Life in the compound
The Basics
As I’ve said, the Mut Mee guest house is at the end of a narrow gravel lane. On the way there is a bookstore with Internet, an art studio and a yoga studio. Mut Mee itself is a collection of seven buildings and bungalows scattered around the leafy grounds, with a courtyard of its center. The courtyard has three open thatched-roof seating areas lined up overlooking the river and the Lao mountains across on the far side. A cool breeze plays over the tables all day. You can sit at the last one if you need to be left alone, at one of the intermediary tables if you are working but open to socializing, or at the long social table right at the front that I think of as Julian’s Table because that is where he usually holds court. Julian is the owner. He is very British or perhaps I only think that because he wears button-up shirts and speaks with an Oxford accent.
How It Works
There is a little book for each room. Every time you take something from the self-service drinks fridge, you enter it in. When you want food from the kitchen, you write down what you want, then lay it open on the prep table for the cooks. Each morning when you open your book, the previous day has been tallied, the date is entered and there is a greeting, “Good morning Sandy!”
What I Do Here
In the morning, I get dressed and ready, and go immediately out to the courtyard. I drink coffee, I write in my journal, I talk to people. Passing the time is a highly evolved practice here. Hours pass with people drifting in and then away. There is a larger, slower cycle to the days than what I am used to. I may work two hours out of the day and spend the other fifteen talking or sitting with other people. There is a good deal of people just sitting together. It has been a very long time since I have had that bonding experience of being with people only to be with them. To sit quietly or listen or talk, with no expectations, no goals, and no time limits. To be together only because humans are social creatures who enjoy each other’s company.
Last night – after a long day of sitting around in the Mut Mee garden – I was, yes, still sitting in the garden, drinking a gin & tonic and passing the time with a table of new friends, most of whom either work at Mut Mee or have otherwise built lives for themselves in Nong Khai. Two from America, two from England, one from Ireland, one from Puerto Rico and one from Belgium. I looked around and thought that this is a completely spontaneous moment. No one planned this in advance. No one is here because this the hip new spot. No one is here because they are networking. No one is here because another person here has an agent who works closely with a casting director who may be…
And it also struck me that no one sitting around this table thinks it’s even a tiny bit odd that I’ve given up my entire life in LA and flung myself halfway around the globe into a totally unknown future because life as I knew it stopped working. They understand. I am at the beginning of a journey that every person sitting around this table has taken. They know the fear and the beauty of it, and so all they do is remind me that I will find my way; that I will eventually understand why it was necessary that everything happened just exactly as it did and as it is doing. And slowly, slowly I am starting to believe them.
Tags: Nong Khai, Thailand
sandra_101
Yeah! Thank gawd for the Mut Mee guest house! It sounds like that was JUST where you needed to be. Did you bring a camera? I want to see pictures! What animals have you seen besides the black cat in the cemetery?
Yeah good luck making it big as an actress hanging out with a bunch of NOBODYS in CHINA. Yeesh.