Where limitation is illusion...

Have you ever had a feeling that everything was about to change?


I'm not quite sure where to start this story. Perhaps, my inability to find a clear starting point stems from the fact that this story is an ongoing, building, and morphing adventure, thus, identifying the head on this dragon of a tale has proved to be very difficult. Does it start with the decision to go to see Calvin Harris in Thailand's capital city? Does it start with technical difficulties flying through the sky on my way back to Phuket? With Sigmund Freud, Herman Hesse, or at the beginning of my personal story - 23 years ago? With months of e-mails about the innerworkings of the world? With life, with love, with destiny? All I know, is that on February 18th 2012, I got this feeling that everything was about to change. I know this is dramatic, but check it:


I was flying back from Bangkok, after a larger-than-life proportions ragefest, when this feeling hit me. I had gone to the big city to see Calvin Harris with my friends, Bob, Tommy, Kenny, and Maggie, met two new friends and Bangkok residents, Amber and Lizzie, and had a grand old time. On the plane, making my way back to Phuket, everything began to align. (I was flying back a day earlier than Tommy, Kenny, and Maggie, because I have spent time in Bangkok before and I knew that Bangkok is like Vegas. It is a place where even marathon partiers will and do have their souls stolen.) So, on board the plane, a puddle jumper really - somewhere over unfamiliar-territory-Thailand, we were cruising through the night sky when the nose of the plane dipped. I'm not saying that the plane nose dipped like - "Let's dodge this cloud formation, shall we?" - dipped. It dropped hard and it felt, for a second, that we were going to head straight to the ground. I kid you not. Here I was, engrossed in Steppenwolf, one of Herman Hesse's most famous novels, when the plane abandoned it's planned trajectory and seemed en route for land. Now this was a little unsettling, to say the least, however, the scariest thing about being in a foreign country, is that when something unsettling happens to you, the language being used to describe said events of such a scenario is rarely English. (This is frequently the case in thrillers - something bad starts happening, there is a ton of confusion, and someone usually begins running around, demanding to know what is happening, while everyone converses in an unfamiliar language. That, and every language always sounds faster and more frantic than your native tongue...especially when you are stressed.)


Well, the plane crew announced over the intercom that we were returning to Bangkok, that we were experiencing plane difficulties, and that everyone must fasten their seat belts for safety.


I took out my notebook and I wrote: Everything in my life feels like destiny. Everything. If anything were to happen to me, I'd feel like it was too soon, but I 'd also feel like it was to do with some sort of larger plan. And then, just because I was feeling extra dramatic in my Steppenwolf inspired thoughts, I wrote a note to my friend, Charlie, the person who gave me the book in the first place. (Obviously in case my journal survived some sort of collision with the earth.)


I said, "Charlie - thank you. I'm finally reading Steppenwolf and everything about it matches this time in my life. I just read this passage and it especially stands out to me - 'Let the little way to death be as it might, the kernel of this life of mine was noble. It has purpose and character and turned not on trifles, but on the stars.'"


Everything I read from that point forward spoke to me and in a furry of excitement and a little bit of fear - until I was forced to put the book down. I was bombarded by this overwhelming sensation - the feeling previously mentioned - of butterflies, of roller coasters, of my heart in my throat, a feeling that I might puke all over myself due to anticipation and apprehension. I started feverishly writing. I came to the conclusion that something huge was about to happen. Huge. A world series, heart in your throat, can't jump high enough, can't smile wide enough, over the moon, reach for the stars, awareness. I scribbled as I attempted to transcribe my thoughts, frantic that I didn't have time to get it all down on paper - that if the moment passed, I would be unable to pin down this consciousness - to see it as it is - to understand it.


 I regurgitated this -


"I'm desperate to talk to someone about what I'm going through, but I'm left to delve into my emotions alone, confined by this miniature plane - like a capsule being shot across the sky. I'm experiencing a stress I've never felt before - as though my mind is being blown - as though everything that I have been stewing over for the last few months - destiny, magic, love, life, purpose - holy shit, holy shit - that it is all laid out in front of me by Herman Hesse - in the pages of Steppenwolf. I'm being truth bombed by shit that I can barely wrap my mind around, let alone articulate in my inelegant ways. Tucked in the pages of my novel, I found a letter from Tommy - a letter I received from him the day he left Flagstaff. It doesn't tell the future, but it is written during a time when we didn't know what would happen or that we would be in Thailand someday, yet there it is - almost a fortune. It starts with, "The transition you're about to experience is going to be magical." I used this letter as the book mark, for this Hesse novel - a book given to me by Charlie. Last February, I attempted to read the book, but I wasn't in the space for it. After a year of growing, changing, living, finding myself - I was reminded of the book - and upon restarting it, the book speaks to me with a power and a wisdom that I have been searching for. Self fulfilling prophecies? Prophecies? Perhaps both. As I bombard Charlie with e-mails about destiny and boundless question marks regarding personal ideology and philosophy - unbeknown to him - he gave me the answers a year ago, with Hesse.  Why does the world behave this way? Why does my life only work with magic, truth bombs, and earth shattering roller coasters? Perhaps, I'm on the brink of something unimaginable..."

Sunset in Tonsai

We switched planes in Bangkok. Round 2: trip to Phuket. A couple of hours later, I arrived in Phuket and went to reach in my bag for my motorbike keys. I couldn't find them. I went to the bathroom and emptied my entire backpack. No keys. I thought - "Do I even remember having them in Bangkok? Oh shit, maybe I left them in my motorbike!" I went outside to see if the bike was still in the parking lot. Luckily, it was, but my keys were not with it. I couldn't remember what I had done. I decided that I couldn't remember seeing them in Bangkok - taking them out of my bag or anything - so, I went to the almost nonexistent airport security office and began to try to explain my lost keys situation. The guys working at the office laughed at me - a silly blond girl - before I began speaking to them in the little Thai that I know. One of them left to check to see if any keys had been turned in....and they had them! They had my keys! Unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable! Someone took my keys out of my bike and turned them in at the security office! Yes, my friends, in Thailand. That's the kind of country this is! Now, I'm not saying that that has anything to do with my plane epiphanies, destiny, and all the rest, but it was absolutely incredible - that right after I had the feeling of the universe testing me or something, I had this key thing happen. It was insane.


I got on my computer as soon as I got home and Charlie was online. I immediately relayed the events of the Bangkok adventure, the plane trip, the motorbike keys miracle, and realized that I don't know the first thing about how this world works. All I know is that I'm standing on a precipice. I'm completely dwarfed by the magnitude of this life, but I'm pretty sure Herman Hesse is an amazing author, that he seems to write as though answering dreams, and that limitation is illusion. Now, all I can do is wait and see what happens...

Stolen from my friend's Facebook.