Breathing in the black exhaust smoke, stale spilled beer and last bits of lingering humidity I actually feel deeply gratified, almost satiated.
While these unique smells permeate my lungs, my eyes fill with visions of red scooter tail lights, a vibrantly glowing sunset slipping over the mountains and the glimmer of neon from the street vendors as they set up for the nightly diners.
All of this is no longer an imagined sensory experience, it's what I call home.
It's my Chiang Mai.
Today it's these memories, these senses tingling and lingering in my head, tomorrow it may change.
Tomorrow's story might be more subtle and include a view of rice fields, the smell of earth, and the sounds of geckos, but today I live in this particular moment.
How the hell did I end up here? I still don't believe that this is where I live, even as the words fill the page.
I've had some really deeply fucked up life experiences, as well as some deeply profound ones.
So, there's a big part of me that says, I earned this, I'm owed this. But there's another part that questions this reality.
Sometimes it's hard to accept all that's good when there's damage inside you. I try, I do.
I know that this place is the cherry on a living sundae full of a million flavors of melted experiences, ups and downs, and drizzled with shit. But that fucking cherry, shining on top, is the one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, ever known....besides Hilcia.
So, today I smell the gasoline from the trucks, look out onto the sea of red brake lights and think...man that cherry of Chiang Mai tastes so damn good....