TITLE: Recovering in Chiang Mai

I wait for him in his city. I walk his streets. I traipse neath flagstaff and footbridge. I wander into the sweep of my imagination. Soon the cloaking of the face is the velveting of a stage. I see a proscenium mid the folds, a return ’mong an applause. And I’m as wakened by the elders of a table as the elfins of a train: poses, whispering of loss; reposes, hinting of belonging. I’m enwrapped and dreamwards. I rise. He’s there. I hesitate at the trace of his presence. I stride into the exotic. I’m a vandal whom he dances for tender-footedly, for I’m too a child of a candled wood. My barken skin he gifts the glow of waxen light, sodden feet lifts ’long a moat of scarlet corymbs. And tho’ often I beat blankly like a cage bird, ever he’s an idol in a jar. The city holds him in relief against its streets. He’s its gallery of prayers, lanterned and moonwards.

* * *

Photo 1
06/09/2019, Wichayanon Road
The footbridge that connects Warorot and Ton Lam Yai Markets.

Photo 2
09/02/2020, Arak Road
A facade that is covered in protective sheeting.

Photo 3
08/08/2019, Chiang Mai Railway Station, Rotfai Road
A train to Nakhon Lampang.

Photo 4
27/10/2019, Moonmuang Road
A Theravāda Buddhist shrine with idols that has been vandalized.

Photo 5
10/11/2019, Arak Road
The Theravāda lantern festival. Schoolgirls are lighting kerbside candles.

Photo 6
21/12/2019, Wiang Kaew Road
A stall that is selling birdcages and a cageling.

Photo 7
27/10/2019, Thaphae Road
Two figures of a Theravāda monk who is believed to be a protector of motorists.

Photo 8
09/11/2019, Prapokklao Road
The lantern festival. People are visiting roadside lantern tunnels.

AUTHOR: Daniel Finn-Fitzpatrick (United Kingdom)

In the summer of 2019, I left England. I travelled alone to the city of Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand. I would meet a man. He was about to undertake a novitiate. For almost nine months, I recovered in the companionship of this city and the compassion of this novice monk. I would walk and observe moments of interaction between the street and its inhabitants and my emotions would blossom. I would sit and talk with him and my thoughts would mature. I realized that the city was him and he was the city. They were the one life. To observe the city was to observe him. To talk with him was to talk with the city. They recalled the same memories and recounted the same hopes. I wanted to preserve this experience. I tried photography for the first time to do so. I used my 2016 Samsung Galaxy S7 to attempt mobile and street photography. I preferred black-and-white images. This Series entry* combines some of those images with prose poetry to imagine this dyadic entity of city-man and its characteristic of restorative love.

* 8 photographs from original set of 12; prose poem from original set