We've moseyed down to the beach near Hua Hin for the long weekend. It's the King of Thailand's Birthday and along with that Father's Day. I've got too much work to do it's true but one of the points of this new transition was to have more time to do nothing. Nothing is hard to adjust to however, wanting to be a better man I'll try and Meow has cleverly gotten Cody to chant "let's go talay". Talay means beach in Thai – he's bilingual now but some words get stuck on one side of the fence or the other. I get the point none the less. And here we are.
On Saturday we drive down the coast until we hit Cha-am looking for a good spots for kids and dogs spiced with Thai food and vibes. We find a long stretch of umbrellas and beach chairs and settle into what looks like a promising spot for doing nothing.
Next to us a group of young twenty-something sit in their beach chairs around the table of snack, soda and beer. One lanky boy with hair down over his eyes opens the door to the pick-up parked next to them and cranks up some music. I stare apprehensively at the six speakers in the car door. This can't work out well. Then out of the blue comes a song from the far past and I ponder on how it landed here.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
And don't worry 'bout tomorrow, hey, hey, hey
The moment, juxtaposition of time and space – all things are possible. Even enjoying full volume music I'm sure they can hear all the way back in and over the din of Bangkok. Soon enough the melodic rhymes of yesteryear are replaced by the ubiquities hip-hop rap rant that's only made marginally more interesting by being in Thai but soon enough it's switched to English and an endless chorus of fuck and motherfucker – powerful words wasted in a useless attempt to be powerful – much less interesting. It's time to pack up and move on.
Just a bit down the road in a similar beach chair, under a similar umbrella some delicious food shows up and I crack open my first novel in the past six months; what is supposed to be the quintessential western-boy-meets-Thai-girl book; Woman of Bangkok. Out of print I tracked it down on Amazon – spending a fortune to get my paws on the twenty+ year-old paperback with yellowed pages where I first see ".75" penciled in on the first cover page. Well I guess in dreary secondhand bookstore in Youngstown that might be about right. Cost a bit more to get it here.
The delight of a good novel, the sound of kids and surf in the background, a beer and good Thai music in the distance work their magic.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
And don't worry 'bout tomorrow, hey, hey, hey
Hi Derek,
Yes, live for the now... I am currently going through a bit of a personal issue and too often it is so easy to slip into the "what if" scenario that leads to thinking of the past and what could have been. The same is true of worrying about the future... live for today.
D
Posted by: Darren Sproat | January 07, 2009 at 03:55 AM