learning a step
Writing my life here has sometimes seemed like an attempt to do a few things.
- Put things down back in America I no longer have any say in. I guess that’s about everything. Writing this morning in my journal it dawned on me we hold little vestiges of things. We need scraps of things perhaps to remind us that life then is not now. It’s easy to say accept. Like to just dial in the acceptance knob. Turn it. Say done with that. Easy right?
- Well no. Saying a thing like that took me the first time a decade or more. I had finally reached the vaunted step of things when what had happened was then. I could feel like it all turned its own way. Made things into other things and I was let go. Then another person from then decided it was never enough.
- Being thousands of miles and time zones away really has not meant either I could let go or hold on. Living in Asia my final acts of life has meant seeing I cannot reach back and feel I have ownership or desire of those things. So between accepting and not, there is a whole world I found.
Enter living with a thing.
I found just recently I could not just hold the things. Like I needed to simply do what Ayn Rand said about the weight of the world.
Just shrug.
So when is it we are supposed to do that in life? When is it that the past and its events belong there? I guess when people from then just let “well enough alone”. That’s a big fucking order folks. My wife here is fond of saying,
That was yesterday. Tomorrow hasn’t come. We have today.
It means we should have this time now. When the surly past events and people that I see being grand manipulators find it avails them not. When they see their reach exceeds their grasp. And then they see many of us that move here do so for a few reasons besides the usual cost of living or whatever the YouTube creators deign to tell us. I came here not to retire. I came to,
- Find something different.
- See something and some people new.
- Leave something and some people old.
- To experiment with a life. To taste and feel a different shade of warmth.
- Finally maybe to do just what my wife said. Leave yesterday. Fret not about tomorrow. Take now.
As I work on my coffee and feel the Wednesday sliding between sun and rain I can see just how it feels today. This sense of now. I wrote in my diary I felt I finally had this life. Like again things that were could slide away. So here’s a question.
When do we give ourselves permission to let the things go?
What do we need to do. What fences to cross. What strange landscapes to master. What little voices inside to both listen to and let go.
I dunno. So I will write on it more. Tomorrow when it’s Thursday. When it’s another now and this is then.
Thursday things in their time
There is this sense of hope in America. That people there felt how life was going was not giving them hope so they reset. I don’t live there any longer but I do hope that people see in this a sense of rebirth and that tomorrow and today do not have to be grim and senseless. For me, this morning, it started with a 530am call from some friend of my wife’s bemoaning the other friend they have that said or did things not appreciated. Well meaning people pave the road to the dark place. Every place is a dark place when someone calls at 530am.
I wanted to mention yet again why I write this. I don’t do this to make grand pronouncements or contribute to some kind of blog challenge. I will never do a blog challenge or hashtag games. It ain’t me. The thing that is me is writing daily on what I personally see in my orbit. I enjoy writing on coffee, life, leaving a country I did not belong in or like any more, finding things in a new place I love and don’t particularly love but accept or live with. How I found family there and here is a continuous diary thing and it has been almost 5 years of doing this in Southeast Asia this time. I have no big time answers but I do have questions.
If you hate living in a place a lot and are facing a retirement you don’t particularly want why do you stay?
I guess I will never understand why people think some age is a limitation or a block to having a life that could bring different things. It doesn’t have to be Asia. Pick someplace else. Go find a life worth living. You can do it. I’ll be going for my morning coffee. Away from 530am phone calls from upset friends of my wife. Down a street where coffee culture lives. There’s always space for some words and maybe a photo there. I like photos of coffee shops. Mornings spent there are usually around writing. Sometimes thinking. Other times both.
coffee just in time
This is where some words get spent. This morning like every morning just about is the walk to coffee. The sense here of having a place like Coffee Bean to just go sit. To feel ebbs and flows. Choices. Cambodia goes by.
I also get the priceless moments at this particular chair and table which feels mine. The proximity of the city but yet the distance. I really cherish both here. It gives a sense of just how Cambodia coffee culture unfolds. Embraces me. A place for me to do this thing.
☕️ 5 min read