2013

Chongqing metro, destination unknown. Everyone looks but few hold a gaze. I close my eyes to leave them all behind, with Thom Yorke in my left ear: I can’t face the evening straight and you can’t offer me escape... I wonder if she’s listening and taking these words to heart. Seven hours from now I’ll have my answer, when she whispers that she loves me.

Joe Rogan in my ears starting up at an expanding universe back of a crowded bus to Bangkok, thoughts fixed on the future. I’ve long had in mind the sequel to this no-fly adventure, a trip far more ambitious, risky, polarizing. It would be a year-long immersion experience, a trustworthy sidekick along for the ride. I wouldn’t be able to write about it until the end.

Bangkok looks a lot different from the river, more authentic somehow. We wind our way down towards the Grand Palace, glimpsing other fantastic rooftops along the way, all lit up for the night. It’s been their first full day in town. We did a mall tour earlier, now on our way for dinner nobody knows where. It will all turn out just fine.

If you ever want to feel like Brad Pitt, come to Nanning and walk around town some Saturday afternoon. Pretty young girls with their half-talk code of mysteries, their wink-and-elbow language of delight. But nare a dance at Billy Brennan’s barn tonight. Not for me anyways. I answer emails and edit video as darkness falls on China’s green city.

Born in Brazil to Korean parents, educated in the US, moved to Paris on a whim, then got all entrepreneurial in Asia. She does three hours of Muay Thai a day and reached out after reading my book. Now we’re sitting having dinner in Hong Kong, talking about relationships and physics and metaphorical buses as the waiter pours endless refills and serves food I’ve never heard of.

I love being early for an appointment and slowing down on amber instead of speeding up. I love walking down the street and remembering to appreciate that my body is functioning perfectly, that nothing hurts. I love typing this on my laptop and looking over and seeing her sleep. I love when she wakes up and asks what I’m writing and then giggles when she reads these very words.

Still not sure how I feel about zoos. The main attractions at Tiger Temple today appeared happy and lucid, with lots of space to move around. In many ways they probably live better than their wild cousins. But I also saw obese bears and grounded eagles, squeezed into small cages with filthy watering holes, looking through sad eyes and criss-crossed steel at fawns and piglets roaming free. Predators jealous of their prey.

Day has become night. Night has become day. We awake at two in the afternoon. Flash forward to evening breakfast, a mahogany table and plush leather chairs. Cut to tiny cakes and lazy escalators. Jump to a midnight theater, the last of several, finally alone. Swipe to a cop looking hopeful as he empties my pockets. And finally, fade us back to the dawn, lying in bed, four eyes wide.

— What if the motorcycle run out of gas? And there is no gas station around? — I guess I’ll just lie down and wait for the wolves to come get me. — They wouldn’t attack you if you just lie down. — I’ll bring some bacon and hide it in my underwear. They should attack me then. Wolves love bacon.

I need a nap. I’ve got all these emails and comments and Facebook messages to respond to. And I’ve been meaning to get a haircut and pick up my pants from the seamstress. And I’ve got yoga later. And a date tonight. Yeah, so much to do, I definitely deserve a nap. Let me just do a half hour of work first and see how I feel.

It was only later that I’d realized what I’d done. He’d told me something deeply personal, deeply vulnerable. And I, at least on the surface, reacted like it was no big deal. Pretty much shrugged it off, when I suspect he really needed someone to talk to. Not the first time I’d done such a thing, either. I was ashamed of myself.