Photo by: Lucy Kagan

“It smells so…different here.” I said.

My companion stuck his British mug out the window.

“Smells like Asia.” he said.

I use the term ‘companion’ lightly. He and I, after all, had just met. Absent minded conversation at the airport baggage carousel had led to a cab invitation, which I hurriedly accepted. We hopped into a white, unmarked cab (which my university had strongly advised me not to use) and headed off to wherever it was that the printout (which I had a death grip on) said my supposed hotel was. I had touched down at ten past midnight; the city was nothing but neon yellow and stacked square office windows as high as I could see; a maze of byways and highways and little flickers of seriousness. I conversed with the stranger as best I could but found my jaw dropped and hanging for the majority of the cab ride, making conversation awkward, if not impossible.

I sighed and thought to myself: “Welcome to Bangkok…”

Bangkok is loud. Bangkok is dirty. Bangkok is a big city with millions of faces and twice as many footsteps. Bangkok was my home. However, that last statement had been a battle (think: Civil War) to admit.

Initially, my eyes were wide open, every Thai bombardment was a new, exciting experience that I was too na’ve to interpret as mundane or even fully process in that sea of foreign chatter. All I knew was this was Asia and I would be here for a long, long time. Denial helped me through the first few weeks, but once the reality of the situation sank in, I found myself in a deep depression. After a flawless vacation to a glorious beach, I lost it…broke down to a friend:

“I hate it here…I’m dying here…”

Crickets my friend, crickets.

No advice came my way, no words of wisdom, no pat on the back. I was left alone, in an apartment with no hot water, grey walls, and occasional cockroaches…and no one but myself to talk to. I wrote in a journal. I ate bizarre fruit. I cried. I took cold showers. I thought I may be pregnant. I wasn’t.

That evening, I stepped out onto the balcony and gazed at the madness of that Asian metropolis…I stood there for almost an hour, perched and watching; watching the street vendors come and go as the clock ticked, watching people filter in and out of my apartment building, watching my neighbor hang her laundry out to dry in the hot humid breeze…watching the ants snake their way past my feet onto the bathroom floor. And it hit me: I’m the foreigner here…everyone sees me the way I see them: strangely, differently, with suspicion…with one foot cocked in the opposite direction waiting (just poised and ready) to run far, far away.

The mumbles of the nearby traffic mayhem of (spewing) buses and (racing) motor bikes echoed off the (bare…oh so bare) walls in my room. My hair fluttered in front of my face as a gust of wind settled in. And the rain came. And in rained and poured and brought with it nightfall. My, the dirtier the air, the more magnificent the sunset…this day’s end left me speechless. Orange had never made sense before…(I get it now…).

Somewhere between the downpour and the disappearance of the sun, I headed across the eight lane ‘road’ to the eight story department store to pick up a new notebook. Pedestrian traffic had to cross via a fly bridge: dirty stairs (on both sides of the road) encompassing a crooked, chipped, brick walkway strewn with vendors perched atop straw mats selling the essentials of Bangkok: batteries, keychains, belts, hair barrettes, cobra skin knife blade covers, cell phone holders, pirated DVD’s of movies that had yet to make it to theaters.

Every day since I had been in this city (thirty seven, to be exact) I had passed a beggar woman sitting stashed in one of the corners atop this fly bridge. She never looked at me, but I hated finding my eyes roaming all over her, looking down down down from up where I stood. She always held a baby. He didn’t look to have aged a day since I first saw him.

Today was no exception. I climbed the stairs, and there she was. How reliable, how admirable, how reassuring. Beside her was a paper cup part way filled with coins, none of which had been my contribution (ever). People had noticed that I was stopped and staring at her.

And then she did something strange: she raised her hand, adjusted her hair, and looked up at me. Our eyes met, and for what seemed like forever, we simply stared at each other. I couldn’t stand my overbearing presence, so I knelt down, on my knees, in front of her. She blinked. I blinked. We continued staring. And like a butterfly had floated through the air, everything around me seemed to stop…and a sly, almost undetectable smile emerged across her cheeks. I reflected that smile.

And I nodded, opened my mouth and took in a breath of air as if I had searched the bottom of the ocean for a precious gem, had found it, and had finally reached the surface; everything was going to be alright. This woman gave me what I needed to surface with the gem in my hand, to find the riches inside my very own soul. I wish I had given her money…for she had given me everything I needed. I closed my eyes and bowed my head to her. She smiled at me yet again.

I stood up, and looked down at my knees. They were full of Bangkok grime. I bent at the hip to brush the filth off, but hesitated…no, no I would leave this precious muck on my knees. I would be reminded of this moment all day, all night, all week, until it washed away.

I never saw her again. But I see the look in her eyes everyday, somewhere.

“You can do this. Look how

amazing you are.”

Thank God for you.

That was months ago. That was the past. And now? Now I knew the city. I knew when cab drivers were ‘taking me for a ride’. I knew that the monks only rode on air conditioned buses. I knew I was accustomed to thisplace: and what a feat it had been. My hatred of the wafting smell of raw sewage on the street, the hoards of bloated stray dogs lying comatose in empty phone booths, the creeping feeling of claustrophobia underneath my skin, the glares and stares from thousands of Thai faces, the snaking pattern sweat made when inching down my back; these things? I was no longer noticing. These were very small details in what had become a (my) very large life.

All encompassing, accepting, and anything but ‘used to’; I wasn’t blindsided by this city anymore…I wasn’t being had. I held my head higher, my big brown hair crazed and different (from the frail, stick straight Thai girls, mind you), and something to stare at in the sultry, hanging air…

“Let them stare…all of them…”

I spared no one my natural curls and ingrained love of conviction. I laughed out loud, I ventured to new corners of the city, I decorated the walls of my apartment with flags from Vietnam, Laos, fucking Thailand. I fell out of love with the one man I ever (truly) did, in fact, love…and for this ‘sacrifice’ fell deeply in love with this country, my country, my strength, myself. How did it happen? I wish I knew. Some people ask me (over coffee, tea, silence, a cigarette):

“Lucy, was it worth it?”

Oh, absolutely.

I lay in bed at night, often. I lie alone, my fingers digging through the pillowcases, craving the next big adventure, the next phone call (India, perhaps?), the feeling of uneasiness, the sly looks from crooked strangers…G-d how I miss it all. I miss the looks of “You don’t belong here…” Because now; now I just don’t fit in anywhere…not in Thailand, not in America, not inside my nightly dreams and bi-nightly nightmares. Now even white people stare.

(Where am I again?)

God how I wish I could close my eyes and wake up in an uncomfortable place again. What about Thailand, you ask? Not for a long, long time. I’ve so many places to experience before I walk down the same street with the same intention twice. From now on, I’m somewhere else even if I never leave here. Thailand left me permanently homeless…and I’m liberated. I’m walking free of any strings. I’m always holding out for something better.

So, my question to you?

Where do you belong? How do you know? How will you ever know?

Do you dare find out?

It starts here.

Go

…I f@*king dare you.