Some memories burn in your head like a hot brand placed across your skin.
Some become mixed up with dreams. Dreams that depict a reality or so we think that’s what it is.
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The strong scent of incense in the temple pavilion wafts through my memory filters as if it were just yesterday i lay cross legged on the floor, surrounded by people decades older than i was. The flickering shadows casted by the hundreds of red candles placed all around kept a warm glow going in the golden room that was not really a room. There seemed to be too many openings, too many exits out of the place. This was necessary of course, there was no air conditioning; only the breeze that snaked it’s way into the place acting as a cooling system that worked maybe a little too well. It was hard for someone as young as me to stay awake in such conditions, i lapsed into phases of semi consciousness and sleep over the hours that we spent sitting on the wooden floor.
It was a love hate relationship with that temple i now no longer remember. Or maybe i never even knew it’s name or the exact location of the place.
The only clue i had was these cat dolls i would constantly bring back everytime we made a visit there or when my dad went and left me at home.
Over the years these cat toys disappeared from my life for reasons i cannot recall and they never made an appearance again until today. The images flashing in my head are too vivid to have been dreams.
I know that place. I know the hours i spent there and how hard it had been not to cry and wail in the circumstances of meditation at such a young age. The cats had been the official 1995 mascot of the Chiang Mai sea games. They were my best friends for the longest of time and i had an indirect obsession with them. Why did i let them disappear from sight? Where did they go? Did i not even keep a single one? This idea seems almost absurd. I love my dolls. I get too attached to things to throw them out. So why out of the multitude of other toys i had, was my Chiang Mai cats missing? I had at least 3 of them of various different sizes and materials. Is there something about that phase in my life that i was meant to forget?
But right now, at this moment; I can recall the smell and the sight almost too realistically.
Those red candles symbolised something to me. Although i do not know what but their lights had served as some sort of constant reminder of the place.
If i close my eyes and allow myself to calm enough, i can hear the chanting of the monks and the rustling of the bells. The soothing sing song way they said their Sanskrit behaved like a lullaby to me. I remember occasionally we would repeat some of these chants. I often wondered why i had such a strange affinity to those buddhist Sanskrit chants i collected from random times but it never once occurred to me that it was because of that temple and my repeated dreams of the place.
My final memory of that temple is the buckets of cold water.
The reason i hated the place.
I hate the cold and i hated how the monks would drench me in the cold water that was meant to be holy.
Yet i allowed it.
I liked how the little pinkish red candle wax floated in the water and how the water smelt. I think i even enjoyed drinking it.
I was fascinated when the wax droplets got themselves lodged in my hair and i would laugh picking them out and then collecting them to see what shapes they made out. My mother would tell me to throw them away but i always shoved them in my pockets and brought them back to the hotel with me.
I would smell like the incense they used for days there after.
It’s been well over 10 years.
I wish to stand in that pavilion again. Even if it’s just for a while.
The memories of the place are too haunting to forget.
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This year, i kept my dates open to return to Chiang Mai after all those years; sacrificing my yearly 2-4 week trips i make to get away from here. Chiang Mai had never once appeared in my consciousnesses as a holiday destination but for some reason this year it appeared. My 21st.
It may be superstition or just plain coincidence but for a hidden memory to relapse after so many years just strikes me as a little strange.
21st. Chiang Mai. Reiki. Yoga. Meditation.
.
.
.
The hotel has been paid for.
Only, it may not be happening anymore.
And i wished you would stop doing this to me year after year where anticipation builds up only to be slapped back with false hopes and disappointments.
Some wishes retracted inflict a lot more damage than others.
This is one of them.
