The art supplies go first. I don't really consciously think about it; it just naturally happens. I think it's probably because art is an extension of my being. I cannot live without it; I don't know how. I organize my supplies by pigments, and my favorite brushes have their own little place – separate from the rest. Suddenly, my apartment starts to feel more lived in. More like somewhere a person with specific opinions about cadmium yellow lives, which is to say, more like mine.
My plushies follow me to my bedroom, where they go on their own shelf (and a few on the bed, like my pink elephant). By the way, everyone should have at least one soft, pink, fluffy thing in their life – it just makes life so much happier. I know the general consensus is that it's better to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle, but I think it's better to cry holding onto a big, soft, baby pink elephant than a box of plain white tissues. Don't you agree? So much softer.
So, back to the packing. Grandma's recipes go in the kitchen, because where else would they go? I stack them carefully on the counter because I don't have a recipe box yet, but I will find one soon enough. Grandma handwrote all the recipes for me. Her handwriting is dense and precise, with occasional margin notes that are either clarifications or warnings, depending on how well you know her (knowing me, they are most likely warnings). The kitchen smells like fresh paint and nothing else, but it will eventually smell like something tasty and warm.
By the second day, the walls are still bare, but the bones of a person are visible in the space. This is enough for now.
****
The apartment next door belongs to Big Rock and Slightly Smaller Rock (I decided to stick with Rocks; Boulders are too long to pronounce), which I confirmed on the first evening when Big Rock materialized in the corridor as I was coming back from the noodle place downstairs. He informed me, in the tone of someone reporting a fascinating logistical arrangement that has already been decided, that they were next door and the door would always be answered should I need them. I thanked him. He nodded (sharply, and only once) and went back inside.
I have since learned the following about them as actual human beings (and not just security rocks personnel), through observation and occasional corridor conversations: Big Rock drinks his coffee black and very strong, reads military history for pleasure (like what's up with that?!), and has a younger sister whose photographs are on his phone's lock screen. Slightly Smaller Rock does crossword puzzles with the intense focus of someone defusing a bomb, owns more plants than I would have expected (I expected zero), and is unfailingly polite in an entirely genuine way.
I have also once again confirmed the following: they are, both of them, extremely large. (I think this has now become a well-established fact).
I know everyone already knows this, obviously. But there is knowing a thing, and then there is watching two very large professional men navigate a Bangkok apartment that was designed for people of more, shall we say, standard dimensions, and the second experience adds considerably more context to the first. I passed their open door yesterday morning, and let me tell you, the apartment looked like a regular apartment that had been borrowed by people for whom it was not quite to scale. It actually reminded me of that Hobbit movie, when Gandalf the wizard dude went into one of the hobbits' homes. Everything looked like it was too small for the poor guy. Everything in their apartment was neat and orderly, but Big Rock was sitting at their kitchen table, which appeared to be having second thoughts about its willingness to be here. Slightly Smaller Rock was standing in the kitchen, which fit him the way shoes fit when it is almost,kind of, sort of the right size. So, they basically looked like the poor Gandalf dude trying to make themselves fit into a Bangkok apartment. Maybe we should look for bigger apartments? I'll mention this to Jingwei later.
I said good morning. They said good morning, and I continued to my apartment and stood in my own kitchen for a moment, which is small, but which fits me perfectly. I felt unreasonably pleased about this. Hehe
****
The neighbor across the hall knocked on my door on the second evening.
He was holding a small potted plant (oh, heavens) with the slightly self-conscious air of someone who has decided to do a friendly thing and is now committed to seeing it through. He said, in English, that he was Bas, that he lived across the hall, and that the plant was a welcome gift and very easy to keep alive, just water it twice a week, not too much.
I thanked him in Thai. He then smiled, an easy, uncomplicated smile like that of someone for whom friendliness is simply a resting state, and went back across the hall. The whole exchange lasted perhaps ninety-three seconds.
I looked at the plant. The plant, as far as I could tell, looked back (and silently started crying). But I pretended I didn't see any of it and carried it to the windowsill.
****
The view from my window is a sliver of Bangkok rather than a panorama, which suits me. Panoramas are for postcards, not real life. Between the opposite buildings on the street corner, there is a food stall. An auntie who arrives every morning before I am fully awake and sets it up with the efficiency of someone who has done this at least ten thousand times. The sticky rice goes in the steamer, and the skewers on the grill. Everything has its own place. Watching her work with the quiet efficiency of someone entirely at home in what she is doing is like watching a conductor instruct his orchestra.
I sketched her on the first evening while the light was turning gold and the smell of the grill was wafting up through the window I had opened because the air conditioning and I are still in tense negotiations, but fear not, Dad taught me well. I will win eventually. My sketch came out well. After telling you this, I have come to realize that I am sounding like some weirdo stalker. Please note I am not. I am simply observant in the way all artistic geniuses are.
The sketchbook is back on the windowsill now. The plant is next to it.
I look at the plant. It is small and green and appears, at this moment, to be in reasonably good health. I feel it is only fair to be honest with it about its situation. And because I am honest with myself as well, I have not named the plant. It makes the eventual loss easier to bear (but I don't share this little tidbit with it).
"I am rooting for you. And I am completely on your side," I tell it. "I want to be very clear about that. But I also want you to know that you are going to need to have some kind of will to survive, or some kind of self-preservation, or some magical healing power, because my track record is not that great – and by great I mean, I have managed to kill every plant I have ever taken care of. So, if you have any deeply buried prehistoric survival instincts, I would encourage you to begin deploying them immediately – as in ASAP, right now, like right this second. This is your only chance of survival. But on a more positive note, I have always loved each one of my previous (now very dead) plants a lot. So, if you do die, which you probably will, unless you dig deep into those instincts, you would have died being loved. And that, my dear friend, is more than many people, or plants, on this planet can say."
The plant is silent but probably cursing itself for having the misfortune of landing in my care. But I choose to interpret the silence as its battle song. Fighting!
I turn back to the window. The auntie is packing up for the evening. She is moving through her closing routine with the same unhurried efficiency she brings to everything. Bangkok is loud outside, and the apartment is quiet inside; the recipes are in the kitchen, the plushies are on the shelf, and the sketchbook is on the sill with the new plant.
I think this is a pretty good starting point.