I rarely blog about when I am at the very moment, largely for my privacy and safety. But I will make an exception to the rule.
I have no windows around me right now. Well, I barely have any walls. I escaped the city off to the quiet hills outside Chiang Mai for a farewell getaway.
I’m seated at a long table with square stools that resemble the kind you’d see in an old Chinese tea shop. Well, the stools, not the table. The table is long solid probably teak wood planks, so long it puts an Italian family dinner table to shame. Right in front of me, an old rickshaw with a safari hat on the passenger seat. And an old chalkboard with a Jack Dainel’s Whiskey label on the front of the bike. The smaller tables for 1 or 2 are old sewing tables with the wheel and pedal still on.
The wooden railings “walling” in me separate me from the garden around me. A jackfruit tree bears so much fruit the scent of jackfruit whiffs across my nostrils every time the wind breezes through, which is quite often. If it had been mango, the mango would be long consumed by now.
Just a little further beyond, from the other side of the open patio below my deck, the sound of a small water fountain ripples through the foliage. I vaguely remember seeing a pair of cows walk through the car park entrance. A covered gazebo overlooking the water is empty, asking me if I’d let go of my tethered Internet wire to sit there instead. Not now, sadly.
I am perfectly content being on the open deck. The restaurant space I turned into my ad hoc office is part of the La Bhu Salah resort outside Chiang Mai. I am the only guest at the moment. In other words, I have the entire place to myself. It is their off-season so their artisan workshops are not in session. It’s OK. I came to get away, relax, and take a cooking class. The rest of the time I was to catch up with my writing. Without a car and being as far away from downtown, I had nothing to distract me otherwise.
For the first time since I started working, I had absolutely nothing about work niggling in the back of my mind. I am content and truly rested. Life can’t get any better than this.
