Eau du Joy

-A few days later we visited Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple in Asakusa. The light snow that morning did not deter visitors from showing up in their kimonos to get the perfect photo. Or give their offerings. Or receive fortunes for the new year. If you don’t like your fortune, just tie it in a bow and leave it behind. So focus on the positive I guess?

-We were told that most people in Japan identify as both Shinto and Buddhist, often having a Shinto wedding and Buddhist funeral. The Shinto shrines are the ones with the famous tori gates, the most famous of which are the thousands of tori gates at the Fushimi Inari Taisha shrine with about 10,000 red gates leading up Mount Inari. When walking through these portals, stopping to bow creates portals between the mundane and the divine. Shinto is centered around animism, the idea that everything has a spirit. The value of that is that locals respect things around them, from stones to wood to structures, valuing keeping things clean and tidy and in order. Respecting the rivers around us, the trees and plants that breathe life into our atmosphere, and the stones that provide solid ground, seems like a survival instinct our current society would be wise to follow. We don’t need to worship them, but respecting the natural world and products made from it would serve us well to avoid our own self-made destruction which currently seems inevitable if we don’t forget he political will to correct our ways. -On our last day in Kyoto we wandered around the park by our ryokan and were drawn in by the chants of monks at the Chion-in temple. This beautiful large complex is centered around an enormous central temple made of dark wood with painted white and gold features. The elegant soaring architecture is every bit as awe-inspiring as the cathedrals of Europe, but I found the gold accents against the almost black wood inside so much more focusing. It’s easy to see how it would be such a good place for prayers and meditation. I’m not sure I understand much about Buddhism, but meditation reminds one of the transient nature of life, that we leave everything behind when we die, and that charity to others is important, as well as being as kind of possible. If we all kept in mind that sharing with others is a virtue we should all embrace, perhaps we could all have health care and good education. I wish we structured our economy in a way that truly redistributed wealth for the common good. Maybe fewer golden ballrooms and more feeding the poor.

2025 Chiang Mai temple tour First we stopped at Wat Umong, a Buddhist temple with a cave-like quality under a brick structure to keep things cool. The dark arches were marked with small Buddha shrines and wall insets for candles with soot staining the walls echoing the memory of quiet dark nights of meditation.

One of the guardian statues of this location has a small stone inscription next to it that translates into, “When Money Talks, the Truth is Silent.” Seems relevant today more than ever. Wat Phra That Doi Suthep is one of the most famous temples around Chiang Mai. The king was looking for a spot for a temple and supposedly the white elephant they were traveling with circled three times the top of this mountain and the location was chosen. Elephants with albinism usually don’t have good eyesight, so maybe its third eye / ajna chakra was leading the way. Aum. The snakelike figures that wind up and down the sides of the stairs are called Naga, and the southern coast around Krabi is referred to as the Land of Naga. At Wat Doi Suthep, they guide you up 306 steps to the top. There are so many different spaces for prayer or medication or blessings at the top, including dedications to the white elephant, the monk who started the shrine, the jackfruit tree planted by the queen. With lotus flower in hand, and a candle, walking around the temple three times and chanting is a way to receive a blessing or wish. There are also monks who will offer holy water and a blessing to visitors. We arrived around sunset and were able to hear the monks chanting for their evening meditation. The lead monk welcomed everyone and led the younger monks. The prayer spaces have so many symbols and Buddha images, and some of the king as well. We learned there is a Buddha pose for every day of the week (Wednesday gets two, day and night, for some reason). The Thursday one is for meditation, and we’re both Thursday babies. In addition to Buddhist images, we also found Chinese zodiac symbols and Ganesha, a Hindu god. So these temples recognize the multiplicity of religions in the area.

Sage did some research on ethical elephant sactuaries and found Into the Wild outside Chiang Mai. The local Karen people live in this jungle, and they grew up revering and taking care of elephants. This outfit rescued the elephants from being used for transportation and logging. They have five elephants, two families. They only keep female elephants, as the males are too dangerous for the staff when they get hormonal. So only tiny tusks here, but they’re very well cared for. Our guide Dej explained how these gentle giants get to roam free among about three mountains, and they get monthly vet checks for dangerous conditions like elephant herpes, which can make it too painful to eat. If they don’t eat for a few days to a week, they could die. They have tons to choose from in the forests here, and the human helpers give them “medicine balls” with chopped up grains, turmeric for digestion, thistle and wormroot for immunity and blood sugar control and high blood pressure prevention, bananas, and a bit of extra sugar and salt. The oldest mother in this group is 52, and they are preparing to breed her again next year, as they can have babies until about age 60, though the gestation period is 2 years. The older ones lose some of their gray pigmentation revealing pink mottling on the ears and trunk, but like humans with vitiligo, the pigment is retained around hair follicles. We got to feed them their daily banana rations, which they grabbed with their trunk and gobbled up whole. For the grains, they sucked them up through the trunk with power I think would beat the best Dyson or Hoover. We walked along a trail near where they wandered on the mountainside. They take down different types of trees, for the leaves, bark, or root. And goodness they love a good tree rub. Later in the day we got to help bathe them, using mud then rinsing them. How thrilling to be up close to these amazing animals!

