It’s 5 a.m. here (jet lag) in Chiang Mai and I’ve already been up for two hours. Rain pours down outside and I hear the muzzled beat of a discotheque in the distance. Someone’s fumbling through a pile of bottles on the street below.

I’ll savor these early morning hours, because I know that, beginning today, my life will take on a different pace for the next month. This afternoon we have our first staff meeting for the yoga teacher training. Tomorrow I move out to the resort, and on Sunday the students arrive (!).

I landed here on Tuesday afternoon. Touching down on the runway, I took in a very familiar view: lush green mountains to the west immersed in clouds and mist. I always peak out the window to take in the view and glimpse the first house I lived in here 9 years ago (my alarm clock then was always a 6 a.m. north-bound flight).

Despite the 24-hour journey, I felt the same way that I always do when I arrive in Chiang Mai—that no time has passed since I was last here. Returning to Asia always feels like coming home.

I love the chaos in the streets that I know how to navigate with mindless ease, the piles of ripe mangoes in market stalls, the way that people bow in reverence during simple hello’s and goodbye’s.

In fact, being here brings out a whole different part of my being. This is the part that I have felt so estranged from since I moved back to the U.S. last year. It’s that part of me that feels electric and alive when I’m drenched, splashing through puddles from a spontaneous rainstorm on my motorbike. Or that sits on… Read Full Post

Last fall, while every fiber of my being tried to acclimate to living back in this country after so many years of living in Thailand,  I hit a round of “mean reds” (à la Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s). And by mean, I mean mean. Not just the kind that come for a day or two and pass, but the ones that linger for days, weeks, months on end.

I felt like no one could relate to anything that I had experienced during the past ten years of my life. Traffic and sidewalks felt too tidy. Storefronts felt too sterile. My body didn’t know what to do with the different foods, different climate,  different clothes, or the fact that everyone in this town has white skin and speaks English.  I was trading papaya for quinoa, a Honda Wave motorbike for a Ford Focus sedan, flip flops for moccassins. None of these are bad things, necessarily, just different.  Very, very different.

One of the main things that helped me through was a nightly gratitude list of at least five things. Even if all that I could think of to put on that list were the bare basics: “I’m breathing,” “The sun felt good on my face this afternoon.”

No matter how high, how low, or how in-between things are, there are always things to be grateful for. And, somehow, that always helps me to put things back where they need to be–in perspective. 

So, while it’s past my bedtime on this Thursday evening, here’s my list:

1. It’s 11:11 right now. I love that this reminds… Read Full Post