To trust our heaviness

November 17, 2022

Rest day in Uthai Thani

Dear little friends,

We liked Uthai Thani and we liked our room there. It was a good place to hole up and work on the journal and catch our breath a bit. As readers no doubt noticed, we seem to work in batches on our rest days. On a typical riding day, even though we reach our guesthouse by noon, there is some recovery time required in this heat.

I chose this line from Rilke’s poem because I want to talk about my own personal heaviness. I was pretty buff at the end of the last trip but there were a lot of factors that contributed to my significant weight gain during the pandemic and I know I’m not alone in that. So it’s been humbling to feel like I’m starting all over on this bicycling trip, I’m not fit and it certainly does not help me enjoy it. But every day is better, every day I feel stronger and more acclimated to what’s happening as I ride.

That being said, a rest day is a wonderful thing.

We got up early, as usual, and moseyed over to the breakfast area. The throngs of other folks staying at our resort for the mystery festival going on downtown were still a-snooze while we ate our delicious khao tom, a rice soup similar to jok. I used to think I didn’t like these traditional Thai breakfast dishes but I must have been stupid or crazy. They are superb. Sadly the coffee was Nescafe packets but that really only means we get to go to the market and drink the real stuff.

Sure enough we found a sweet old couple’s living room in the market where amongst the piles of this and that was a table covered with the day’s newspapers where the farang could sit with lovely glasses of caffe boulan, with requisite layer of sweetened condensed milk at the bottom. Mae and Khun Pa sailed around their cluttered room doing various tasks, Mae spooned hot rice out of the rice cooker into plastic bags to sell out front, Khun Pa tidied up around the boulan pots.

We didn’t need to find a papaya in the market but we certainly saw lots of other interesting things. Markets are the best.

We weren’t expecting to see THAT in the garlic.

Bruce wanted to check out the main town attraction, a long stairway going up a tall hill to a temple at the top. By this time it was about a billion-ty degrees with the sun beating down like a light-sabered jackhammer so we filmed some beautiful black leaves blowing in the breeze and then beat it back to our a/c heaven to do some writing.

At the end of the afternoon Bruce announced he wanted to go climb those stairs. I gave it about a nanosecond’s thought and said, “nope”. We check the local temperatures at least once an hour or more, quickly scrolling down to the “humidity: 78%, feels like 99 degrees” so I was unmoveable on that. But there was no reason he couldn’t do it if he wanted to, we have phones with sim cards and can talk to each other when we’re not in the same place. It’s just that while traveling usually we are in the same place and it felt very weird to not be in the same place even for a short time.

I mean, what if he slipped and fell on those stairs and couldn’t call or text me? WHAT THEN??!! I am a whiz at concocting this sort of mental scenario, perhaps on the unproven theory that if I think it might happen it won’t actually happen. This is another kind of heaviness that plagues me, and I know I’m not alone in that one either.

I did some reading and stewing in my comfortable room and after awhile he texted me from the top and I felt silly and relieved at the same time.

Soon he returned unfallen and we set out to find some dinner and check out the mystery festival. Things were jumping in downtown Uthai Thani but we were shoehorned to a table in one of the very busiest restaurants in town and had two different chicken dishes that we shared and watched the staff running around taking orders and delivering ice in buckets. A little girl no more than eleven years old walked carefully through the very crowded restaurant with a tray full of tiny bowls of liquid spicy condiments. She was shy but precise, and when we asked for another round looked pleased with herself, as she should be.

The mystery festival was some sort of Chinese religious event. There are lots of ethnic Chinese Thais and they very proudly celebrate their cultural traditions. There was a dazzling shrine set up and a nearby stage with actors dressed up in glittering costumes, it was a blast. Small children gathered near the stage to dance around and jump in shock when the fire-eater character tried in vain to set the curtains ablaze. I jumped in shock too.

When it seemed certain that no stage props would be set alight we put the lights on our bikes and set off for our quiet neighborhood far from the glamor of downtown Uthai Thani. It’s really something sometimes, to realize that we are fed, safe, comfortable, with great WiFi and a clean bed to lie down on. I don’t take any of that for granted and we work to make sure our safety and health needs are met but sometimes in the quiet of the night I wake up with the heaviness, and know in the morning I’ll have to trust that once again, it can be disproven.

Today's ride: 9 miles (14 km)
Total: 143 miles (230 km)

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Jen RahnAh, the heaviness of worst case scenario thinking. I share this weight!

And with the the trauma of Bruce's fall and the length of those stairs, my mind would have traveled to a similar place.

And you've got the RAIN antidote dialed in!
Recognize
Allow
Investigate
Non-attatchment

Through the "billion-ty degrees with the sun beating down like a light-sabered jackhammer" (love this description!), I see you trusting the heaviness and falling ... and then flying to gratitude and wonder and appreciation.
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1 year ago

Ron SuchanekHeat is so frustrating when it's accompanied by excessive humidity. Hang in, you can f#ck!ng do this.
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1 year ago