2025 Emirates and commercial flights As a kid I occasionally flew in small airplanes with my uncle Kenneth, who was a private pilot and also a commercial pilot for Eastern then Northwest Airlines, when he wasn’t tending his farm and cattle and horses outside Newman, GA. My great uncle Dewey had also been a pilot, in addition to being a farmer. They had small 4-seater Cessnas and the like, the high wing type we would use in Civil Air Patrol to search for downed aircraft. I took flying lessons when I was 18 but couldn’t quite get the landings right 100% of the time. I had flown in many military flights, on cargo aircraft to the MIddle East via Japan, and from California to Asia with several stops on a cargo mission tour as crew when I was a flight surgeon. The C-5 and KC-10 were functional but not comfortable, with sleeping stations that were sort of rickety and loud, bunk beds stacked on one another in a very noisy cargo hold or tucked away in a crew area on the C-5. It wasn’t until much later that I took flights commercial oceanic flight, from San Francisco to Australia (for my 40th birthday), that I learned what a 14-hour flight feels like in a regular seat. I had baked some cookies for the crew, and they upgraded me to the exit row and offered first class pajamas and kit, but I didn’t feel comfortable donning them in the lower deck economy cabin. It’s tough on the body to travel for 10-15 hours on a transoceanic flight. Premium economy on Norwegian a couple of times (to Iceland and Stockholm, back when they flew out of Oakland) was nicer but didn’t lie flat. I suffered several days of jet lag after traveling economy SFO to Paris in 2013 because I couldn’t sleep well. The first lie-flat seat I had for an overseas trip was from SFO to Milan for a dermatology conference, using points for the first time to fly across the pond, in 2017. What a joy it was to not have the jet lag nearly as badly after getting a full night’s rest. What a privilege to fly at all in this way, from the food to the cocktails. For the past few years I’ve been trying to optimize my use of credit cards to get points for international air travel, putting most of my expenses on credit cards I pay off each month, hoping to get some good travel out of it. I’ve learned from colleagues and on-line that the credit card companies offer poor value for their points, and finding the right flight based on points value is half the battle. Searching frequently and being flexible with dates and even destinations helps. Usually the airlines offer better value, and one must transfer points from the credit card program to the airlines once you’ve found the flight you want and confirmed its availability. It’s a bit of a pain to navigate. I searched for weeks to find a good flight for a trip my college pal Sage and I were planning for our 50th birthday. Using one credit card program for one, and another for the return, I found business class flights from SFO to Singapore (via Dubai) on Emirates Airlines, and a return from Taipei on United, and Sage was able to make a similar flight on Emirates meeting in Dubai to travel on our second leg together.

The a380 800 series is super comfortable, and the business class is on the upper deck. The seats lie flat in a staggered configuration, and the screens are huge. There’s plenty of storage space, so it feels almost like your little nook in an RV. The service is attentive yet not intrusive. The meals were solid quality for air travel, with the white tablecloth and silverware treatment one gets in business class. I did wear the silky pajamas on offer, changing into them after having a cocktail in the bar and getting recommendations for Bangkok from a lovely flight attendant named Jess. i slept soundly in comfy PJs, melatonin on board, lying flat, eye mask and ear plugs in place, for nearly 8 hours. Then woke up refreshed, brushed teeth and washed face and applied deodorant, changed back into day clothes, and enjoyed banana and walnut crepes for breakfast. My goodness this is luxury. Of course, there’s always more, from the suites at the front of the plane (with showers!), to private jets some people enjoy. But this is truly enough.

2025 Zipolite —In the last year several friends have come back from Zipolite with accolades and recommendations, and now i see why. This is a relatively quiet town on the southern coast of Oaxaca that boasts the only officially nude beach in Mexico. The waves crash in from the Pacific with great force, creating soft sand under the intense sun. It’s mostly gay travelers and open-minded hippies here, and many warm and welcoming locals. The gay spot at sunset is Playa del Amor. It’s of course a bit of a hike over a hill and sometimes wading through water, the price that must be paid to enjoy a gay naked beach. There are just enough services there (beach chairs, umbrellas, drinks) to keep happy all afternoon and enjoy the amazing sunsets. After the sun goes down, naked fire spinners come out for some amazing performances. After dark, it gets friskier for those so inclined. There’s little more natural than enjoying other naked bodies under the full moon, in a warm night with stars overhead.

