Huai Lan

by Michela

P’Tor asks if America is more beautiful than Thailand. We both laugh: me at the absurdity of the question and him at my expression. I wonder about the America he is picturing: tall east coast skyscrapers, mid-west corn, cars on the highway, evergreens, orange leaves, diners.

If you asked what it looked like, here, I would start with the bathroom, the one on the balcony with its pretty tiles and slits near the ceiling. Washing away the day’s heat, I see the sky turn pink. And then, the dining table—soup with mushrooms from the sunrise morning, rice, always hot, eggs in every fashion you can imagine, greens from the vines climbing up the fence that the dogs can clear in a jump, pork, chicken, noodles, guava with chili-salt-and-sugar, pumpkin, coconut sweets. What I’m trying to say is this: I am surrounded by things that can make you full. The rice paddies. Every kind of cloud. Longan trees, tamarind trees, basil, bananas, and papayas. All the oldies I have memorized on P’Tor’s guitar. Language, a new word every day—sesame, rambutan, sun, moon, wake up, full, enough, wash, win, lose, miss, happy, worry, wear, airplane, forget, remember.

I would tell you how the smallest details here are unspeakably pretty: the little bowls and flower vases folded from banana leaves, woven mats splayed out in the shade, sliced dragon fruit, the albino lizard that matches the wall by the sink, bamboo fish and birds hanging by the kitchen, aluminum silver cups, skirts that remind me what color is: here is pink, here is purple, here is green. The mountains on all sides, every shade of light blue, faa, which also means sky. The wat, its abundance of flowers, paintings on the ceiling, shoes lined up by the steps like we’re all coming home.

P’Tor asks if America is more beautiful than Thailand and I can’t find the words to say no in the way that I mean to; to explain that sometimes it is so pretty I cannot bring myself to take pictures.

Originally posted here.