Mikes Thoughts

Dialing down

I decided a few days ago to kind of reboot the things a bit. Wanted to find a new path to some things I’ve wanted to write about that somehow I never did. The canvas and the well are forever empty and just opening iA Writer makes things bubble and froth. Not ideas. Streams of thought. Divergences. Paths I find that lead to outcomes unforeseen. The blog has always been a haphazard journey. A place to simply do. Whether I do two posts or work on the same one for two days it hasn’t mattered. One thing can easily become another when I have no plan. I start with nothing most times. Perhaps I do have a vague idea but the idea of writing ideas down is rather foreign. Why would I do that when I can just do this?

Take you on some little trip on a day in Cambodia where I go for a coffee. Find myself yet again at Noi Cafe. Right by the river. Where Siem Reap shines in the mornings. From here I can just go. I can walk to a place and find the respite. The moments where life seems to just offer a thing and I can take it. No guilt. No fear.

Since coming back in 2022 I knew I would never leave again. I didn’t know then I’d meet my wife. What I knew then was I wanted some of the wandering back. The days of 90 day visas. The idea I did not need to plan what happened on the 88th day or so. It would all happen just like it should. For years it did. It was this unlikely path of the itinerant wanderer. Mexico was like that too but they gave me 6 months each time. Faced with the choice of going back to California or staying in Merida Mexico again, the choice seemed way too easy.

All this perhaps still spins around somewhere. In some hazy and unfocused yesterday that I remember much of. Generic things. People coming. Some going. All of the things wandered in their shadowy streaks from all those moments that came before. My daughter in the US telling me she did not approve of my life choices. Me wondering when I had asked her to approve. I don’t recall ever saying,

Is it okay with you if I do this or that?

So what does happen with relationships and families there is they enter some half life. Where I still remember so much but years go by living in Asia. Finding my moments here to simply hold on or let go.

For some reason

From daily notes to the blog this all came around today. Sitting in the coffee shop perhaps I have the desire to cast the net backwards. Not to relive things. Never that. But to see what remains to be caught in my little self fashioned net. A lot. Not so much. Things. It seems fewer people matter and I dial down on the ones that do. My daughter here calling me daddy. My wife leaving a video for me in Khmer on her cooking. Her wondrous smile and just the little act of having someone to wake up with, find humor in, and even become irritated and frustrated with.

All the little reasons to write the note for today that wanders its own path. Wanting to write more along this one. Telling my daughter in California to calm down and stop listening to her mom. I stopped almost 10 years ago. Then there’s America in the rear view mirror. Slipping away until when I look it’s hidden by the little folds of time and space. Thinking to myself,

Yeah. That’s the reason. Why I write.

Not for you. But if you find it great. It’s a little story of a life spent wandering and wondering. Never asking another to approve my life choices. Least of all my daughter who made plenty of bad choices which cost money, energy, time. I never told her any of them. It’s about the price paid for growing up. Making bad life choices and then doing them again. Because...

We are all fucking human. And we do not learn. Even when the key thing is before us. Being away though by this distance means I have this view of it all not tempered by proximity.

And there you go. No learnings. No lessons. Just one old retired guy voice. I’ll drink my coffee now. Give it some thought. I will leave you with this.

Battambang

Maybe you ask why Battambang? We go next week. To get away and go to a place we both like. To clear the mirror. Find a new thing that will slowly become what was. Then in December I think yet something else. I dream of Hanoi. Let’s see if we can dial that down.

finales because I waited too long

I changed the date in the front matter to today because I don’t know why. I feel like writing more in this thing about today’s little adventures. Coffee and walking. Truth be told yesterday I just felt old. Sore and tired. Back ache and legs hurt. I normally do not really feel my age. But I walked downtown yesterday and somewhere in some step in some place, I dialed it up and not down. The walk slowly removed those aches and pains in sweat and happiness. When I got done I sat for a mango at the park. Mighty good. Then a short stroll to Heritage Walk mall and a passapp home.

Today I start with no pains and aches and I feel kinda ready to go now. I get tired of the house pretty quickly these days. Today I will walk to some coffee shop here and do some more of this here writing.

so here it ends maybe

It's interesting I guess between times. I watch this vlog on an american guy and his Thai wife and their daily lives. I just like their things. It feels so human and down to earth yet they live this rarefied life I could never do. I don't like the things in their lives. I do like what he goes through wanting to be both in Thailand but also understand the differences and not wanting change. I've found that here many times. I had written in my journal it's perhaps why we search out other barang people. That most often does not work either in my experience. So I will just leave for coffee and refrain from wondering the "why" of things. Here they say,

same same but different

Different in Thailand I guess. On to coffee.

It’s Fame coffee and the end run to my dialing today in. There’s no expectations and I just go. Take a little of a nice ac coffee shop. Pay a little more. Write some.

I thought this article on second brains was enlightening. I’ve not thought through his things but my own little ones. I see no practical purpose to just writing more and linking. Saving for later and keeping links in some special tool. What happens if we have no notes. If links and connections already happen to me in the first brain. Why even bother. So I don’t know. I do know coffee arrived and I’ve reached the end. Or the beginning. Or something yet again.