Healing House — Missed Epiphanies at a Hipster Gathering in Chiang Mai
Not all who wander are lost, but most are
I certainly was, in both senses of the phrase, some years ago, in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. This was not a happy time, but a significant one; I’ve since learned that the best memories are not always the good ones.
As I remember, I was lost in the literal sense while looking for a bar in the old city square. I walked around for a while, looking for this bar, an alternative place my friends had arranged to meet for the evening. I was lost, and ashamed at being lost, feeling that no twenty-first century traveller has the right to be lost when all our ancestors have been here before us and paved the way, and when we have all the information we need in our pockets, all the time.
I’d been to this bar before and had a vague idea of where it was, and I felt I was close, so I walked along the soi, looking out for any sign of familiarity. The curbs of the pavements, as I remember them, were painted red and white, and those pavements were mostly taken up street stall vendors, and the roads were full of honking scooters and grumbling tuk-tuks, and all of it lived under a grey, smothering sky, hot, but not bright.
I pulled out my pack of cigarettes, my L&M deng lek. On the box there was a picture of a dead baby on one side, and a limp dick on the other.
I was an addict at this time, I should point out, an addict of various substances, but mostly of a lifestyle. A hedonistic, unexamined and isolated lifestyle, an individualist lifestyle, half existing behind a cloud of smoke, stuck on the shelf of my own existence. At the time, of course, I didn’t really think I was an addict. I just thought I was someone with hobbies they took very seriously. I only became an addict, it seemed, when I tried to stop.
Eventually, after wandering around for a while, I found the place. It was a little bar on a back street, behind a Mexican restaurant. It was a cool bar; a collection of shiny motorbikes along one wall, many different national flags hanging from the ceiling, posters of old Hollywood film stars hung up around the place.
It was almost empty except two old Western men in the corner, drinking Chang beer and staring into space.
In her usual spot, at the head of the large, oblong, central table, was the proprietor of the place, a matriarchal, mafioso Thai woman everyone referred to as Mama. At this time, I remember, she was sitting with a cat in her lap, counting wads of money, smoking a joint. Her liberal view of partaking in such an activity was, as I recall, at least half the reason my friends and I frequented the establishment at all.
Mama looked up from her Rama 9s and saw me. I gave her a humble wai, the old bowing of the head with the hands clasped. This was a simple act I learned meant a lot to locals, who may not have known much about me, but would appreciate any effort I made to show respect in a way that made sense to them.
Thai people, I learned, might be sceptical of foreigners at first, but when they let you in, when they accept you, they can’t do enough for you.
Mama gave me a cool nod back, and I sat at a quiet table by myself.
I turned my eye to the television, placed on a mantle above us, broadcasting a game of Sepak Takraw. I’d seen people play this on the streets; a highly skilled and athletic game, a combination of football/soccer and volleyball, played with a wooden ball, with teams of five or so hitting it back and forth over a net with their feet. The Burmese cleaners at my school played it, after hours, and I always marvelled at the immense technique and athleticism they played with, even the aging ones. These were what seemed like happy moments for them, the Burmese being something of an openly treated second class citizen in the country.
I watched the game for a while, smoking away in isolation, until my friends arrived.
My friends were two Americans, Abbie and Virginia. Abbie was small and white, with mousy brown hair and big eyes, and more like me, more like a Brit, a Brit with addictions and a mild but insidious form of depression. A person with a colder, more cynical view of the world. Virginia, on the other hand, was not like me. She was not just American; she was Californian. She connected her sentences in that way, where she said ‘eeeeaaand’ instead of ‘and’, and she often monologued dramatically, like she was the lead character in a movie. I could say all Americans speak this way, like they’re on a screen, but this would be an unfair generalisation, and also completely ingorant of the fact that I, and many others like me in the west, live this way too. She was black with frizzy, curly hair, and I sometimes told myself she wasn’t really my friend, she was Abbie’s friend and I just tolerated her, but this was only half true, however firmly I believed it at the time.
