Bangkok Journal
Most evenings, I would stop by my local 7-Eleven to buy a few sparkling drinks, usually the iconic soda water in a glass bottle or a can of Singha. I would then walk up to my building’s rooftop, sit on a plastic chair, pour the carbonated liquid into a glass and listen to the bubbles escape. Glancing toward the horizon, my eyes would meet the pink gradation of the sky where the clouds appeared like cotton candy. The traffic noises from below evaporated into the soft air. They were usually accompanied by the vibration of air conditioning fans, and the clink of hammers and construction works echoing in the distance. This undefined blend felt like the pulse and breath of the city, conjuring up the lives that happened to exist within it. Somehow, in such moments, I felt connected to a vast ensemble and there was something comforting about the idea of belonging to this vastness, suspended in between the chaotic traffic and the light veil of the tropical skies.
Other days I stood at a crossroad and watched the traffic go by. In my head I pictured the invisible lines drawn by the movement of motorcycles, street vendors, cars, buses, taxis, tuk tuks and songthaews, each going at a different speed, and eventually the lines would seem all tangled up like the electric cables hanging above. Lives converging for an instant to never reach the same pattern ever again.
“Is it possible to tell about the varied emotions that compose a journey in a manner that can satisfy the self?
I see through a cloud, a crowd of circumstances that had caught my attention. Many of them now only appear to me as dreams. A bunch of notes taken on the go, today are incomprehensible. Yet on the other hand, I can clearly imagine all of the things that don’t need to be written down and which perhaps are the only memories that deserve to be kept.” *
Looking out the window while riding a taxi at dusk on the elevated highway from Don Mueang airport, I stared at the deep blue sky as it darkened slowly. The driver was going at an unreasonably high speed while playing a mellow Isaan love song on the airwaves, the advertising billboards glowing in the distance yet muted by the dark of the falling night. My eyes absorbed the city spreading wide across the horizon and I imagined the street food vendors waiting by their carts on the narrow Soi below, the smoke and fragrance of grilled fish wafting in the air.
Bangkok Journal is a series of drawings to be published as part of the forthcoming book Unfold.
*from Eugène Delacroix
