How the Brain Adjusts

 It’s Friday, and we have the first week of teaching under our belt. We’ve been here almost two weeks. And suddenly there’s a shift in our brains.

I must admit, our first days were spent in a haze, trying to make sense of our surroundings. Coming from a quiet, clean, tree-lined Midwest neighborhood and landing suddenly in a noisy, congested, dirty, crowded, polluted city brought its own culture shock. Our living area faces Ladprao Road, which produces a cacophony of never-ending traffic noise and sirens in full throat. (The bedroom is much quieter, but you can only spend so much time lying down.) A walk to the store or the gym is an assault on the senses: the roar of motorcycles, bursts of exhaust from rusty buses, cracked pavement, the stench of sewer water in the gutters, and humid heat bearing down on all of it.

The first week was one of intense focus—learning where to find food, where to shop, how to teach English, how to access medical care, how to explore a world that is bewildering and fast-paced and that doesn’t speak our language. Our brains were in survival mode.

When that happens, we forget a lot of who we are. Or at least, I do. Phil’s brain probably works differently from mine. (Perhaps the understatement of the year.) In survival mode, it’s possible to forget about large chunks of our life: Ernie (our dog), our home back in Minneapolis, friends and siblings we left behind, even our kids and grandkids (not exactly true, but much more true than I’d like it to be). 

For the first week or two, Phil and I were just two pieces of flotsam and jetsam trying to stay afloat in a turbulent river.

This morning, for the first time, I felt whole again. Connected to who I am as a mother and grandmother, as a writer and editor, as myself. That probably sounds silly. But it’s a great relief to me. As I ran on the treadmill in the gym, I remembered running along Rice Creek in Minnesota, down the dirt track that leads through tall grasses, dry and golden, not yet crumpled under snow; past stands of oak trees still holding onto the rust of their leaves; feeling the bite of icy, crisp air on my face. I was in my back yard, seeing the raised beds mulched with leaves, ready for winter, one rose bush still poking its thorns through the fence. Recalling the warmth of little Paul curled up beside me on the couch, playing Dragon City. Cooking dinners in Rachel’s kitchen. Walking with Katie in Volunteer Park. Ah, now I remember who I am. 

Thailand is still a bewildering place. The traffic noise is just as deafening, the stench of the gutters unmitigated. But my brain has finally accepted it as the new normal. We are no longer in survival mode.  And it doesn’t matter where in the world we’ve landed. Phil and I are still ourselves. And God holds us.

A 3-inch cockroach Phil stomped on after it terrorized us

by darting around on our kitchen floor.

Vats of chicken parts in the supermarket—all sitting out

at room temperature. Yes, those are chicken hearts.

The view from our barred kitchen window—six lanes of traffic.

Ladprao road at night. Even at 3 a.m. it’s busy.

View from our back door. Bangkok is crammed with people!

My running route at home.