12

After my Vietnam e-Visa got delayed, Laos welcomed me through my last days in SEA. And this is how I wrote about my first encounter with Laos's atmosphere on my journal:

"Up in that temple, sat by the watch of a thousand golden budhas, the yellow glowing sunlight hit my face, fillinf me with warmth, strenght - vital energy. I closed my eyes and let the light shine on and through me. I let its heat invade my spirit.

Not so slowly, the sun took rest in its home beyond the mountains, coloring the sky orange, welcoming the darkness, blending its color. Purple.

Shimmering, glithering are the waters of the Mekong running north, strong but stable in its ever changing chemistry."

When I arrived in Phuket, the first thing I did was walk to the beach, step in the wet sand and listen to the sound of the waves breaking. As if welcoming me to this new place, the water was warm, the small waves by the shore felt like gentle ripples of joy. The sun was hitting my skin and I could feel my body absorbing its energy, its rays finding me now in another direction. The blue sky by the horizon showed me immense possibilties of becoming. I wanted to stay there forever.

It's been long since I've been to the beach. This first moment in Phuket, before even settling in, was as letting my inner voice guided me to that point of contact with the ocean, and I was so glad it did.

This birthday feels different. Not bad, just different. There are no cards with hand written letters, no cakes made by your best friends, no surprise party, no shower, and again, sem o pai e a mãe. In Mae Sapok, in the mother of the ever turning river there was a cake, a chocolate cake with raspberry cullie, and brownies. There were coxinhas, and pastel and feijoada. I don't even like feijoada, but I ate it, I felt loved, I felt seen. There was tight hug, flooding you with love as a waterfall fills a creed with life. This birthday feels different. But there is something that I never felt without it: love.

It might have been impulsive to book surf classes that day - but something inside me knew I needed them. The first class went horribly skillwise. The first class also went amazing, I remember swallowing so much water because everything I fell, I would laugh, a lot.

I remembered the 8-year-old Doug with his foam board, spending hours in the water playing with waves. That Doug did not care if he was bad, or if people were looking, or if he looked silly - he was playing, he was having fun. Surf classes gifted that Doug that lives inside me to reminde of how fun it can be very bad at something.

It was in my 3rd class that I could catch my first wave and. what. a. moment. I couldn't believe.