My Buddha Needs a Drink

It's been a rather tough week as far as tough weeks go in paradise-like Thailand. Not even so much with the usual suspects like weather, politics or traffic, although they do rear their wet, corrupt and congested heads every so often. No, I'm talking about our little household. Sometimes the mechanics of keeping a household spinning around chores, finances and social engagements seems like you're running a machine that is falling apart as soon as you turn its back on it. There's a saying 'when it rains, it pours', and well, let me tell you. When it rains here, it really really pours and then my Buddha needs a drink.

I've concentrated this whole week on work. It feels like a whole week and it's only Thursday, so that's saying a lot right there. And the fact that I don't even have work, maybe even more. But I tried looking for work in the most basic of ways. Too often I try to get whatever I am doing right by immediately fine-tuning details. This often causes me to lose my way and more than occasionally to lose my focus and drive and fail to produce results.My art teacher told me a long time ago in high school: 'Stop fidgeting with the details. Commit to bold strokes first and just make something. Anything.' But I never mastered that skill. Together with a steady portion of procrastination and sidetracking (thank you Internet) and a perfect storm of going nowhere occurs on a daily base.

So not much work got done this week. Instead I got sidetracked by running school errands for my son, feeding the Thai bureaucracy time and money with work permit requests for my wife and the standard set of chores - groceries, paying bills and birthday arrangements for Alex. And this is when I didn't get sucked in by Facebook and Huffington Post. I managed to post my resume online, but not much else than that. Normally I would sit down in front of our wooden Buddha statue, which we brought with us from Sri Lanka and meditate for twenty minutes. It's not much (in effort or results), but it's a start, right? Well, now I'm just so tired, I nod off and can't stay focussed, so I feel discouraged from the start. And he weeps for it.

Or so it would seem. It's actually the rain that has been steadily falling in massive thunderstorms since June and flooding the top floor hallway in which our Buddha statue rests. Thai's like giving their deities drinks, flowers and food in ways of offerings. We're pragmatists: we just wait until it's finished raining. It's almost poetic how my lack in mindfulness and meditation coincides with the Buddha making his own presence aware, sitting in a puddle of water each morning after a cloud-bursting rainfall. My Buddha needs acknowledgment, an offering, a drink. And I need one too.