It turned out Virgina had some plans us for that night.
She wanted us all to go to Healing House.
I said, “That sounds like some kind of hippie, aura cleansing, beanbag love session, or something. Sounds awful.”
“You would think that,” Abbie said, then laughed at herself.
“You don’t even know what it is yet,” Virginia said, with her nose all scrunched, which was something that often happened when she talked to me. “It’s so cool. It’s a bit like a house party, with people hanging out and chilling and drinking and smoking and stuff, but an open mic type thing too. Music, poetry, comedy, whatever, you can just do whatever, it’s like, all totally free. It’s about that, the freedom thing. It’s like, a whole community, a whole movement.”
“Oh right, yeah, so a big hippie thing. A room full of weeping people in elephant pants.” Abbie laughed and repeated what I said, which was something she did a lot.
Virginia laughed too, but while shaking her head in disappointment at me. She and I often had problems because she thought I was a negative person and I thought she was a fraud, and, well, probably, looking back now, we were both right.
“You’re so closed-minded.”
“It’s like you’re trying to invite me to my own personal nightmare.”
Abbie laughed again and repeated what I said again.
At some point during our conversation in Mama’s bar, Dirty Old Bukowski walked in. I called him Dirty Old Bukowski because, well, he looked a little bit like Bukowski, and because he was old and dirty. He often came in, with his silver hair tied in a ponytail, greasy and shining, with his ripped denim shorts and sandals, and got hammered by himself, talking to whomever would listen.
He walked in and greeted Mama and her cat and got a large Chang and went for a spot in the corner, but then stopped as he noticed us, as he noticed Abbie and Virginia. He was a dirty old man. He licked his lips, then picked up an empty chair and pulled it over to our table and plonked it down.
He looked at Virginia with his veiny, manic eyes and said, “Hey little lady. You really are something else, you really are beautiful, you know that?”
And Virginia seemed, for a moment, to be genuinely flattered and charmed, but then laughed it off, and then Dirty Old Bukowski said, “Did you know I was a dancer?”
And Abbie said, in her cold, deadpan tone, “Actually, yes, we did know that, thank you.”
“That’s a beautiful voice. You from California?”
“Not at all.”
“Back in ’62, boy, you should’ve seen me then, little lady. In San Fran, everyone knew me. I would’ve swept you off your feet. Yep, I was one hell of a dancer. Everyone knew me, in all the clubs, I could get in anywhere, could get you in too. Man, I had my girls. I danced with Tina Turner. She wanted to marry me. I had to break her heart.”
Abbie said, “There’s not one part of that story that sounds like a lie,” and I laughed.
Virginia asked, “You still got the moves?”
Then Bukowski says, “Nah, nah . . . All I got now is my memories.”
And for a little moment there was a profound silence, and then Abbie looked to me, and I looked back, and we nodded. We finished our drinks and got up, and then Virginia followed. We left Dirty Old Bukowski alone with his beer and his memories. He didn’t stop talking even as we got up; he was actually still talking to us as we were getting up and leaving, even while we said goodbye to Mama and went outside. I don’t know when, or if he ever stopped.
The girls got on their bikes. I got on the back of Virginia’s.
We drove through the old city. I was on the back, watching the orange haze go by, the silky, thready night air brushing against the hairs of my arms. I watched the street stalls and roadside shops and the footbridges go by, and remembered there was life moving all around, a life which I often forgot about while I stayed at home, by myself, lost in a cloud of smoke and televised entertainment, in a room I rented at a ghost hotel on the outskirts of town.
There were cars and scooters, some of which had entire families huddled onto them, others of which had lone drivers transporting kilograms of wood.
We drove through the dense, dusky air, out of the old city and into the suburbs, as the sky turned dark and purplish.
We weaved around some sinuous streets until we found a street where all the houses were quiet and dark, all of them except for one.
