and pizza places. There are all kinds of people, places and things that pose incredible potential for a "home" environment.

And yet, it wasn't until we recently ventured away from our temporary residence, ventured off into the wilderness, that I was finally able to find "home". Amid the chaos and joy and adventure of exploring a new country, I can always find a calm, a peaceful awe in nature. Silently watching a river somersaulting over a waterfall, staring into a foggy distant mountain, climbing through vines or just sitting by a lake. That's where I have finally found a sense of belonging.

Khao Yai National Park

 In the wilderness, you have an incredible sense of independence from civilization, and an incredible dependence on the nature around you. There's unlimited potential to explore and discover, or to just sit, think, to just be. You could be anywhere in the world, isolated from the environment beyond the trees- and it's your imagination, your consciousness, yourself that can just run free.

Maybe that sounds incredibly granola of me, but looking into the ocean, stopping and staring at a waterfall- finding the calm amid the storm- that's home for me.

To address my mother's concern: no, that is not to say that I won't be coming home to my family and friends and job. It's just the home I have found here, my temporary anchor, my temporary calm.

So here's to exploring my "home" and finding new ones, wherever the wandering leads me.

My park ranger buddy, Kay, who I helped with his English