I’m not sure this is what I wanted.  After what was one of the hardest days of my life and a good two days of traveling, I finally reached my home town of Calhoun, Louisiana. As I am typing this blog, I will admit that the tears are steadily running down my face. Two days ago, I left Chiang Mai, Thailand for home. What hurt the most was saying goodbye to my amazing friends. Over the past four months I really grew to love those guys. I created a bond with them, a bond like I never had before. It kills me to leave that behind. This friendship just ignites the fire inside of me to keep going on. I made a promise to my friends that I would be back in June and we will pick up where we left off! My word is as good as gold! I love you guys.

We’re moving out in the next couple days. Some will stay, some will go, but one thing that we all agree on is that Thai Mom and Dad have been amazing. On day one at this house, before we even paid or said we would move in, Dad gave me the keys and said, “You’re family now. You are like our children.” Mom raised her eyebrows and nodded with that smile that seems to never fade.

I knew that leaving this house would be tough. It’s not even the house, it’s them. It’s our neighbor, it’s the mechanics down the street that we smile at every morning we head out on our motorbikes – also the same guys that wrangled me in with Bogdan, one of our cameramen, for some whiskey tonight on our way to the market. It’s the endless smiles and Mom serving us homemade food on our patio and staying around to speak to us, even though we still speak hardly any Thai. Mom and Dad knew it would be tough, too. So Mom – speaking to me almost entirely in Thai – let me know that she planned a picnic for us. She said she would plan everything and knock on our doors to wake us up for a 9am departure. So Michael, Bogdan, and I went for it.

I didnt have the heart to tell Mom or Dad that I had already been to a floating lakehouse, but this one didnt include a private motorboat tug of the entire lakehouse out into the water from the shore, nor did it include Mom’s amazing food, or all the love. Walking across the wooden planks from the shore to the lakehouse, we were a family, all carrying food in bags and tupperware, with a Thai Mom making sure we were protected from the sun, a Thai Dad humbly making his way behind her, in front of a German, tailed by two Americans, one raise in Mexico and the other born in Ukraine. (Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt aint got shit on us.)

Before leaving Dad told us that he and his family hadn’t been there for about 20 years. This wasn’t something they did for just anyone. (Fun side note: Mom took all the cushions from their sofa and some blankets and totally turned the bed of their truck into a crash pad for us for the 2 hours drive there under the Thai blue sky, through rice fields, markets, huge temples and reclining Buddha’s, and breath-taking mountains. Something tells me she doesn’t dismantle her furniture for just anyone, either.) But as she and Dad have made clear, we are her Sons.

You can choose whichever language you desire to say it, but that’s love.

So the other day we went fishing with Thai Mom. (Interesting side note: she first introduced herself as her nickname, Lovely. That’s right. She knows what’s up.)

Anyways, she was wearing these sunglasses and she impressed me by saying, “Fifty baht!” I’ve been paying twice that in foreigner prices for sunglasses that fall apart in my hands the next day. And sunglasses are important here, especially if you don’t like a shit ton of bugs flying into your face on your motorbike, blinding you every day. So I casually said, “Shoot, I want 50 baht sunglasses!”

Clearly, Thai Mom knows how to deliver.

Nuthin’ but <3 for that Lovely lady.

Photo by Evita Robinson

Love. The more I learn about it the more worthless the word becomes; the more I feel it, the less its utterance is called for. Love is circular, love is a peak, love is a valley, love is around me, and love is inside me, before me, after me, and between me. I truly believe that all existence is love or a practice in it. Love is death, love is life, and love is strife. But the more I learn of it, the more I realize that love is none of these things. Love just is. (Some things just don’t require as much thought as we think. In fact, all these words I write are worthless compared to the feeling they attempt to evoke.)

When you travel you hear many peoples’ stories. You find that most people’s compasses are directed by this four-letter word, whether they use the word or not. As my stay in Thailand begins to come to a close I have been often lost in thought. Today, however, I found myself absent from my mind. I have experienced the joy I was seeking tenfold here in Thailand, but today was the first time I felt absolute clarity of mind. No four-letter word could describe it, but let’s just say it was lovely.