There were people outside the house, all westerners, standing around, drinking and smoking, talking, laughing, spilling out from the house, which was small and overflowing.
It seemed that this was it, this was Healing House.
I was here even if I didn’t want to be, didn’t agree to be. I already wanted to go home, back to the ghost hotel, where I could, instead of having this experience, just watch a TV show while pretending that one day I was going to write my own. I was addicted to, as much as any substance, living life through my screen instead of the real way.
We got off our bikes. Abbie and Virginia headed toward the house, but I hung back, pull out another cigarette. On the box there was a dead baby on one side, a limp dick on the other, all the time, dead babies and limp dicks.
Abbie turned around and noticed I wasn’t next to them. She raised her eyebrows, asking me a question without asking it.
I said, “I’m clearly going to hate it.”
Then Virginia turned around and saw me and laughed but with no music in her voice, only frustration, an angry laugh, and she said, “God! You’re so stubborn!”
“It’s a house full of sad, hipster poets, who are nothing like me, and wouldn’t want me there.”
“It’s Healing House. You’re meant to be sad there.”
Abbie said, “Yep, and you’re the saddest person I know.”
Then they turned around and walked away and gave me the choice of joining them or standing in the street all night, and I thought about walking all the way back to my ghost hotel room, just to show them, but then I decided it was probably not worth it, so I walked forward, and joined them.
Inside the house, there were people. An international conference of sorts: people of all nations and colours, lots of people, in closed, intimate circles, deep in what looked and sounded like urgent, important conversations.
Within a few seconds, I lost Abbie and Virgina, and it was just me, standing there on the wooden floor, the walls draped in fabrics, nodding to myself. There was a thin staircase to my left, full of people sitting and talking. I could overhear little bits conversation, flashing snippets under the overall chorus:
“I class myself as damaged, so it’s hard for me to open up.”
“I hear they’re making a visa for digital nomads soon.”
“I masturbated six times today.”
“Queen, what you need to is you need to find the best way to navigate this space.”
It was everything I thought and feared it would be.
I found Virgina again, in the kitchen, in a conversation with a hipster with aviator sunglasses and a beard. I overheard her say, “Oh, I’m a teacher. Aren’t we all teachers? Or digital nomads, whatever that is.”
Then she saw me and introduced me.
“This is my friend. He’s a writer.”
I grimaced and shook my head and said no, I was not a writer, but the guy seemed to like the fact that I was one, and asked me if I was going to read anything tonight.
I laughed and said no.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not a worthless whore.”
Virginia winced, and her hipster friend laughed, but not in a way that made it sound like he found it funny.
“You told me you wanted to write a travel memoir, or a novel? A screenplay?” Virgina asked hopefully.
This might have been true, but I’d have preferred it if it wasn’t, because I knew it would be pointless anyway, because I knew I’d never be able to truly bottle and release my experience, and because there were all these rules and formulas about writing that I didn’t care about, and then there was promoting it and having a social media presence and looking for an agent and making submissions, which was all so hollow and joyless, it just sucked the meaning out of it, it made it feel like writing wasn’t about writing at all, and so it felt like I shouldn’t even try to start with anything, because it made me too miserable to even think about.
No, it was better to just pretend, to live in my haze, in my screens, in my own fantasy.
I just shook my head and tried to laugh it off, feeling, in that bleak moment, perhaps more keenly than ever, the isolation I lived in, almost voluntarily.
Then Virginia said, “So these guys were telling me about a cuddle party they’re having soon, you wanna come?”
I forcedly blinked and asked, “What is a cuddle party?”
“You know, a chilled gathering, to practise consent, and saying yes or no to being touched, and having that safe space to touch all over cool people, in a nonsexual way.”
Then all I had was a blank stare, for a few moments, before I belched in my mouth and laughed and walked away, and Virginia scrunched her face in that way again.
I walked into the living room where someone was sitting on the floor rolling a joint. There was an old hippie guy with long grey hair standing near him, trying to strike up a conversation.