2025 Mexico City One of the reasons I’m in Mexico City is to learn a little more Spanish and become more comfortable with conversation. To that end I searched several Spanish language programs and found one that includes walks in different parts of the city and visits to museums as part of the instruction. It’s called Learn Spanish Mexico City. I asked to be paired with a gay teacher if they had one, and indeed they did. Nan is my instructor; he’s a trans man and a very patient teacher. We have been able to have very frank conversations about real life and the things I want to talk about with the queer community. Any good teacher tailors the conversation to the things each student is interested in, and in my case we’ve talked about the local gay community and the realities of gay sex. It seems like he enjoys the opportunity to teach about queer phrases, expressions, and ideas since most of the students they have are much more conservative than I. I’ve been learning a lot of useful slang not appropriate for Tumblr. ;-)

—On our second day out, we went to the old part of town to the Museum of Mexico City to see a special exhibit by Fabian Cháirez called La Segunda Venida del Señor (the second coming of the Lord). He mixes the archetypal images of the church with the sexuality of the people in the church. Rather than deny the sexual nature of humans who do the work of the church, his paintings acknowledge their humanity, and corporal wants. Some of it touches on the fetishization of the trappings of Catholicism. It’s very much about the sublimation of desire. Some of those leading the church have obviously given into their sexual nature in a way that is harmful to parishioners. This exhibition received quite a lot of flack from church leaders and was temporarily shut down due to a legal injunction but was reopened when the judge determined the case was without merit. The introduction states explicitly that the artist does not think these images are anti-religious. I agree. They’re pro-human. Desire itself isn’t wrong or sinful, but acting on desire in a way that hurts people is wrong and sinful.

—Ever since it opened in 2018, I’ve felt the pull of the weight of history to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Informally known as the National Lynching Memorial, its purpose is to bear witness to the horrific part of United States history when the rule of law was abandoned when it came to black folks in post-reconstruction America. Throughout the South, mobs of white people tortured and terrorized any black person who did not defer to the notions of white supremacy and the laws and culture of the time. For as little as passing a note to a white person, or bumping into them accidentally, or attempting to do business with them, thousands of black Americans were stripped of their rights and due process and left to the mob mentality. The Equal Justice Initiative has compiled information on over 4,400 lynchings from 1870 to 1950. This monument honors the memory of those lost to these crimes. It organizes them by county in which they occurred, so visitors can see the names of people who were lynched by location. In Clayton County, Georgia, where I grew up, Neil Wimbush (1879), Nathan Smith (1850), and Arthur Bennett (1893), were murdered. In nearby Hampton in Henry County, a recently returned US Army veteran of the Spanish American War named Private James Neely, was shot and killed by white men in 1898, for trying to buy a cold drink from the counter at a drugstore. Each county in which black folks have been murdered through this type of terror, is represented with a metal column hanging above visitors. It’s a stark reminder of all the Americans who died because they did not conform to the rules that kept black people in their “place” as determined by whites of the time. Yet as Isabel Wilkerson writes in her book Caste, and as depicted in the movie Origin, this whole system was about keeping money and power in the hands of the wealthy.

—I fear the rule of law will be flouted today, against people of color, immigrants, and transgender people. Disenfranchised people have always been at risk of violence, but it’s the the lack of legal protection and due process, or lack of police protection in an equal and just way, as determined and enforced by the executive branch, that may leave many humans of today dead for the same reasons that the people memorialized here lost their lives in yesteryear. I hope that We the People, By the People, For the People, will fight for equal rights and the rule of law, rather than the tyranny of oligarchs and bigots.

#equaljusticeinitiative

-One of the things that makes a place home is the history of the ground. There something about walking on the earth that your recent generations trod that grounds one into a solid sense of self. The familiarity of the smell of the woods, the flecks of mica in the earth, the particular sounds of the birds and insects. Those smells and sounds and sights fill the sense of home in a way that words may not be able to.

-When mom and I returned from our Campbel School trip, we stopped through Dahlonega GA where my maternal grandparents are buried along with my stepfather and some other Hawkins family. Then on the way back to Atlanta, I found the gravesite of my maternal grandmother’s parents. The next day I trekked up to Marietta to commune with my paternal grandparents and great grandparents. And the great grandparents on the other side of that tree at another site. Without the struggles of the generations before us, we could not be. I give thanks for the farmers and educators on both sides. All the grandparents grew up on farms, but on both sides they also valued education. Teaching runs in the family. There are schools in this area named for McCleskey and Corley educators. Teaching is in our blood, and of all my roles in life, being an educator is perhaps the one that resonates most with me.

-The houses we’ve lived in carry memories and stories, too. So I found my paternal grandparents old house, and the first house we lived in as kids. I was 4 years old when my mother and father built a house in Woodstock GA; during that time, my father moved out, and we gained a stepfather and new sister. My mom worked hard to support us, and she also dedicated so much time to helping us get a good start, like doing phonics and other prep work before we went into kindergarten. We played in that house endlessly, and the woods around it. There weren’t that many houses in that subdivision, but one was distinctive. It was like a log cabin, and we played almost daily in the woods behind it. We were unsupervised and wild, until mom would whistle it was time for dinner. When I found the house, the current owner was in the front yard. He was so welcoming and even offered to let me see what it looks like inside some 45 years later. The kitchen cabinets are still there! (They need updating!) They’ve made many improvements, but it was really cool to share with them that we were the first occupants. His daughter now lives in the room my brother and I shared so many years ago.

-Cobb County and Cherokee County carry so many wonderful memories. I hiked up Kennesaw Mountain for nostalgia sake. At the top I love the view of the skyline of Atlanta, my once and always home, even when I’m far away. You can take the boy out of Georgia, but you’ll never take the Georgia out of the man.