Each of us has given up something for this life. Life in general is full of sacrifice, but it can be argued that a life of travel is rife with sacrifice. Every time we go somewhere we are bound to leave new friends, new comforts, new customs behind. I’ve come to realize that this is not just a vagabond lifestyle, this is life and death. When you are open to it, travel can therefore become a crash course is the cycle of life and death. In short, travel can be a lesson is how to let go. (It’s called freedom, ladies and gentlemen.) But we don’t think of sacrifice as freedom. We think of it as a strife, we resist it; but if you ask me, a shift is occuring.

To confront one’s demons, many travel. Many call this “escapism”, but they don’t yet know the freedom and the courageous spirit that is exercised when you just go. You breath in, you breathe out, you live, you die, you land, you fly – all these are not mutually exclusive; they exist together, but we resist the “bad”. This life welcomes the yin and the yang. I’ve come to learn that therein, there is no good or bad, perfect or imperfect, right or wrong. There is only love. Sometimes we just forget that in order for a thing to be complete, there must be two sides and when you are in the valley, it can be hard to see the peak. After all the sacrifice, and confrontation, really, this is only love. (Bear in mind that I’m a guy who likes to look at the core of things, so take this as you will.)

They call it lust for life, but it is with love that I take flight, take refuge, and take one step after the other. This is no ordinary love. This is the love that welcomes change, that accepts that life is constantly in a state of flux; the kind of love that doesn’t warrant home-sickness. It is not the love you rely on when you’re lonely or the kind of love you make – it is part of you. It is the people that come together to see you off, the joy they bring you in absentia, and the way they will always welcome you back with warmth and loving kindness. This love I carry with me all over the world, boundlessly grateful to everyone that helps me see its yin and its yang, as each guides this evolution of self.

(God, I know this sounds a lot like all that New Age-y bullshit, but I vowed to own up to everything this experience yielded and, goddamn it, this is it.)

In short, I’ve come to realize just how special this love is. Not everyone carries with them the faith and strength that this sacrifice provides. I began this lesson long ago as a boy transplanted from one country to another and back again. I’m not going to pretend it’s all been sunshine and roses, because it’s hasn’t been. After all of that, however, what comes naturally to me is to live a life that is open; then I can take this omnipresent love I receive – in all its forms – and return it in a way that makes every day a practice in peace. And I know that even if I never spoke that four-letter word again, love would always be there to guide me.

Part 2 of my island getaway. I’m genuinely excited to share this adventure with you.
So much more to come…
Peace and love, peace and love.

My Paradise island crew (minus 1 swimming Frenchie.) We roll deep.

The Universe conspired to make my sojourn on this unknown island one of cosmic proportions.

Each natural element aligned and shone unabashedly before me in a myriad of forms. The life force of the pregnant moon breathed awe-inspiring life into me and my Paradise companions each night. Even days away from completing its monthly rotation, it appeared as though each night we were all on some other planet where the moon is always full. It’s affect was extra-humanly.

At night, phosphorescent light glowed and swirled between the undulations of our fingertips in the salty sea reminding us once more how connected we are and how much life is teeming all around us, even if it just takes a wave of a hand underwater to see. The feeling is nothing short of pure joy.

The “we” and “us” I refer to is the community of friends I made on the island. Each residing in our own wooden bungalows on the beach, we came together to eat, drink, marvel, and discuss the merits and challenges of this life of travel and this world we navigate. Choosing to lead these lives independently of one another, it amazes me just how seamlessly we connected. It’s as though the constellations converged on this small stretch of beach – which I hadn’t even really planned on going to – connecting Thai, Australian, Italian, French, British, German, American, and New Zealanders in a cosmic boom that brought with it the most beautiful calm you can imagine. It was beautiful and I will cherish it forever as we all continue on our respective paths, knowing in my heart it wont be the last time our paths will cross.

Between us we’ve adopted so many new customs on all our travels and lives, seeing who knows how much of this beautiful planet and its people, speaking on average 2 languages fluently and learning new words in different dialects every day – the simple beauty and the monumentality of these endeavors begins to strike a chord. Seems like the more one realizes the need to carry on in this kind of life, the clearer is becomes that it’s not always just you achieving your dreams, but a whole Universe guiding you, illuminating your path and other seemingly disparate paths along the way. As one uncertain step connects with the other, I fully embrace the purity and the power of faith, trusting that everything is as it should be.

And everything, ladies and vagabonds, is beautiful.

SO much love to all my beautiful friends and family, new and old, who helped make my adieu one I wont soon forget.