here to there

Or how I could possibly want something back sometimes which was the norm.

Cambodia

I’ve loved living in Cambodia. Met my wife here years ago. Found my way back to a thing I thought I had lost. That wonderful feeling where a thing taken away magically returns and seems like more than when I lost it years ago. Serendipity struck but I believe if I would not have met her that night at Beatnik bar it would have been somewhere else. Maybe even someone else.

I met other Khmer women here. None seemed to interest me or gave me this reason to want a return of a thing. It always seemed something nice may happen but I would leave. Go to Taiwan or Laos. Find some path to …

Vietnam

So what about it. Why does it mark my soul and sometimes make me feel like there is this other part of me there. It’s both hard and easy to explain. Maybe in parts. Like this physical part that always took me on walks or coffee or just going. My landlady would ask where I had gone on a day in Hanoi and I would honestly tell her,

I don’t know. But there was a coffee shop and friendly people all around.

She would laugh this beautiful sexy laugh and tell me that was all of Hanoi. I realized then it was and that I’d never find it all. I could search forever and never see it but go look on a day and find the singular and remarkable.

Then there’s the spiritual thing with it. This linkage of me to it. This feeling of connection and being held by it. Like Vietnam would look after me. In times of sadness within I would go back. I would find solace and peace. Like deep within this feeling reigned. That no matter what or where I could go back and regain it. Deep within it exulted and exalted me. Made me feel in parts when I did not have it and whole when I did.

all this runs around

I forever see both poles of my existence. They don’t battle or win or lose. Each one seems this physical and metaphysical part of me. My wife would tell me

Don’t overthink the things.

There is no overthinking. There is finding and looking and reflecting. What Socrates called “examining”.

And when I do it i write the things. It’s my way of finding. Then I have a coffee at Noi Cafe. I dearly love my life here. It’s complete. Yet not. Vietnam owns valuable real estate somewhere in me. Does not let go. Ever.

So from here to there in words. And perchance overthinking if one can even do that. See you down the road again.