It is day four at the Island Yoga retreat on Koh Yao Noi, a small island off the coast of Phuket inhabited year-round by about two thousand people.  I never experienced Hawaii until after the point at which people would say, “Oh, you should have been here fifty years ago.”  Koh Yao Noi, at least as best as I can imagine, feels like what those people meant about the bygone Hawaii.

The island hosts a handful of five or four-star resorts, one of which is sequestered at the far northeast corner of the island, blocked off to the everyday riff-raff and obnoxiously called “Paradise,” as if heaven belonged only to the pampered wealthy.  But other than these few, mostly invisible blights to the environment, the island is delightfully rustic, imbued with the kind of charm and pastoral feel achieved only in a place in which native life has been allowed to slowly absorb little bits of modernity instead of being overwhelmed by it.  Our dinner outing last night, for example, included expertly done wood-fired pizza served under an open-air, thatched-roof hut with a sand floor.  Incongruously, a Ping-Pong table had been planted amongst the rubber trees.  The venue was full-on Koh Yao Noi, but the cheese on the pizza (in a country that does not produce cheese) was straight-up Italian mozzarella.  

We have, finally, settled into a routine, a far more difficult process than I anticipated in such a delightful place.  In fact, to be brutally honest – and I am not expecting nor soliciting sympathy here – our first forty-eight hours were uncomfortable, bordering on intolerable. I cannot finesse a way to explain this poor start.  In a nutshell, we went from coddled four-star luxury to bohemian youth hostel too quickly for us to adjust.  With the help of an extra pillow, a pad to soften the brick-hard mattress, and long, cold showers taken as we wait for the anemic air conditioner to moderate the oven-like heat in our bungalow, we have found a kind of equilibrium.

I fully appreciate my hypocrisy here.  On the one hand, I denigrate the five-star Paradise resort as a blight on the island, while on the other hand I whine about our one-star accommodations.  These juxtaposed thoughts sum up my experiences to date at this yoga retreat.  Even now, as I have adapted to my Spartan surroundings – in fact, more than adjusted, I actually enjoy them – I am not far removed from wishful thoughts of a well appointed, properly cooled suite overlooking the ocean.

I am drawn to the stillness and inner peace promised in a consistent and dedicated practice of yoga, but, despite Tai Chi at sunrise, followed by the first of two yoga sessions (morning and evening), both two hours long, I have not found that yearned-for inner peace, that “aha” experience in which all my follies are revealed in naked clarity, and I gently embrace the elusive enlightenment I have chased all my life.  Instead, I find myself frustrated by my lack of flexibility (physical and mental) and inability to (as the floor mat outside of our yoga studio in Seattle humorously puts it) “let that shit go.”  My siblings, at least those who may read this, will immediately recognize my competitive nature.  Actually, who am I kidding, most anyone who knows me will recognize that streak in me.

In my defense, I am at least aware of what I’m doing, and equally aware of how much it gets in my way. I am simply incapable of banishing it. If I were by some miracle capable of letting that shit go, would I also lose my motivation, ambition, my get up and go? Now I hear Cindy O’Brien, that sage spiritual counselor, laughing at my mental gymnastics.  Just relax already.  Right. Easier said than done.

As much as I wanted to carve out time for this week of yoga, as much as I expected it to be enlightening, I found greater stillness and inner peace in the first three weeks traveling with Melissa than here at the camp.  I will not question the truth of that statement.  I do question, however, if such a lifestyle as Melissa and I led over the last three weeks is either sustainable or continuously rewarding.  Why is it that any external stimulus eventually dulls with overuse, but that is not true with the infliction of pain?  An electric shock feels as painful the twelfth time it is administered as it did the first time, but even something as wonderful as an ice cream sandwich loses its appeal and flavor if you eat too many of them.  In fact, my law school roommates determined, based on multiple indulgences, that after two and a quarter ice cream sandwiches, the marginal utility, that is, the increasing delight in eating the sandwich, drops precipitously.  

After trying several times to explore these thoughts more deeply and reflectively, I come up short. Candidly, I am not sure what I should make of this experience.  But I do know that right now I am hungry, and it is time to get on our scooter and head to lunch. 

Final note: Melissa and I often sit across from each other at a table writing our respective entries. Most of the time we express (albeit in our own voices) similar thoughts.  Today, as usual, we switched computers to let the each other read what the other had written (an experience, I suggest, is a sign of a healthy marriage).  For the first time in this blogging saga, I find that the tone and tenor of what I have written does not match the tone and tenor of what Melissa has written.  In your wildest imaginations, would you have predicted that Melissa would be the true Buddha?  Yes, I see the undertones of competition in that statement.  I will say this in my defense.  Even in my unmet expectations (self inflicted or not) I am sincerely grateful that Melissa has drawn so much from this place. 

A final, final note, or really a postscript.  We had lunch, took a brief swim and returned in time for the 4:30 yoga session.  At lunch, I saw a comment written by our dear friends Emory and Fran Thomas which swelled both of us with gratitude and love. In the yoga session, unable to sit crossed legged any longer without one of my knees exploding, I thought about that comment and decided to quit trying so hard and just sit on a damn cushion already. I leave it to you to ponder both the catalyst for and the cosmic implications of that decision.