Dreaming in Bangkok: Nostalgia!

The Songkran celebrations for the Thai New Year began on Sunday, April 13, 2025, and will last for four days. People wear colorful, Hawaiian-style shirts, and blast water at everyone in sight with these giant water gun cannons. In some areas, it is impossible not to get completely soaked and wet. The good news is that the water is a reprieve from the 100°F heat.

I had just come out of the most delightful Thai Massage. I was already feeling like a wet noodle heading towards the Sunday night dance social at the Havana Social Club when I was indeed transformed into a wet noodle by water cannons fired from all directions. Everyone, from Bangkok natives to tourists, wore their colorful shirts and carried water guns, blasting water in every direction. Everyone was soaked to the bone and giddy with laughter! 

This joyous, childlike activity instantly transported me back to the summers of my childhood on 108th St. between Broadway and Amsterdam. It was the late 1960s and early 1970s, and at that time, there were only a handful of TV channels, and games like Nintendo's had not yet been invented. Consequently, life took place on the streets. If Albert Camus’ “Les Noces” (Nuptials or Summer in Algiers- an essay where he so beautifully expresses his deep connection to his native Algeria, especially the Mediterranean landscape, sun, sea, and sensual pleasures of life) was the seed for his philosophy, then my experiences on the streets of New York City will undoubtedly be the foundation for my yet to be discovered philosophy.

Here is a passage from my novel, “Love in a Time of Coronavirus: 20/20 in 2020,” where I described what it was like growing up in NYC: 

“There were impromptu gatherings on the rooftops, in the streets, and on stoops. The kids filled the streets and were playing all sorts of games. It reminded Bodhi of his own childhood on the Upper West Side. There were so many kids just hanging around outside with the invisible eyes of parents who would report on any misdeed that had occurred during the day. There was an undeclared understanding that the kids were the community's responsibility. Every adult who was in the area or looking out their windows naturally watched the kids, and the kids were respectful and obedient when adults reprimanded them.

“The kids played stoop ball, stickball, Chinese handball, a variation of tag called ringolevio, touch football, Scully, sometimes called skelzy depending on the neighborhood, two-hand touch football, jump rope, Double Dutch, running bases, spinning tops, or play under a running fire hydrant. A lot of time would just be spent sitting on building stoops. These games were often played in the middle of the street, and the kids would scatter when cars passed by. There were rarely, if ever, any car accidents in New York City at the time, as there were fewer cars on the streets. Car drivers understood that kids were at play, and kids had a sixth sense about how to navigate traffic. It was one of the early senses that developed when growing up in the city.

“The older kids were free to wander to the parks to play basketball and to other neighborhoods to play with other kids. Bodhi recalled his youth when kids from all over New York City would come to the wall of the public school on 108th street between Amsterdam and Broadway to play Chinese Handball. This was where the best handball players would meet to be declared "King." The wall was particularly long, allowing 20 to 30 kids to play. Sometimes they played "Booties up," where whoever lost would have to lean against the wall with their butts sticking out and everyone would line up and throw the rubber "Spalding" ball in attempt to hit them in the butt. "Spaldings" were ubiquitous and could be found in any corner store or bodega. With one "Spalding," a bunch of kids could keep themselves busy all day long playing a variety of street games.

“It was a marvelous way to grow up. There was a community. Then came the advent of cable TV, the internet, and Nintendo-type games. All the kids disappeared. The parents no longer sat in front of their windows. The streets were now quiet. That sense of community that was so strong receded in the same way that the desert advances when topsoil erodes after generations of abuse.

“Bodhi was thrilled to see kids back on the streets playing. He and some others of his generation showed them how to play those games that occupied much of their childhoods. Bodhi and those adults knew that these games weren't just a way to keep the kids occupied while the adults took care of the business of survival. Those games taught kids how to communicate, negotiate, aspire to be the best, deal with defeat, and provided important lessons in how to interact with others in the complex world of life. Bodhi wondered if they would be in the mess they found themselves in if there were no cable TV and Nintendo games.”