“What’s that, bro? Indica? Sativa?”
“It’s just weed.”
I looked to the door again, and then, just as I was about to go towards it, back to my ghost hotel, to sit by myself and turn all these people and this experience and all experiences into entertainment in my head, there was the sound of microphone feedback. Then the sound of beatboxing. The conversations hushed, and everyone turned to look at a tall, handsome black guy, standing in the centre of the living room, holding a microphone. All the people, from inside and outside, came together and found places to sit or stand.
My pathway to the exit was now blocked by sitting, smiling people, and I felt I’d rather not risk stepping on their hands as I tried to stumble my way out to go home and be by myself, so I just sat where I was, on the floor.
I had no idea where Abbie or Virginia were.
The MC looked out at everyone, smiled broadly and meaningfully, then took a seat on a chair that appeared beside him.
“I had such a lovely today, you know, did anyone else have such a nice day?”
A few nods and words of agreement.
“I slept in late, and woke up to the rain. Did y’all see that rain earlier today? That was, like, almost biblical. It was intense.”
“Yeah man!” The old hippie guy with long grey hair shouted his approval.
“It was, like, real cleansing, though, you know?” And to this the gathering gave their vociferous approval.
Then the MC picked up a piece of paper on a clipboard, and said, “Alright, so here’s the list. Write your name down. If there’s anyone new here, then, you know, let me tell you what this place is about. Safe space. Express yourself. That’s what we’re here for. Do whatever you want. Maybe you’ve got, like, a special talent, you can do something better than anybody else, you can, I dunno, you can juggle. You’re the best goddamned juggler, but your daddy never let you, he wanted you to be a doctor, but you just wanted to juggle,” and they were all laughing now, “your whole life you’ve waited to juggle, well you can juggle here. I know a lot of you, but if you are new, then, welcome. I’m glad you’re here. No one is here by accident. Alright, who’s up first?”
A girl with red hair and red elephant pants got up. Her friends around her cheered. She took the mic and high-fived the MC, and then she pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and dived right into an intense dramatic reading of a poem, which was about Trump, how his skin was orange, and how he was old, and it was pretty clear that she didn’t like him, that she was very angry with him, and everyone else was in agreement with her.
Everyone in this place was into this, it seemed, the act of reading out emotionally charged poetry and relishing the attention, everyone except me.
She finished her poem and then three more spoken word poets got up.
I wished I could find Abbie, so we could look down on all this together.
Then, as one of them finished their poem, the MC took the mic back to introduce the next person, but then a guy, a guy clearly high out of his mind, with eyes almost bleeding, swooped in and took the mic, like he just couldn’t wait another minute. The MC actually looked a little irritated, for a moment, but then he sighed and laughed and handed the mic over. The high guy took it and started speaking into it, with a real urgency, like he just had to say what he was about to say.
“I’m from Chicago. My dad grew up there, and so did his dad, and so on, but at one point, my great, great, great grandfather, or I don’t know where exactly, but at one point we weren’t in Chicago, we were in Africa. That’s where we’re from. And we were free people. But we were captured and put into slavery, for a whole bunch of generations. My family were forced to be in America, and so was I. And, like, people want to tell me I’m free now. They want to say slavery is over, man, now I’m free. But my ancestors, what language did they speak? Did they speak English? I’m speaking English to you now. When I fall asleep at night, the thoughts in my head are in English. So it’s like, even if they think we’re free, they’re still in our minds. Those men who captured my ancestors, they planted something that will last for centuries, maybe more. I can’t escape the language I think in. That’s their language. That’s not the language my ancestors cried out in when they were taken from their land. That’s not the language they told their children that they loved them with. But here I am, and I don’t know a word of that language. I know the other language. And I’ll never be free from it. I’ll never really be free.”
And then he put the mic back down and went back into the crowd, and no one knew quite how to react. There was some clapping, and clearly there were people who agreed with the guy and were moved by what he said.
