My Facebook memory feed just popped up and took me back nine years–to Thailand. I had an eleven-hour layover on my way back from Australia. A“one night in Bangkok (and the world’s your oyster).” But what good was that? I couldn’t do much of anything with just one night. 

So I called the airlines and asked if I could extend it. 

“Sure,” she said, “you’ll just have to pay the taxes.” 

While she put me on hold to find out how much they were, I did a quick Google search of ‘things you need to know when traveling in Thailand.’ I was through the first ten–exchange rate (awesome), cost (cheap), the cuisine (good for vegetarians)–when she came back on the line.

“About twenty-two dollars.” 

Sold. I stretched it to a week (once there, I would wish I’d made it for longer). I made no plans, just followed my gut. I jumped on a ferry to the island of Kho Chang, then took a taxi–which meant riding in the bed of a pick-up truck and whacking the quarter panel when you wanted to be dropped off. I watched until I caught the vibe of a place. 

A poster advertising a full moon party piqued my interest. It was in front of a little resort with cheery yellow hobbit houses. A place to stay with a party on the beach bonus. Whack! I hit the quarter panel.

Fire twirlers kept time with the drum beats as the sun set over the gulf. Then a DJ came on in the moonlight. When I got tired, I swung in a hammock on the porch of my hut, listening to waves. Eating breakfast the next morning meant sitting on a cushion on the floor at a low table. Going in to a 7-Eleven, you took your shoes off and added them to the neat row of flip flops by the door. Thailand smelled like incense and felt like devotion. 

On my second night, while trying to take a selfie on the beach at sunset, a German guy approached and kindly offered to take it for me. We hung that night, sitting on cushions and drinking cheap Thai beer. He mentioned he was going exploring the island the next day and invited me along. The next morning I hopped on the back of his scooter zipping over hills and washed out gravel roads towards Lost Beach–so remote it ran on generators. We stopped at a park on the way to climb boulders and jump off into a swimming hole with waterfalls. We drank more Chang beer on the beach and acted out a play with twigs and shells. As night fell we decided to not go back, climbing a ladder up to a hut on stilts next to the shore and becoming lovers. 

In all my travels, this was the first time going to a country where I didn’t know anyone, didn’t speak the language and was all on my own. A powerful experience I wanted to commemorate with a tattoo. Like everything else, they were cheap. Different from the States, they were done with a needle made from bamboo. The shops were everywhere. I saw many getting them done while asleep, or maybe they were passed out, either way they were verifying the advertising touting it as less painful than machines.

It wasn’t. It took me two whole pokes to figure that out. But what do you do? I considered calling it off but then I’d have a few black dots on the backside of my neck. Keep going, hoping I’d toughen up, but each poke seemed to be more painful. I seriously stressed at my decision, my conundrum. Just then the South African chick I’d watched a few doors down popped in to show off her completion and ask how I was doing. 

“It hurts!” I almost cried. 

Her accent was soft, but her words were strong, “That’s because you’re resisting. You’ve gotta go into it.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. What if my acceptance was mistaken for approval and make it even worse? 

The artist stopped and asked if I wanted a cigarette.

I hadn’t smoked for years but I reached for it with an I’ll-try-anything attitude. 

Inhaling, exhaling. Breathing in pain, releasing it out and accepting. A little more each inhale and exhale. I found the rhythm comforting and paid more attention to the music in the shop. By the time the cigarette was done I’d relaxed into it, puffed my way above the pain. I went even further into it and it continued. I was in some sort of communion with it. 

When he was done, I was disappointed it was over. 

Years later, watching an episode of Parts Unknown, I heard a story that reminded me of this experience. It gave a take I was proud to resonate with. A native Hawaiin told the story he’d heard from a guy going out on a boat with his grandfather when he was five years old. 

“He said ‘When the wave make the canoe move, the canoe make me sick, my grandfather throw me in the ocean so I can go inside the wave. And when I go inside the wave, I become the wave. And when I become the wave, now I’m navigator.’ At five.”  

Acceptance doesn’t mean giving permission to get worse. Acceptance means going into it, joining with it. That’s where my strength is–in realizing I don’t have any limitations. Resistance is really just arguing for my limitations. Becoming one with what I fear dissolves limitations.