after you travel long enough, go long enough sans gainful employment, you really start to travel. it takes a few months. after you've seen enough things and people and places everything starts to blend and blur together; this mountain looks like that one other mountain, this city like that one, this stomach ache feels like that one i had a few years ago. things stop being new, going somewhere solely for the sake of saying you've been there becomes less important, and you stop looking for some great profundity in every temple you see, in every bowl of noodles you eat, or in the eyes of every local person who is just living their life. you look at things and accept them. you stop comparing things to back home, or third world country to third world country and just accept them for what they are.
i find myself in tad lo, a small laid back place in laos, sitting outside my bungalow watching a cow eat grass and a big black lactating pig take off to a gallup for no apparent reason. and i feel happier than i have in some time.
i walk along the one dirt road through the town. it's in a forest, it smells like up north wisconsin. i cross a bridge over the river, take a look at the giant waterfall that will lull me to sleep. i take nothing with me on the walk because the clouds were getting gray and threatening rain. i walk for about ten minutes and it starts to drizzle. i cut through the trees to the river and watch the water flow over the rocks and the rain speckle the surface. it thunders, and then it starts to rain harder, and then harder, and then it really couldn't rain much harder. i'm instantly soaked but i don't mind. for no reason i start running. it feels good, i find myself laughing as i run slower and slower, my sandals getting weighed down by mud. i get back, change my wet clothes and watch the rain until it stops.
you almost made me cry with this one...
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