slowing down
This morning after the usual reflection and waffling I found myself heading out. Away from the house. The two puppies of chaos love to see me and hate me to go. The writing always swirls around me when I reach Coffee Bean.
It’s also Monday and I get some money today from social security. Other places could be difficult either way what I get but honestly I get more than most. With the latest cost of living bump I will almost make $3k a month. Sounds like only a little but consider our rent is $220. Food is about $800 a month. It leaves us with money to go as we want. But we don’t. We just don’t go. This is not slowing down because of reasons. It’s stopping. It hurts because I have never wanted to just sit in Cambodia. It’s not a good fit. I start having issues inside. It’s not just the destination or some wonderful end. It’s the going. I need to feel between places. Now I feel between home and coffee.
So life slows down to me. It leaves me sitting with those puppies and they won’t take no. They must play and so I’m encouraged. It’s fun to have them want some time with me with no phone. No photos taken. They will charge me. One is more loving and wants time to be loved. The other is jealous. I just watch.
And write. Yeah I do write. Now having coffee and later when I disappear and put the phone on personal focus. No calls. No WhatsApp messages seen in the notifications. No sounds because I hate phone sounds. These days it’s a battle of do not disturb with the mute button deployed or the personal focus.
In effect that makes everything slow down to the speed of me. I can sip this wonderful iced americano. Watch traffic and people go by. Find myself in a space in Cambodia not here or there.
My reach
Is my blog. My little worlds of words. I don’t do the vast majority of slash pages. They serve no purpose. They bore me. Like a now page. If you want to find out now just read the blog or notes. I don’t do colophon or uses or any of the myriad others. I do have an about page. And a contact page. That’s my reach with this thing.
I can slow my reach down by getting rid of social media like I wrote about here. I did away with Facebook years ago. I’m pretty sure that lessened the reach Meta had for me. It was a blessing living here with no Facebook or instagram. Given this is the land of those things. TikTok of course is the defacto reach agent here. I’m glad to not do that.
I do get Facebook links and I ignore them mostly. I cannot see what they say anyways. I feel if you have a thing to share tell me in email or something. Don’t hide behind some algorithm.
The final slow down
Is this coffee. This morning. The blue skies that always seem to hint at just some percentage chance of rain still. I’d give it 25% today.
So I write. Vercel publishes. The blog is happy. I have no wherewithal and I would not know what to do if I did. I was supposed to go to Kampot this week but then puppies came along.
So I feel like I can say “done”. But not really. This story ain’t never just done.
☕️ 3 min read