11.15.05: 20:30
I haven’t really fully been myself … when I’m awake I don’t recognize myself. When I speak … I sound like someone trying to be normal and it makes me uncomfortable. So much happened the first week in Khoa Lak, Thailand—things that still makes my hair stand from my arm to the back of my neck.
On the plane right before arriving in Bangkok, I met a guy, mid forties, slightly overweight, dressed in a safari gear; well his hat at least. He shared a brief story about his last visit to Phuket. Him and his girlfriend found a lil‘ shoe that had just come a shore. Belongings of those who passed are still resurfacing along the coast line. They felt attached to this specific shoe and decided to bring it back to their hotel. That evening both him and his girlfriend dreamt the same scenario … a little girl wearing the sandals and crying to her mother and screaming, “I want to go back to the beach Mommy! Why can’t I go back to the beach?!” when they woke up they both went back to the same spot they found the sandals and respectfully ask for forgiveness for any disturbance they caused. They laid it back down and sent a Buddhist prayer along.
The hotel I stayed for the first four days was the only hotel that survived along that side of the Andaman Sea. I walked the deserted coast line for about a mile there were no one in sight no one. I saw all the wreckage still untouched ... hotel’s roof caved in … floor paving partly hollowed beneath. Clothes tangled up and torn apart wrapped with braches and odd miscellaneous items. There were numerous shoes all missing pairs of different kind and sizes still scattered about the sand. One shoe brought me back to the story I heard on the plane. It was this lil‘ red toddler shoe. Needles to say I did not attempt to move it, however I stared at it and then again … I took images that I chose not to include in the slideshow. That was my first day there. There was never a night when I turned my TV off I needed it to block the “noises.” It wasn’t really any sort of “bad” energy. It was more very sad … sorrowful and sad energy. I saw a guy wearing his hotel staff uniform clutched on to a tree branch. (Yes ... I saw what I saw and no, I was definitely not dreaming.) There are still souls unclaimed and lost in the midst of everything gone from the Tsunami.
I thought this would be good exercise to start pedaling back and believe what I saw and heard and just deal with it. It was an amazing experience with lots of unspoken yet understood moments. Incalculable. I had no sense of time and day there.I took my experience and created my proposal for the Tsunami Memorial.
