October 28, 2022
Each stone, blossom, child
Dear little friends,
When we got back in January 2020, I was able to go with my daughter to her doctor appointments and watch the ultrasound babies elbow each other in there. My daughter is tiny but mighty, the twins were healthy and growing and by the time they were a very survivable weight in mid-February, they decided it was time they left their cramped accommodations. In the early morning hours of February 16 we had two 4-pound girls pinking up in the NICU.
By the time they came home a month later Covid restrictions dropped like a hammer and we essentially went into isolation for nearly a year. There were many long nights on the couch, listening for a hungry cry, cuddling them back to sleep and watching the city traffic on a nearby bridge dwindle down to nearly nothing. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I looked for consolation in all that I had, I started a “Flower of the Day” group in my neighborhood social media app, listened to a lot of music and watched travel videos and read stupid stuff on the computer.
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| Heart | 9 | Comment | 0 | Link |
After we got our first vaccinations in 2021 we still maintained our isolation. Fortunately we’re both sort of friendly introverts. We like people. But we aren’t too fussed about being on our own for hours and days and weeks, what with gardening and house projects and helping with the girls and riding around the neighborhood.
There was a lot of trauma though. Not just Bruce’s injury, but weeks of deadly suffocating smoke, an ice storm that paralyzed our city and dropped fences and trees, a 117-degree heat dome that killed more trees and people and spirits. It just never seemed to stop. And the political scene was a complete discouraging disaster.
Through it all, there were these two little innocent children that we were handing the future to. And then their little baby boy cousin joined our family this year and he is impossibly happy and social and damn it we have to clean up the world’s act for these three and how is that even possible?
Each thing —
each stone, blossom, child —
is held in place.
I am a very very fortunate person. I am reasonably healthy, and have enough to eat and a cozy home and people who love me. They love me enough to let me leave them with Bruce for another adventure even though we’ll all miss each other terribly. I know that my grandchildren are in wonderfully capable loving hands and we are ready to be back in our beloved SE Asia.
So what’s the plan?
We’ll start in Bangkok and follow the Chao Phraya and its tributary, the Ping river, north to Chiang Mai. I have a dental appointment there. We’d like to explore some of the nearby towns that I’ve never been to, like Lamphun and Lampang and Nan. Bruce has some wild hare ideas about crossing overland into Laos but it’s been nearly impossible to know if the isolated border crossing we’d like to use is even open for foreigners on bikes.
And then there’s the smoke. After the extreme smoke event in September of 2020 here in Portland the importance of clean air has risen considerably for me. There will be dust, there will be diesel exhaust, there will be smoke from the winter burning of the rice fields. How much smoke we’ll tolerate is going to be determined later, but we may jump on a train and go south to the beaches if the air up in the north gets too gnarly.
Planning for us is more like “let’s entertain this notion” rather than a very defined plan, that’s what works for us. We have to be in Bangkok on January 21, other than that, our time is our own. Thailand now has a 45-day visa exemption for many countries, including ours. Then we either make a visa run to an adjacent country or we apply for another 30 days at the nearest immigration office.
As previously mentioned we are in fairly poor shape. So our non-plan still made sure that our first days and weeks will be on flattish ground. We’ll most likely take a train to Ayutthaya to get out of the endless Bangkok outskirts and then hop on a 4-digit road and be on our way. OH! And we did plan this: we are going to ride north for once, with no sun in our faces all day. I don’t know why we never thought of that before.
So our remaining days at home will be full of packing and trivial last minute chores and family time until it’s time to head for the airport. We’ll spare you the details of all that minutiae and probably the next time you hear from me will be from Bangkok. See ya then! Thanks for coming along, it means a lot to us. I hope you’ll sign up with CycleBlaze and give us encouraging likes and comments and sometimes a hard time.
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Hugs from me and her xx
2 years ago
Hugs to you and to 'her'. Someday I have a story to tell you both but it has to be in person so please make the necessary arrangements.
2 years ago
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