"announcing your place / in the family of things"

I test myself sometimes. Could I stay here forever? Often the question arises to challenge or check myself, and other times it’s a game of devil’s advocate. In the past, when people have asked me how long I’ll stay in Chiang Mai, I don’t answer the question. “I don’t know,” or something with a “maybe.” I found out recently that I’ll be in a writing residency in August out west to work on my book. Although I’d planned on coming back to the states in late spring or summer, to have something set-in-stone feels strange. Especially when it’s tied to sharing good news with friends here. After the explanation for “Holy cow, I got a residency!” there usually comes a variation on, “Great! And when do you come back to Chiang Mai?”

How could I leave? I feel so lucky to have fallen in with the friends I have. Even if I don’t understand most of the language, my life here has been—trying to fight off the past tense: is!—a best-case-scenario in terms of both creativity and community. I didn’t want to be just another expat at an expat bar, and although my Thai still needs some serious TLC, in the past few months I’ve felt like a part of this town, even if a small part. With the exception of a writing group or country music, I feel like I have found everything I would want out of New York City.

One of my literature students once pointed out that I am always comparing texts, characters, tones. Part of it I blame on my schooling, but part of it is my self. Pros and cons. Ifs and thens. From an outsider’s perspective, Thai culture is more emotionally reserved than in the states. Could it sustain this overanalyzing, occasionally broody farang in the long-term? In times of need, the silence can prove frustrating, but in other moments it’s nothing but a relief from the agitation and drama I witnessed (and engaged) in college and the city. I don’t know if it’s a perfect fit; I don’t believe in a perfect place anymore. That said, there are evenings or early mornings when it seems, frankly, stupid to walk away from such a good, good thing.

My friend Riley often brings up the point that we never let ourselves accept happiness or satisfaction if it comes with ease. I already earned my gray hair—do I need more? I know I could organize and afford a life of writing and music here. Why hustle? I remember reading somewhere Grace Paley’s words of wisdom for young writers: cheap rent. Check. Another piece of advice from my nona Ceil: hang with people who know more than you. Although I don’t know writers in Chiang Mai, I am surrounded by 30-somethings who are making ends meet through art, music, design, which provides as much hope as it does an example.

While having soup with a friend a few weeks ago, I asked what made him decide to move from Bangkok to Chiang Mai for good. He said it was an accident. He said, “Life is not a calendar.” As we walked to his car after dinner, we saw it had been boxed in by another sedan. Nothing to do but wait for an opening, and to keep talking through the wait.

I keep coming back to T.S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday, a poem that—much like this town, this year—I came across by chance:

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

Regardless of what happens in the next few months, I rejoice the following words from a friend, unexpected, over a cup of Nescafé: “I think you come back.”