याटिंग मुएसली एंड मंगोएस इन थे रैन

#For some reason now I can only do titles in Thai - guess what this title means and you get a prize!#

This past Sunday I went scuba diving. It had been years since I dove, and I forgot how magical it feels to be breathing underwater, feeling like a spaceman creeping into and surviving in a beautifully alien world. The dive spot was about a 45 minute boat-ride from Koh Panang, so we had two dives with a lunch break on the boat in between. Afterwards I felt that salty, lean hunger that I remember from seaside vacations as a child, when my sister Madie and I would exhaust ourselves all morning in the ocean and spend afternoons eating fruit and ice cream and watching movies, pink-cheeked and banned from the sun between 12 and 2.

When I got back home I picked up our friend Claire (from England) and rode the motorbike up the coast to Nice Sea resort, where we met up with Dana and a group of friends from class - Walter and Sunny from Austria, Amanda and Cody from the states, and Carl from Australia. We all have our issues, which is how we found this place - travelers are searchers, and travelers who pursue yoga are some of the most ardent seekers. It felt to me like we'd found something there with each other, watching the sunset from a watchtower out in the water. We leaned off the railing, counting down until, with blood-cudling yells, we jumped, hurtling into the water and floating back lazily on our backs, guided home by stars and flashes of heat lightening. On the beach, I did a headstand, watching my friends turn upside down, floating in the sky, and felt a fierce longing to protect the moment. In the words of Bobby D:

"To dance between the diamond skies with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow"