Are you expressive, rhythmical and alive? Are you willing to open your heart and eyes to receive the many blessings of life? Well, get your artistic butt to Chiang Mai and feed that amazing spirit of yours! This place is truly a crafty and colorful mecca for imaginative souls. Whether you find yourself at the famous Sunday Market surrounded by street music, or in the middle of a field with a huge lantern above your head, Chiang Mai won't fail in making you feel as radiant as ever! The potential for locating and purchasing artistic coolness at a reasonable price is just overflowing. Textiles, jewelry, clothing, paintings, wood carvings... Here, you will find what you're looking for. And if you're like me, this feeling of being so ALIVE will launch you into complete expressiveness. You might even find yourself doing bizzare things like dancing in the rain at Tha Pae Gate, or sampling as much street food as possible, or having rational thoughts about buying bed frames even though you'd probably never get them home.
Part of this craziness was inspired by spending a day in Baan Tawai, the woodworking village. As an interior designer, this place made my heart squeal. Everywhere you LOOK there is handcrafted furniture, and the artists who create these pieces are working right before your eyes, eager to share their techniques and design approach with you. Sometimes you're lucky enough to see 3 or 4 generations working together in one tiny shop, passing down knowledge to younger artists who carry on the legacy. Baan Tawai quickly reminded of my keen passion for spatial design. In fact, during my travels and time spent in various hotels, villas, cafes, shops and studios, I was reawakened to the incredible role these spaces play on our overall happiness and creative energy. How can we use design to liven ourselves? Can we learn to appreciate how much the appearance of a ceiling effects the way we feel? Or at least notice it's participation? Can we recognize the effectiveness of natural building materials such as stone and wood in the spaces we inhabit? Can we cherish the way they bring us back to nature?
The Loi Krathong lantern festival handed me the beauty of nature in a way I'd never experienced before. To lay in a field surrounded by good friends and watch thousands of lanterns drift up towards the full moon was absolutely magical. The feeling was so strong and special that it was almost overwhelming. To share in the experience of sending lanterns up into the night sky along with thousands of others was empowering and also truly exhausting. A great big mix of emotion, shouting, silence, and a whole lot of coordinating with friends made for a sacred night that I'll remember always. Later on, we spent some time down by the river, setting off fireworks before making our way back to the city. That process was kicked off with at least an hour of swaying back and forth shoulder to shoulder with a million others, (some of which I got to know quite well, as you can imagine). After all, we were moving like one big mass; no one in charge of directing crowds, traffic or keeping things under control. Westerners were looking around at each other like, "is anyone gonna tell us what to do here???" But you know what... complete SILENCE. It was incredibly strange. My friend Stef and I realized that there is more regulation in other parts of the world because there HAS TO BE, not just for fun. Even in my impatience, I enjoyed watching the Asians navigate this process with such grace until we finally made our way out. What a night. The next couple of days were filled with a whole lot of blissful nothingness as we rested up.
My schedule looked something like this for the following Sunday, Monday and Tuesday...
To Do:
Thai Massage
Oh yes, I am SO impressed with Thai Massage! A very complex and brilliant system that I couldn't even begin to accurately explain with my little bit of knowledge on the topic, but if I had to, I'd say that it's something along the lines of "having yoga done to you." Whatever it is, it's friggin' AMAZIN'! No need to ask for "deep tissue" like in the USA, these Thai women don't mess around. They use their own body weight to throw you into various yoga poses and make your body do things you didn't know possible! Then they massage your muscles during the process. I mean, what could be more effective? Talk about opening of joints and tissue, WOW. I'm hooked! It's interesting how you find the things that work best for you when you explore various types of body work. My yoga practice for example; deepening in the area of slow and relaxing Yin yoga, but my Vinyasa Flow practice (or power/yang) has turned into freeform dance! Yep, every time I roll out my mat for some self practice, I just end up just shaking my booty to some wild music. So, at this time, the combination of dance and Yin complimented by Thai Massage is totally sweet. My body is loving it! I even credit some of it to letting go of my healthy nutritional approach a bit and just eating some damn good food. That's right! I'm talking wheat, dairy and even SUGAR. "Did she just say sugar?" First of all, I wouldn't be able to truly explore the beauty and tastiness of Thai food if I didn't give in a bit. More importantly, don't you think we all need to feel like there's no limit sometimes? Doesn't that allow us to feel freedom to be? Doesn't it help us open to the natural flow of life? It does for me, and putting on 5 pounds has been downright empowering!
All these days filled with nothing other than Thai massage and delicious food and my parents are beginning to say things like, "you're gonna have a hard time when you get home!" My response... "traveling is exhausting!" It really is. I feel SO grateful for the opportunity but it does wear you out. Always living out of a suitcase and moving around certainly makes you appreciate that place called home. Nevertheless, these parental comments have lead to some incredibly entertaining conversations with the rents. We have had so much fun Skyping, I feel blessed for the opportunity each time I sign on. Really! The connection always sucks and there's a solid delay of about 10 seconds and a lot of interrupting each other which often leads to irritation and sassy responses on my part like, "UM HELLO? Are you listening?" The other night we got absolutely hysterical. The conversation became unbelievably aggravating. I had just started a stream of important information about some feelings I was having and dad begins to talk about a "special guest at the Casa geezer breakfast," then mom shouts, "I can hear fireworks!" I could not believe my ears and I started laughing so hard I had tears running down my face. They started laughing too and all the laughing only led to MORE LAUGHING. It was the best. Even now, I'm sitting in a cafe just cracking myself up as I write. People are looking at me, smiling, AND BEGINNING TO LAUGH! It's contagious and so revitalizing. It made me wonder, can we find humor in our lives more often? Can we "laugh things off," as cliche as that sounds? Do I really need to fly around the world to find that kind of outrageous enjoyment and connection with my amazing parents? No way. I'm so blessed to have it available to me at all times!
Just like art, expression and the makeup of your creative soul, this one is a variety of things that I have been inspired by. Creativity, nature, spaces, silence, Thai massage, dance, letting GO... and laughing... All things that can happen anywhere and everywhere we are, always.
