NYE 2020

We put on onsies. Took pictures with the penis turtles outside our hotel hallway entrance to commemorate the beginning of the Eve evening. We drive to Seatara restaurant 5 minutes down along the beach, but nobody from the acro retreat was there... one family said Happy New Year as we entered the seaside bar, and after a moment asked me to make Chewbacca sounds, which I obliged because they asked with a little embarrassment and it was clearly to indulge their children. However I would have done it only for the adults just as readily. And, in truth, the parents looked equally as pleased as the children when I performed. Most likely, and I say this without boasting, I made a spot on imitation of a Wookie. Never have I ever before or since, but that was the night; New Years Eve 2020. That was the night I performed Chewy as I always knew I could. Small miracles, small miracles. 

Side note; “Chewbacca's distinctive growl was actually made by sound designer Ben Burtt, who created the sound by collecting noises made by bears, walruses, lions, badgers and sick animals.” - BBC News

We ordered a white russian, and, since I’ve always ordered white russians and tonight seemed to call for something different, I decided to live dangerously and changed my order to a black russian. Turns out black russians are NOT as good as white russians. So, I ask for some cream. The waiter, who was obviously not the bartender, took my glass and filled it with whipped cream. So, there I was, basking in my glow of Chewbacca performance precision, sitting next to my beautiful girlfriend in her otter onesie with a perfectly drinkable white russian, and I am sitting in my wookie onesie with a black russian topped with whip cream… sitting on a tropical seaside beach veranda with a family from middle america next to us, all of us silent and looking out at the slightly breezy ocean waves, with a tree growing through the center of the bar beside us, up through the floor and then out through the veranda ceiling, with fabric wrapped around it to show it was a spirit tree and holy in its pagan identity. The waiter eagerly watching me to see if I like my sweet russian… and I think, well, this is going to be an interesting night. 

We finished our russians, followed the digital breadcrumbs to where our other acro brethren were located… Jaran; a yoga wellness center full of people not in onesies. Nobody else on the island were in onesies in fact, at least as far as I knew, but Jaran was the only place that made us feel out of place for being weird. Which is unfair of them, as they were most definitely weird themselves by majority social standards. The new age look, with light flowing everything of extra yards of fabric seemingly in order to catch and retain the positive vibrations of their aura’s leaving their body, yet somehow contrasted with looks of judgement on the scowls of their foreheads, apparently believing that a couple of people in onesies could not possibly have attained a level of enlightenment high enough to notice their auras flowing from them. Which is true, I hardly saw any light bright auras, only their shadow imitations with their flowing clothes. The exception was a gentleman who had the sparkles in his eyes, he was surrounded by three or four of the most beautiful lost souls I have ever seen, and they were swooning on him, and, let me tell you, his aura was intensely lighting up the room, and with our moment of eye connect we both knew that we both knew the secret of the universe. 

Jay and I walked around a bit, smiled at people for an invitation to chat, but our onesies were giving most of them frowns, so we had some food. Ordinary ingredients, but quite good, rice with pomelo and coconut salad, cold pumpkin soup, something else or other but the rest of it was mediocre at best. After the paper plate sideline meal… jay tells it like this;

    'The people weren’t very friendly. We heard some howling that sounded like it could be people howling at the full moon but turned out to be a bunch of dogs. We howled with them a bit. Then we heard some music upstairs. We donated 20 baht to an orphanage as an entrance fee on the way up the stairs. There was a meditation circle going on with no available seating. So we stood there building the discomfort level until someone gave us a spot. This lady moved over just enough for one person to sit. Jay in front on the floor and Johnny on the mat. Then we listened to Niraj Naik lead us in Soma breathwork routine. Which will either you get you high on oxygen like in the case of Johnny, or induce anxiety as in the case, of me, Jay. After the meditation circle we went downstairs to get water. Attempted to smile at random strangers passing by but no one seemed to want to be friendly to us, so we wet off to sit outside and look at the full moon. We laid together, we laughed, we connected, we danced.' 

I remember, we played in the lawn, looked at the stars and the moon, possibly smoked, I'm not sure.... but it was quite wonderful for a few moments... then the area started to get very lively and a little crowded. Mostly crowded by the forms of light beings from other high dimensions, high celestial spirits, and also some enlightened bros too. There were a small, and wonderful percentage of enjoyable people who smiled with their eyes when their meandering gazes wandered over. They were the true celestial spirits. Despite the lovely smiling eyes around us, the liveliness and bro-iness was more than we preferred for an end of year moment. So, jay and I made our exit to our own place, the Haad Son Resort, famed for it's stacks of sculpted turtles marking the ends of hallways. a few kilometers away, we sung happily and we're in an overall decent mood. It was only 11pm, and we figured plenty of time to get a last drink before the final howl to the moon that ushers in the new year. We had previewed the drinking establishment before we'd left and had agreed it was more than adequate back up plan in case the night, turned out to be too, well, what it was... celestial and bro-y. 

What we hadn't planned on was the resort bar being closed. Well, not closed exactly just abandoned....

Luckily we had been prepared for all eventualities. We grab our whisky and random sweet asian treats and head to the abandoned resort bar. The bar was a type of tiki mixed with enchanted forest built on pilings in a cove the end of a small peninusla. There were wooden bench swings hanging from ropes and tiny gourds and small coconut shells hanging from strings across the pathway, like hippy beaded doorway curtains. It was quite surreal as no lights were on, just the full moon shinning down through the trees and the ocean softly crashing underneath the boardwalk floor built on the pilings. The wild was softly blowing and the coconuts and other hanging objects made echoes across the abandoned bar. 

We took some ice from the ice bucket behind the bar, walked out to the railing edge, and then climbed up into the treehouse area even further above and out over the ocean.

...more to follow...