WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2011
Dear Friends -
I pray this finds you healthy and happy. Being in one foreign place for an extended period of time is a bit different than a two day tourist--I try to conjure up the past, but it now seems as fictional as the stories I write. I remember leaving Kauai the end of June, 2010. I drove 27,000 US miles, you may have read some of my blogs, stayed here and there, wrote a 500 page novel, and ended up in Thailand, in a pink hotel, perched over an alley in the northeastern corner of the old moated square inner city of Chiang Mai . . . sitting on my third story balcony of my $15 room, above the hodge-podge of humanity, writing run-on sentences and wondering . . . should I get a banana/coconut smoothie or papaya/coconut? Papaya/banana? My room is on the middle balcony with the open window.
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| A Sunday Market Street dancer |
Writing the novelShambala - The Path to Pardise - is my passion. I’ve come to realize that in order to write with clarity I must be totally and completelyirresponsible. Writing fiction is a selfish endeavor, and to do it right the author needs to become lost in the fantasy world of his or her imagination. The further one journeys into the make-believe, the less real the entanglements of the so-called non-fictional world seem to be. Eventually it all becomes a fanciful illusion. One worth smiling upon. (like her)
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| Bronze statue in a local park |
So, how did I get here? I’ve been experiencinglistening - to my Inner Authority - for some time now - for all of the 27,000 miles and half-way around the world. Should I go there, Yes or No? Should I stay here, Yes or No? Trust the answer. I had no good reason to leave Chattanooga, Tennessee or Santa Cruz, California. Or even Kauai, for that matter. The Yes behind the question - Is it time to go? - propelled me on, no matter how safe or comfortable my life had become. One day I was all cozy in my brother’s Santa Cruz guest house and the next day I was in Eureka on the north coast, wondering where to go next. I emailed my old Kauai friend JB, who I remember liked Mt. Shasta. “Where are you?” He was in Ashland, Oregon - so I drove there. “I know why you’re here, bro,” he said. “Why?” I wondered. “You’re supposed to go with me to Thailand.” I got a big Yes and bought my ticket the next morning. I drove another 2,400 miles before I left Nov. 2nd. Goodbye car.
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| On my 5th draft |
One day - I’m walking Scuppers down Soquel Avenue in sunny California, and the next day - I’m riding my Mary Poppins basket bike, dodging trucks, cars and scooters in the insane Chiang Mai inner city traffic. I’m forced to be 100 percent 360 degrees aware, knowing that in a split second I could goSplat!! on the pavement. A thrill the people here do as second nature - to me a most fascinating life to experience. There are many new stories to tell . . . while I write the one that gives my life meaning.
For me Chiang Mai is a stepping stone. I am beginning to bring my story to myself. Thailand is my next first step of bridging fantasy fiction with “reality.” My fiction goes from the Pacific Northwest, to Japan, Burma, Nepal and into Tibet. I’m getting warm. My reality went from the Pacific Northwest to Thailand. Burma, Nepal and Tibet are not so very far away. My fiction goes from a police investigation, delving into the realities of life, to a magical mystical adventure on the “Path to Paradise.” This is what my novel and my real life story is all about. I’m waking up - becoming 100 percent 360 degrees aware - as I journey on my irresponsible and selfish path to paradise. I must experience the reality of my fiction.
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| This is not a bronze statue |
Before I close this blog I wanted to include this picture. Look at it - the man is real - the composition seems surreal. JB and I were riding our bikes through busy traffic and took a break at a mid-city driving range. We randomly sat behind this sixty year old ninety-five pound man. At first we couldn't believe what we were seeing. He started with a driver and one ball after the other went 250 yards straight down the middle. Then he changed to irons and kept hitting the ball right to the flag he aimed at. He hit at least 75 balls while we watched and didn't shank once - every ball was perfectly placed. Like this total Zen master of golf - skinny little old guy on a funky range in the middle of Chiang Mai, Thailand. I think our mouths were open the whole time. We were thinking he would make a hell of a golf grifter. "I'll tell you what - bring your best guy . . . I'll take that skinny old man over there." It was all as surreal as this picture.
Row, row, row your boat he said, life is but a dream.
Much love and blessings from Chiang Mai,
David Dakan Allison
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