Then the MC picked up the mic again and called up the next guy. This guy had blonde hair and glasses and a large nose, with a general air of sadness around him; his shoulders were slumped, his expression meek. The MC hugged him as he reached the makeshift stage area.
The guy read his poem.
“Jesus Christ’s cock and balls . . .”
I stopped listening and daydreamed for a while, and then, after a while of swimming around in my own watery internal melancholy, I was brought back into the room, into Healing House, where I almost forgot I was. Now someone was talking about their feelings while someone played a guitar softly underneath them, and it actually sounded kind of nice, but then I reminded myself of my duty to hate it.
I caught sight of Virginia, through the faces. She had a tear in her eye.
Then it finished and everyone applauded and congratulated and masturbated each other. I looked at my phone to see the time. It was still early. I could still have gone home.
Then, the guy next to me, an Indian guy, got up. He picked up the guitar and took a seat on the chair on the makeshift stage.
“Hey guys. I’m Swan. I’m going to sing some songs I wrote for you. Well, I didn’t write them, for you, but I wrote them, and now I’m going to sing them for you.” A few little laughs and whoops. “But first actually I wanted to tell you all, I just had my 35th birthday. A few days ago.”
“Happy birthday!”
“Thank you.”
“You’re the best!”
“And I thought, you know, after eighteen, after twenty-one, you don’t get any more significant birthdays. They stop really meaning anything. So I thought I was done with all the important birthdays. But I was wrong. This birthday, thirty-five, I realised, is the first time I’m closer to fifty than I am to eighteen. That’s the first time. This birthday is that landmark for me.” A few more laughs and whoops and cheers. “So with that in mind, I want to sing this song I wrote. It’s called ‘I won’t be singing this song when I’m old.’”
Swan played his song, the swansong. It was a slow, melancholic song, fingerpicked. His eyes were closed the whole time he sang it. The rest of the room went appreciatively quiet.
Swan sang lyrics like, “We can grab the crimson roses and crush them into the breeze.”
I was staring at the floor before me, rocking back and forth, while Swan sung his song, the swansong, seeming to really care about every word he said. There was a girl next to me, whose eyes were closed and fists were clenched.
He finished, and the whole room clapped. The MC voiced his appreciation, and said he was going to be singing that song in his head for the rest of the week.
Swan readied up his next song, but in that moment, I decided I didn’t want to be here anymore. I told myself I was nothing like these people. I looked around for Abbie, but I couldn’t see her. Before Swan started singing again, I got to my feet, apologised for nearly stepping on someone’s hand, then walked to the door, and left.
On my way home, back to my ghost hotel, my hole where I missed but knew would be scared of as soon as I got there, I made lots of eloquent, angry speeches in my head about how and why I hated that kind of thing. I said, passionately, that there was nothing lower than standing in a room full of strangers and giving away your art for a moment of cheap catharsis. I told myself that your feelings are devalued if you so freely trade them with a room full of hipsters who care more about how they look and how the whole thing looks than about anything real.
But what I didn’t say, and what I’ve thought about in the years since, is how that was all a well articulated defence, that it nothing more than a rehearsed and polished lie, and the truth was that I was terrified, terrified that I might never fill the big black hole inside myself, terrified to admit that I was the same as them all, wanting to be heard but at the same time not wanting to be one of many all standing and shouting in a room, terrified to admit that there were millions of others like me, like them, like us, who called themselves writers and artists, special and gifted, when really they were nothing, I was nothing at all, just someone who felt like a tortured genius when the truth was that I was only tortured. . .
I went back home that night, to my ghost hotel room, where my loneliness and addictions waited for me. I went on living in that same way, stuck on the shelf of my own existence, too shy to step out into the world and be vulnerable and embarrassed and authentic with the world, for quite some time.
Not all who wander are lost, but I certainly was, more so than anyone else in that ensemble of sad souls, even if I told myself I wasn’t.
