Tag Archives: March

Painted Deserts

May 5, 2023ache, Adventure, home, life on the foreign field, Poetry, travelAmtrak, Arizona, deserts, home, Hutchinson, Kansas, Los Angeles, Mae Sariang, March, painted deserts, Poetry, Psalms 90, teaching English in Thailand, Thailand, travelinsearchofabrook

We walk our painted deserts on numbered days

In the shadow of mountains hemmed by time

We carry Your beauty crowned upon us

A tale that is told, a fleeting rhyme

We flourish as grass to fall and wither

Naked under wheeling desert suns

Lost in everlasting, a watch in the night

On captured seconds our course we run.

And this is our cry to the encircling sky

That girds our peregrine ways

Satisfy the yearning of hearts that are burning

And make us glad, oh make us glad all our days.

For over a month now, I have been trying to give voice to what Psalms 90 means to me. I started to write it when I was still in Thailand in March, but somehow it didn’t seem to come together. Flying home, I traveled through Korea, landed in Los Angeles and then took the train from there to Hutchinson. This saved me money and gave me the time I needed to process and relax. It was just what the doctor ordered. I have irrevocably fallen in love with Amtrak now. We drove through a lot of deserts and grasslands and it served to give a bit of a frame for what I was trying to say. While the desert may seem boring to some, I find in it a wild beauty and tenacity that is impossible to find in most parts of the world. That, coupled with the wide open sky of my own prairie roots, makes it a place I actually find refreshing (for a short period of time, anyway).

Evening Palette

March 8, 2023ache, home, life on the foreign field, Poetry, writingbeauty, burning, drought, dry season, Mae Sariang, March, Northern Thailand, Poetry, smog, smoke, sunset, teaching English in Thailand, Thailand, twilightinsearchofabrook

The mountain swallowed the sun tonight

Tugged it down from the sooty sky

Into the smoky red of horizon’s shade

And west into the shadows of Burma

And for a moment there was a fire in the town

Titian on the water, low and light

Between the sandy banks of the Yuam River

Rain-thirsty in the smoggy gloaming

Then the sun slipped into the mountain’s pocket

And all was gray again, until the kindly dusk

Purpled the world and wrapped my town in its arms

And with an indigo lullaby, rocked her to sleep

Chiang Mai (Vignettes of a Journey #2)

April 1, 2022culture, life on the foreign field, Poetry, travelChiang Mai, drought, March, smog, travel, waitinginsearchofabrook

Long have I known this city

And loved it

The Rose of the North that blooms below its mountain,

A jewel of splendor and culture;

But these days, I am smothered,

Smothered by the smog that blankets the mountain

Smothered by the sickness floating thick on the air

Smothered by the waiting,

Waiting that clamps its fist around my middle

Waiting…

Waiting….

My trip started in Mae Sariang, traveling to Chiang Mai where I waited for a few days before getting my Covid test and traveling on.

Ten Benefits to Wearing a Mask

March 16, 2019life on the foreign field, Lists, this college lifeburning, Chiang Mai, exhaustion, life, March, Masks, Northern Thailand, Seasonal Affective Disorder, smog, smoke, Thailandinsearchofabrook

If asked to describe my week in one word, I would have to use a word I am quickly becoming to hate:

SMOG

When you read the title of this post, your first thought may have been, oh, this is going to be a deeply insightful post about the invisible masks we wear.

It’s not.

This past week has been a long week of waking up every morning to a dirty brown sky covered in ash and PM 2.5 and dust. It’s been a long week of trying to do homework, stay healthy physically, mentally and emotionally, and balance 29 other things at the same time. It’s been a week of checking AQI levels and seeing numbers over 400.

But I am tired of talking about that. If you want to read more about the smog, go here.

I found that during this week, in order to stay sane, you need to take measures. That means wearing a protective mask where ever you go. It means staying in air conditioner as much as possible. It means not getting too active. It means drinking lots of water. It means intentionally doing things that keep you from getting depressed.

And it also means finding humor in the sm- (that bad word).

So, in doing that, I made a list of ten things that are benefits of wearing a mask (besides helping with pollution).

When you need to do things with people you feel awkward around and both of you are wearing a mask, it feels a bit less awkward.
When you are tired and meet someone and you want to smile but you don’t have the energy to, you can just squint your eyes at each other. They get what you mean.
You can talk to yourself and practice your dramatic presentation for next class while waiting at the stoplight without people thinking that you have gone totally crazy.
You can sing loudly on the way home on your motorbike without being scared of swallowing a mosquito.
Eating snacks is a pain because you have to take off your mask. Therefore you eat less snacks. Which saves on money.
You can stick out your tongue at people or make other expressive faces at them and they never know what you do. This gives high inner satisfaction
You can eat chocolate behind your mask and no one knows that you are eating chocolate.
Wearing a mask and protective sunglasses while driving a 110 cc motorbike can make you feel like you are driving one that is 500 cc. Formidable, powerful and competent. Even when you are feeling tired, helpless and incapable.
It creates a sense of being in a community. I am a mask wearer. You are too. We wear the mask.
And finally, the best part of wearing a mask is taking it off!!