Monday and coffee
Here we are back at a favored spot for some coffee and some thinking. I don’t know which came first. This place always gives me respite from whatever came before.
I’ve been thinking on the blog lately. Like what would I want to add that would be fun or challenging. I’ve had both things making the thing become my Frankenstein blog.
Some of the more fun things were also personally challenging to make work. I don’t think I’d have this with a service or built platform. There is nothing I can add to them. Like the “under the hood” things. Little learning experiences that manage to frustrate and enthrall me.
The biggest joy though is the writing. Having a place I feel some sense I own. Where my words live as I write them. I could ask for no more. Well except a sip of my iced americano that transports me from chair to memories. So indulge me if you will. This thing is always a blend of what was and how perhaps it yielded treasure or none from the moments to come.
Lately I have felt this sense of needing more. Not more things. Or more people. Or someone more to talk to. No. I think I want again what I once had but I also know it will be different from the ground up. Once I had one day in Saigon. I had lived there, stayed there, wandered. A friend asked me,
Why go back again? You have seen it all.
I guess I was astounded. As much as people change places do too. I realized if I looked away for an instant and then back it changed. The little subtle nuances of thing. How the thing morphed into other things. The one building at Ho Chi Minh square with the decorations. Yeah. Different. Each block that day made me see this little bit of Saigon I missed. Truth be told it’s not my favorite place.
I just took a day as I was preparing to go back to Da Nang. From Da Lat to Saigon. A day. Then on.
Of course Da Nang is a change thing. Each time I felt challenged and happy. It always gave and never asked. I would find local noodle shops or walk the bridges. Find the never ending curiosities of a life spent going. Never arriving.
And maybe that’s it. That’s what I miss. The going with no sense of arrival. Stevenson said as much about travel being the thing. He got it that I go to go. Arriving is a bookend. As I sit for coffee I know that’s my illness. My fault. So instead it’s a vicarious inward journey. A wandering of the mind and heart. The seeing Saigon in a day. Then much later Hanoi in two years. Never enough I would silently shout.
And I do now. Now I’ll have my coffee and some words. Sit in quiet in a corner with a fan running and the coffee cold. My Monday and coffee. I’ll stay awhile and wonder and wander further.
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