Qi found me... then I found my Qi

7 Months ago I entered a resort named Qi Palawan and left the world behind. The luxury beach resort is placed in an idyllic setting on the North-eastern tip of Palawan in the Philippines. The deserted beach has amazing views of the sunrise and the yoga deck allows you to witness spectacular sunset views of a horizon filled with coconut trees and distant hills scattered against the backdrop of clouds streaked with pink, purple and orange.

  

We are a small resort, with only 7 rooms, and sometimes it feels like you are the only person around. There are many, many quiet moments when the only sound is the wind rustling in the leaves of the coconut trees… and in my house, the gentle hum of the generators.

We are remote… and when I say remote, I mean the kind of remote where the closest ‘town’ is an hour away by car… an hour and a half by motorbike… and 2 hours if you feel adventurous enough to take a tricycle (a unique little motorbike-sidecar kind of thing that has a shell built around it so that it roughly resembles a Filipino styled smart car… kind of…). The kind of remote where the ENTIRE island runs out of bacon… or beer or some obscure ingredient called capers. The kind of remote where some guests arrive after the hour-long, bumpy drive from El Nido with horrified expressions and apprehensions and moods that scream: ‘where have I brought myself?!’ or, in more than a few cases: ‘where has my partner brought me?!’… Until they walk to the front of the restaurant where they find a more-than-pleasant surprise!

The kind of remote where, for a long time, not even the internet reached. Many nights were spent waiting for websites to load, trying to send one e-mail… or answer important questions regarding the universe like ‘What does the ‘I’ in ipod/iphone/ipad stand for?’ It’s the kind of remote where those questions matter. It is the kind of remote where google chrome takes pity and sent a dinosaur to keep me company… blinking (or winking, I’m not sure, I could only see one eye) at me every few minutes. After about an hour of blinking… or winking… the dinosaur would stop blinking and start running, turning into a game that required me to quickly press space bar to make him jump over the cacti in his way or else ‘game over!’

Qi Palawan is the kind of remote where you start paying attention to, and appreciating the small things. Like strong winds that bring a different kind of energy to the resort with people running around on the beach, kites flapping in the wind, lines and bars and gear and people all baking in the sun.

Small things like no-wind days that are perfect for exploring the untouched dive sites in the clear water surrounding Northern Palawan. Sites that are so infrequently dived that the marine life are still wild and natural and either super skittish or extremely curious.

The kind of remote place where books are started and finished, skin gets burned red by the sun, bodies turning a new shade of tan every day.

The kind of remote place where you can quietly sit, watching the tide change, airplanes leave trails in the clear blue sky like shooting stars and the clouds drift quietly by, breathing through moments of extreme sadness, gut wrenching pain, soul shattering ecstasy, quiet contentment…

It has become my world away from the world where I was forced to come face to face with my demons, with nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide, where I learned to look at myself in the mirror, witnessing all of my flaws with excruciating clarity. I realised that my demons are enormous and scary and threatening to overpower me. I realised that I am a flawed and broken thing, fragile and vulnerable to break some more.

But I also realised that I am able to stand my ground and hold my head high, facing everything that threatens me, staring it down, breath racing, heart pounding… staring until the threat slowly shrinks, the air hissing out until it lays limp at my feet. 

I realised that my broken bits are sharp and sweet like boiled candy that you gently hold in your mouth, fully aware that it could hurt you but refusing to spit out the sugary sweetness of it. I realised that if I stayed still and handled it gently and gave it time, it would slowly dissolve, the sharpness of the edges melting away.

Somewhere, in a world away from the world,  between the wind and white beaches, between the tides crawling in… and out, underneath shooting (airplane) stars I am slowly finding my Qi… with every excruciating, exhilarating, heart wrenching, euphoric breath.