To everything – turn, clinic turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

(Aside: The first time I came across these lyrics by the Byrds, I was flipping through an Archie comic book back in the day!)

I’ve been thinking about the changes that come as one season gives way to the next.  Chiang Mai is blanketed in thick haze all day long during this transition between cold and rainy season that it feels like a smoky bubble.  The hot season hits its apex during Songkran or Thai new year in mid-April and all the talk now is where people will be escaping in order to avoid the intense heat, water-splashing tourists and locals and the smog from the farmers avidly burning their fields.

I’m in a transition season myself, with almost two years of living in northern Thailand under my belt and all the ups and downs associated with it, and also after five years of working in four different continents.  For every new job and move, there have been the usual steep learning curves, spectacular failures and the realization that hard lessons are still necessary despite previous experience.  With every new change, there have been the countless good-byes and periods of uncertainty and unknown.

I want to “settle down” for the next 3 to 5 years and I’ve been peering into the lives of friends and colleagues here in Chiang Mai and across the ocean.  Leaving my 65 liter backpack at home in Canada last year was symbolic, I think, of the internal changes I’ve been going through, shedding naive ideals and bright-eyed, bushy-tailed hooey in regards to poverty, overseas life and work, and persisting in an intentional direction in cross-cultural interactions, teaching and connecting my many interests.  I’m amused and alarmed simultaneously at how much I’ve warmed towards home decorating, travelling with suitcases vs. backpacks, and how I’ve started saying “When I was your age…” to my 20-something co-workers.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when the smoke clears, literally and figuratively.