Mikes Writing

Soup and Saturday

My wife made this fully loaded Khmer soup yesterday and fed these people in this small village. She told me about 20 people showed up to eat her food. This makes her very happy. I don't usually go to those events and she always still invites me. I have done similar things before and I've not felt comfortable and did not wish to repeat the performance again. It always makes me realize there is this distance between me and them. Like some kind of boundary and limit. It has made me realize no matter what other expat youtubers say about doing more local, I just cannot do the things. I can do some things and feel good about them. Other things I've realized are just not things for me. So I just don't do them. On the other hand, I also do not do a lot of expat things. I have gotten invited a few times to dinners out from various and sundry expats. I've tried that a few times and honestly could not wait until I went home.

My wife has said a few times I should find more friends. I think she says this from some distinctly Cambodian expectation. Cambodians are very social and communal people and will always want the contact, the talk, the food together. I don't think we expats fit in well with that. One person commented in his vlog that we will always be individuals. On the outside. Maybe looking in.

It brings me to wanting to write more stuff. To explain a little about life here how I see it. How it feels this time for five years or so living in Cambodia. The sense of it. How sometimes just like this blogger Nomad Sam said in a vlog about his life, he felt as this outsider. I think when he left his known and traversed his boundary, he becomes this other thing. Not here. Not there. Something unique and individual.

It also comes about when changing countries when a person realized that other country really had done nothing. Nothing to give the person some kind of life. Instead it's a sentence. Sometimes demeaning and insulting. Other times we find this plan. This idea to leave. To escape. This kind of brings me to Saturday. I did the soup. Now I have Saturday to trot out for you all. It is all a blend for me of the things on some day I see. My strange little feelings about life here. Just tailored for a Saturday out. A Saturday out for coffee and a walk. A walk to take me away to a warm day where I can feel the things with the coffee gently carrying me on.

See you then. BTW, the soup was good. I enjoyed it immensely. I eat one meal a day so when my one meal is some excellent Khmer food I'll take it.

On to Saturday

Morning writing for me is first in a journal. I get joy just finding my morning. The neighborhood quiet. Darkness besides our little nightlight that glows red and yellow and green. Traffic lights. Some kind of little "I'm ok you're ok" thing I feel with it. The house has this quiet thing going for it now. Best time before the daily sessions where neighbors gather at other neighbors. I haven't even heard a moto this morning yet.

Another day going for the walk that takes me first to coffee. I like wrangling a bit on what place. Google Maps has its choices. The walk today I suddenly feel is another way to get to a favored stop. I don't really know until I go. So this tails off. The journal has this meandering sense to it much like the blog. It's a walk in a place that looks different so words and a photo may help. Of course the photo is just random. Or not.

I never know.

Made it to LaLatte coffee. Soft music. Conversation goes.

Seven years ago. So maybe not such a random photo. Hello Laos.

laos 2017

Hello coffee and time to just do.