Reflections

Aside from all this most recent buzz of activity, only a few short weeks ago I was on the other side of the planet, in a completely different world. For the third time in as many years I returned to Thailand. As the crush of noise and heat was rising from the street down below, I could ponder the vastness of it all from my hotel balcony. Being an entire planet away from all of this that surrounds me gave me a startling perspective on everything. It's hard not to be reminded of how very small I am. Being nobody on the endless winding streets of a small village reduces me to nothing more than a point of perspective, just another set of footsteps on a dark and nameless alley. Late one night I realized the massive dark form in front of me was an elephant, grazing on the trees growing over a fence. Two men were quietly talking a short distance away, while the elephant forcefully tore down branches, crunching them noisily in its mouth. I paused to take it in, all of us were as anonymous as shadows in the alley, the two men, the elephant, and myself. I suppose this is what I embrace about these short escapes, the feeling of being nobody, of being almost absolutely nothing.