Life Here and Now
Like I wrote previously this is my just about 5th year living in the land of wonder. Or Cambodia. All the time just about has been spent in either Phnom Penh or here in Siem Reap. What I've found this time is longevity. This sense of not just purposeless moving and then doing it again. I managed to meet my wife mere months after I got here. It's a thing I never imagined happening.
I was writing in my journal like I so often do about life and its happenings. When I left Mexico after a year I only knew Korea Airlines would take me to Inchon first and then to Phnom Penh. I had no real idea after that. I knew I needed a retirement visa so after a few days of nothing besides seeing some Khmer friends again I did that part. After that it was to Siem Reap and then back to meet Jason. I first met him in Merida Mexico and he came to sit for a spell in Cambodia. Now he lives in the Philippines and has met someone finally that has made his life better. I ended meeting him in Phnom Penh and then came to Siem Reap. I took a break in Saigon and Hanoi Vietnam after two years of terribly missing it all. It was during the lunar new year or Tet. Wonderful time to visit.
So now life has become less of the going yet we still do take trips. Few weeks ago to Kampot and Phnom Penh for a week. Now though it's life here. This life in maybe the expat haven. There are lots of expats retired and pretending to be retired here. I see them when I go places. I'm not particularly fond of most of them so I rarely do things with them. I think maybe it's a fault of mine. Of age. Of my own desire to just be alone. Maybe some of it are other people. What I see with and in them.
It's just easier for me to not. Not be around others so much. Not do things which I feel uncomfortable in the doing. A lot of this is people. Social interaction. Social circles. Cambodia is very social and communal but for us barang no one forces us to do. We are left alone. I think because Cambodian people understand we are different. I don't believe we can fit in and no matter how long we live here and whether we have Khmer partners, we will always be on a separate track. I think this is gently accepted by most Khmer.
When it comes to the expats different things happen. Some of them want these bubbles of life. Places to hang their baseball caps. Around a familiar setting. With language and feelings that maybe other expats get. Others meet a partner and life changes subtly.
Anyone that comes here thinking they should live here should have to visit first. Even then the vast difference of a tourist encounter and the day to day is huge. I've thought a bit lately about how it works here and what doesn't for me. I am just an experiment of one with a Khmer wife. She gets most of this after years. Our life is different because we make slightly more than most Khmer people. Consider most Khmer people make about $300 a month.
So life for us is different in our here and now. People believe we must be rich. We are not. We just have more money but we have not bought bullshit stuff like cars. Or a house. Or more land than I bought before at a cheap price. Reality is I cannot own a house or land. I can pay for it but it's not mine. So why.
I've also faced the not unpleasant fact this is it for me. There's no next. No place to go to spend whatever I have left. This makes life more rooted in the Now. I think that works fine with my wife. She was not sure what day of the week it was today so any view of tomorrow or what it means is tempered with Khmer glasses.
I'm saying all this because I want to forever tell people facing choices in their lives to go. Leave the place that causes pain or anguish. You've spent long enough ringing that bell and living in that hell. Why not take a chance in a new Now. Maybe untested. Not verified. A leap. Or a small jump or a step. Take the first step and take a life back from the things that hold you and hold you down.
That's really what this never ending story is about. I want to tell people it's not worth it to spend their years in some hell on earth. America is not worth it. You need a life. A new here and now. Why not just do it?
I've been enjoying the time with no social networks quite a bit. It's been quieter, maybe more intentional in the reading and writing, and definitely having nothing to really scroll down and up makes some kind of difference. I watch my wife with the never-ending scrolling that is Facebook and TikTok and silently feel bad for her. For me, the writing daily, walking, being this close and this far from others gives me more of the here and now. Maybe at some point I will need the social media back. It's forever presence. The words and all the things said and meant. Meanwhile, I can find some sense of peace without all that. I think the last month or so on my mastodon instance was painful. I felt this disconnected thing which never really seemed to right itself. I would log out and let it sit. Maybe somehow miss some of the noise. It became an issue with the forever politics and lefts and rights. Perhaps meaningful social and technology messages that I got nothing out of. I also at the same time deleted the RSS feeds which were news and technology oriented. I just could not find the desire to read them. I also am working on pruning the blogs I read. Some of them I get tired of so I just bypass them. RSS makes it easy to just ignore feeds and articles that I may want to go by for awhile.
I meant to mention as I look at this Saturday going by that my wife's birthday is in some days. September 7th is her day. I will go into town and get some flowers and maybe a gift for her. We are not big on the birthdays each year any more. No parties or dinners out. No visitors really. It's more like this part of life in this house just preempts all that and we are left with whatever the house offers instead. That's not really much.
When I was out walking today I saw this barang man walking with two young khmer kids. I kinda watched his body language and how he moved and he looked uncomfortable and impatient really to be done with that work. A khmer woman waited on him by this house which I guessing they are renting. Its this daily school or other thing he will be doing. Maybe she tells him,
oh go and walk with the children. They will learn to like you.
The little girl looked at me with this strange look as I walked by them. I don't really feel that this is some good neighborhood to live in for anyone and I'd never advise some couple to live here. There's nothing here and time doesn't make it any better.
So I'm done with the Saturday words and feelings I guess. I wrote and I felt and I saw. I did my practices. On to a Sunday which is like a copy of today but with changes or something. It's a new here and now. Maybe a new coffee place in the morning I have wanted to try. See you then or here or now or whatever.
Instead today I had to do new Android phone tech support. My wife tells people I can do this or that with mobile devices. I can't. I keep on telling her I worked with global data centers and cloud. It's easier to just try to work on the phone. Of course it's in Khmer so I have to get to the language part. I forgot how strange android phones are. Especially cheap ones here. I don't much care for them. My old iPhone 13 is much easier. So I got her friend working. She needed Gmail account. Got that. Updated the OS. Added telegram and TikTok. Made permissions permit. Then I decided I needed to go. I reached the point where I guess beer was calling. I just cannot go without cheap draft beer. So I don't.
That was my Saturday afternoon pretending I knew how telegram works. Truth is I don't. And I don't wanna know. I use WhatsApp. Don't need more complexity. I could use signal but I would die from boredom there.
And finally I find myself at Noi Cafe. It's the being here. The coffee. The moments. Writing. My wife made Khmer food for lunch for me. I don't remember the name. It was good. Then I went for the beer. Because I could and it felt good. No one to talk to and somehow I like that more than the usual people I manage to meet or find. No expats to trade stories with. Just the beer and chips and salsa. Then the ride home with the same tuktuk driver who knows where I live and I always pay more to. He is a nice soul and doesn't bother me with talk.
Sunday arises
I decided last night to go try Berry Coffee. It's a nice walk for me this morning and I get to try a new place I've walked by a few times and been welcomed to have coffee. When we first moved to this neighborhood, coffee places were few. Then Summer Coffee signaled a basic change to that math. Summer is an elegant and fun place to go sit. The food is wonderful and I know the manager. This wonderful young Khmer woman who worked in Oman for years. Her English is accomplished and she loves to talk about Cambodia now and where she wishes to go on a weekend she has off.
Who knows what Berry Coffee will bring. I'll take you along for the walk. A nice little place for a Sunday coffee. Right off a street I walk often. I've gone by who knows how many times. On my way here I met a Khmer man with his dog out walking. The dog was a husky with the wonderful eyes of different colors that seems to be a trait. We talked a little. It dawned on me he is the first person I've talked to in our neighborhood. It was the dog. I love dogs. Seeing a husky with the eyes got me.
Anyways here is the morning coffee service. This is a nice place. It's easy just wishing to come again here.
And that's the here and now. More tomorrow when it's again here and now.
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