Mikes Writing

Seasons and desires

Lately I’ve watched rainy season wax and wane. Now the weather is kind of a change waiting to happen. It feels like if I just wait 15 minutes it’ll change. Like this morning laying in bed after another futile attempt at decent sleep, the iOS weather widget said rain. Said it will last an hour or so. I’ve learned to kind of doubt the reporting. It doesn’t seem able to really judge percents well. It will say 40% but then thunder boomers and rain falls heavily.

To its credit I guess it will stop when it says. Or close. This morning it seemed to be right on. I felt like somehow that weather app visited Siem Reap and verified that it would do such and such.

Rainy or green season as they now call it lingers along. Limping through October or sometimes being pissed off and letting us all know it ain’t done. Still though it stops now more often than it goes so maybe we are on the shorter circuit to dry season.

December is rather delightful in this kingdom of wonder. Often by end of the month the temps drop to the coolest here. Cambodian people would call it cold. I’d say it’s about 15 Celsius. Reminds me of time in Da Lat Vietnam. When I got there way back when it was evening. The Vietnamese bundled up with snow caps and booties. And me in a shorts and a t shirt. I did break down and buy a sweater at the market. It did feel good.

Anyways here it will become cooler by end of year. My wife will break out her warm jackets and offer me one. I’ve never felt that 14 was an arctic blast so I just stay in barang costume.

And desires

The changing seasons make me think of some things I’d like. Some are fantasies no doubt. But what does it matter if they’re beyond reach or I just try feebly and decide enough. I would like some kind of relationship with my children in America. Not one of blame and guilt or them telling me things which have never been true yet another tells them so. What I’ve realized is there is no counter balance. No way to have a word fit in when the tale has been told. So it’s a lofty thing and other expats have faced similar issues. Some go for decades and just accept that the life back there just doesn’t fit. They’ve told me they decided to simply move on. There’s no going back. No magic crystal to grant some yesterday a privilege.

Another thing is like I’ve bemoaned many times here - Vietnam. I don’t know why it’s such a monumental desire. My mom might tell me it has achieved the heights because I cannot have it when I want it. Somehow i remember her telling me something similar.

The desires unreachable become fixations.

Well yeah mom. But we still want. She would nod her head gently. She knew. Maybe Vietnam today fits in the fixation category. I know I look at photos from then. Superimpose them to now. And how. What. Feelings.

Finally is what I see day to day how we live. I don’t enjoy the day to day much. There’s not a lot of reach in it. Not a sense of finding a thing since there’s nothing there but two little dirt roads and a lot of people talking. I don’t much like talking any more even if my wife translates. It just seems meaningless. Like it’s done not out of some need. It’s maybe a habit. A thing people do here just because. So what do I desire besides only talking when I have something to say? I’d like to find the space to not hear some of it. Perhaps like what Garbo said about being left alone. Left alone to sit sometimes without the forever Facebook and TikTok nonsense. I don’t do those out of desire to not further enshittify my life with algorithms and fake news.

What I’ve realized with this is a few things are crafted in unobtaineum. That strange and desire resistant material that I find every so often here.

What would it all mean without a photo. A thing that transcends desire for me. That lifts me and sets me down. Some other world view.

halong bay

That was a moment where desire and expectation transcended. Reality seemed to stand still in a sunset on the bay. I went only once to Halong Bay. Sometimes to go twice would suffer a comparison. I’ll stick with that time. If we go back it’s new. I’ll take that. Maybe it’s why Vietnam has meant this lifting of it all. Somehow it fills me up. Gives me the final thing. Where season and desire meet. Right now in memory.