musings on impermanence

The rains are becoming more and more regular again. and the temperature is hovering right around a comfortable 100 degrees. I find myself 10 months from close of service, meaning I have more like 6, 7 tops to actually complete any projects I have been unable to launch until second year. And I think many of my impressions of this steamy country are of sitting on buses. My entire year and a half here has been colored by the blur of travel; let's run with this. This whole thing has been a great psychological stop-over. Many of my friends in my group are feeling the cool glow of the light at the end of the tunnel, and folks are preparing to leave, one foot out the door in some cases. The crowded and sweaty bus has been barreling along the highway for some time now, in all kinds of weather, and all types of company. I have visited 52 cities in 26 provinces. I have visited the shores of Cambodia and Laos, stuck my feet in the sands of Viet Nam, and dream of northern steppe. I have consumed this place, dust and all, from the head, into a vortex of impressions, whistling all the way that things must be getting better. As I swelter through my second hot season, I wonder at just how little time I have left, and if I really want this to be over so soon. Am I ready for this adventure to draw to a close? What would be the purpose of prolonging it? Whew.
The bus is its own being. We feign operative roles, standing, sitting, in and among other transients. There's this trick Thais do where, once they are sitting on the bus, they are able to stop thinking. As fluent as I am, I have been unable to acquire this skill. The bus vibrates my skull, and I can't stop the musings, mental snapshots of rice fields in all stages of green and brown, cows and water buffalo, stooping figures with wide straw hats and T-shirts tied creatively around the head to keep off the sun. The peace and beauty of this place, I hope never to lose. The blue vinyl seats stick to my body. If the ride is long enough I can coast comfortably, hovercraft-like, on a protective film of sweat. The smell of everyone else's sweat shouting in overtones to my own shaky tremolo, the basic human condition here, of being continually damp. A little girl is hoisted onto the seat next to her standing mother. She quickly stops thinking, and falls asleep against the breast of a stranger, knowing she is safe. The grandfather standing next to me is going to my town, too. We are neighbors, and he assumes the role of my guardian for the duration of the trip. A young couple scandalously lolls, unthinking, against each other, plowing through their journey swaddled in the unconscious bliss of being alone. We travel together in the same aluminum tube, different paths and reasons, but since this is Thailand, we all look out for each other, make sure the elderly and children have at least something to lean on in defense of the bus' careenings. We are always in a hurry. We rock back and forth to the unchanging drone of travel, frequently dotted with horrendous music, the puce of this landscape. Wiping rain out of her eyes, a grandmother, climbs into the aisle all ready crammed with humans, pushing her way through the solid mass, trying her best to get some one to buy her mangoes, chicken livers and eggs on sticks (I have no idea how they do that). But it's too crowded to eat. She lumbers off, all 4'3'' of her, to try the next one coming into the stop. With blank and shiny faces we sway around the road, wishing there had been room to eat some mangoes. The storm pounds the bus, producing smiles in some as the air cools a bit, and worrying others who have to walk home and have forgotten their umbrella. And I sit or stand, going, coming, moving within the metal sausage, compelled toward each destination by the machinations of engines I don't understand.
The question of the week, then, is, in the immortal words of Mr. Joe Strummer:
Should I stay or should I go, now?