The specific memory, the Proustian Moment, that Songkran triggered was the fire hydrants. In those days, very few families had air-conditioning, and the center of life for kids, especially in poor neighborhoods, was playing in the open fire hydrants. It was a game of cat and mouse, where someone in the neighborhood had a key to open the fire hydrant and offer a moment of bliss and heaven to the kids (adults as well!), and the police who would ultimately arrive and shut it down because it was against the law to “waste” the water.

While the water was on, kids joyfully laughed, played, skipped rope, and played double Dutch under the spraying water. Then, one of the older kids would arrive with an aluminum can with both ends cut out and direct the flow of water, now in a high-velocity blast because of the narrow can. With a can, the water could reach the buildings across the street. For the kids, this was delightful, as they ran away and were struck by the refreshing cold water. However, no pedestrian was safe. Someone passing by would holler, indicating that they were going to pass by and didn’t want to get wet. The kids would nod yes and angle the water down. But as soon as they were in range, they would blast them with water, and all the kids would run away laughing. Some cars took advantage of the open fire hydrant to clean and cool off their vehicles, but some cars that ignorantly passed by with their windows down would be greeted with a surprise shower. Aside from all the now-extinct games we played, this was a favorite pastime for kids from the age of three until their early twenties.

The connection between the water cannons of Songkran and the memory of the fire hydrants of my youth is obvious. However, the increasing nostalgia I’ve experienced since arriving in Bangkok remains unclear to me. I’ve always maintained a healthy relationship with my past, but my mind is dipping into the reservoirs of my past more frequently. It’s almost as if part of me is trying to hold on to something that is rapidly disappearing.

For the past year, the two words that repeatedly came up in my journal were “the Abyss” and “dissolving.“ The world around me, people, and my sense of self are slowly dissolving, and what surprises me is that I feel no resistance. I wonder if I would feel the same way if I were Franz Kafka’s character, Gregor Samsa, in “Metamorphosis,” turning into a cockroach? 

As I drift further and further away, nostalgia serves as a lifeline connecting me to something I am now deducing was a fiction. Yet, these memories bring me great joy. If for nothing else, this nostalgia reminds me that I am alive, and what a wonderful gift that is. It’s that simple: I am alive! The details are irrelevant. Why aren’t we celebrating life for its very own sake daily? Why do we save it for special occasions and then try so hard that it becomes contrived (New Year’s Eve, birthdays, etc.)? We understood this as kids. What happened?

I then realized that the nostalgia I’ve been experiencing is not in search of something that I’ve lost (my apparent youth and events from my past), but rather a reminder of what I have gained: The understanding that those joys I experienced in the past that were associated with specific events, are present in every waking moment. 

What is nostalgia? Definition: “A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” Let’s examine this more closely: Was it the past event itself, or your state of being at the time that infused that event with such beautiful colors that it was imprinted in your memory with such exaltation as to be later culled for nostalgia? 

The error is that we associate the joy we experienced with the past event rather than our state of BEING at the time. Even if we could re-create or relive that past event, we could never recapture that joy or emotion, because it wasn’t inherent in the event itself. It was the state of BEING that created a fountain of joy, and BEING is always accessible to us. It has been mired and hidden by externalities, attention focused outward rather than inward to the source of all creation. 

Let’s also consider that we are subconsciously “state”-shifting. This occurs when we enter and exit a daydream, drink coffee or alcohol, take drugs, meditate, take a walk in nature, listen to music, or indulge in feelings of love/sex, etc. These all produce a change in our state of BEING. The trick is to make these shifts CONSCIOUS.

From this perspective, nostalgia, those Proustian moments, serves as a reminder to focus on your state of being rather than external events. It was NEVER the events, but rather the STATE of BEING that created the joy, and your mind just happened to point at the contemporaneous event- the fire hydrant in this case- and attributed the joy to it. The implications are prodigious! Can you even imagine such a life? If this idea impresses you, this is a journey-the inner journey-well worth taking. 

Life lesson: It is, always was, and always will be an inside job!