Mikes Writing

coffee walking getting away

I’ve been feeling the need to get out in the morning as soon as I can. I think the reason is the weather. Early morning rain often comes. It’s this soft and gentle reminder that Cambodia says we are not done yet with rainy season. It has its last gasps and rarely long. But it is insistent. It reminds me that our rainy season is long. As November decides to enter, things really change. One big thing is the Tonle Sap River will change directions. That seems like a major deal. Other things are tourist season starts going more. If I were a tourist though I’d come in rainy season. The weather is delightful to wander temples or find the way to a nice pub or coffee.

It always comes back to coffee for me and now is no real exception. Today I am sitting at a favored spot. The morning blue skies get this darker color perhaps framed with clouds that seem to want to either move in or out. Sitting here is like this.

Lalatte coffee

I’ll sit here until I’m done. At the rate the coffee goes and the comfort of this couch it will be longer than shorter. So I decided to write. Write some on really a day. It leads me to going.

I’ve found the morning interludes are my coffee escapes. But they always are like one bookend to the walk. The other end is never the house. It’s some arbitrary thing. When the sun greets from behind clouds. When I find some alley or side street that makes me remember. Another city flush with them. You know the one right. Truth is though many of the cities I have wandered through have them. Tokyo seemed overcome with small streets and shops. Taipei had neighborhoods and parks with little side streets radiating out. Finally is Hanoi. The warren of so many blocks of old quarter where getting lost required no skill.

Then I felt like I could walk to some unknown and find a way. Maybe not escaping then but finding. Now it feels the little side streets are escapes from a reality sometimes I want less of. It’s why Kampot has come along really. It does all the things for me.

Then I start thinking how I would do Vietnam in November. I would go to Saigon first. See Vietnamese friends. Drink some beer with Lily. Talk life with Tom. Then Saigon would be then and Hanoi would be a thing. I’d feel that special sense of release and finding. Maybe some relief. Because secretly Hanoi is home. And it can’t be so it feels good and bad. With pain and pleasure. How would I know one if I did not have the other. I wonder that sometimes.

Anyways that’s then and this is now. Now it’s my coffee going slow and no one saying hurry. I’ll write this last bit.

Trail off and let my day take over.

See you.