laos part one: a banner year, a splendid day

        Here I am in Luang Prabang, about the celebrate the quarter-century mark with Ana, a Costa Rican girl I’ve only known a few weeks. I think it’s telling, the difference between my 24^th and 25^th birthdays. Last year, I was sitting around a make-shift bonfire at Lake Erie with my two best friends and our long-term boyfriends. We drank wine and played the kind of games you can only play when you’ve known each other for years; when you love each other like family. This year, I’m alone in Southeast Asia, gallivanting around places I’ve never heard of, riding elephants and drinking laolao, the local whiskey, with near strangers.

                I may not be writing with glee at the moment, and quite frankly, knowing my perpetually (and hopelessly) romantic soul, may not until I make the inevitable mistake of falling in love again. But for the first time in a very long time, I am content. Perhaps my newfound sense of calm has a little—or a lot—to do with the fact that I am in Laos, a country of pristine mountains, gentle people, and Theravada Buddhism. This particular brand of Buddhism stresses three principle aspects of existence: dukkha (suffering, unsastifactoriness, disease), annica (impermanence, transience of all things), and annatta (non-substantiality or non-essentiality of reality; the idea that there is no permanent soul). Understanding annica reveals that no experience, no state of mind, no physical object lasts. Both joy and pain dissipate, and it is trying to hold onto these things—experiences, objects, people—that are constantly changing that creates dukkha. Anatta is the understanding that there is no apart of this ever-changing world that we can point to and declare, “This is me” or “This is God,” or “This is the soul.” The point of all of this is simple yet glorious: nibbana, or the extinction of all causes of pain and suffering.

                It seems to me that the majority of my suffering has been a result of my inability to embrace annica. The transient nature of my life has left me lost and reeling in confusion. It dawns on me that although I feel so far from everyone here, even when I am “at home” I am still apart from those whom I love most. The realization hits me like a sack of bricks: I have grown to love New Haven, my life, my friends there—and yet, a year from now I may be across the country, never to see most of these people or places I treasure again. “I’ve lost two cities, lovely ones,” Bishop once wrote—and it’s hard not to sink into a self-pitying cocoon once you start thinking that way, missing people, missing things. Loving and embracing each experience and person in that very moment—appreciating its beauty in the present, and then letting it go; this practice is my goal for my 25^th year. As one Buddhist monk pointed out profoundly, “Patience is a practice. The only way to cultivate it is to remind yourself constantly that the only place your life is occurring is every moment.”

                Even though I feel slightly treacherous for saying so, Luang Prabang is a refreshing change from China. While more expensive, the city’s calm nature, cleanliness, French-style architecture and Western-syle toilets are all a welcome change from the restless, vibrant, filthy Kunming. The people are friendly and sweet: brightly colored tuk tuk drivers line the streets, inquiring, “Where are you going, miss?” (The answer to which, of course, I do not know on so many levels.) Sandwich stands and pancake makers beckon from the sidewalks with their tantalizing smells and smiling faces. Monks, clad in simple orange robes, pace the dusty streets at dawn, moving silently and peacefully along each of the two rivers that ensconce the city. I think I’m going to like it here.