Mikes Thoughts

old shoes and new words

I really don’t like missing walking. I get this uncomfortable feeling that makes life seem less. Like a thing I must have I don’t get. Maybe almost like coffee.

So today is a new month. New words. And old shoes. Words are the easiest for me. Since I figured out things during my slowly Saturday meandering, I feel like a new thing. Life here daily is not terribly stressful. I figure retirement is supposed to be having moments to spare. To go do the things one finds with no real barrier. My things are relatively small. It used to be my friend Russell would invite me for coffee and a talk. We would sit for hours at the appropriately named Time Coffee. Often the owner would sit with us and we’d gently tease her. Most of the time we would tear apart and rebuild life here as we saw it.

There’s not a replacement for Russell. He’s gone to the UK and the space he occupied cannot be easily replaced. I don’t even try.

Instead of wanting something back it’s better to take what I have now. I have a coffee and tea. Some words. Old shoes. Have a walk that could be whatever way I want. It’s easy sometimes to just get lost here. There’s this spell in Cambodia that displaces our usual concern for time and days. It just becomes a stream. Coming from the west I think expats find the whole thing rather strange. We are used to the time and place of everything idea. That all has to happen in some set time. That life is subject to rules and often the rules obey the clock. When I left years ago I met head on with this in Japan. I realized I had nowhere to be. There were no expectations and no rules. Life before had been. Working on this last cloud program left me exhausted with schedules and strange network and identity and security things that went bump when we least wanted.

So what we really need I think when we say farewell to that life is something completely opposite. Something that stretches out before us. Makes no decision on a path. Doesn’t try to influence you. It’s the cosmic opposite of what we all spend decades learning. I could never see having that and living in America. I felt life was constrained and regulated even if I did not work. I would wander from Burger King to Denny’s perhaps. No real life there folks.

Yet so many people choose it. And it puzzles me. I talked with one expat before and he thought fear played a part. Getting old we fear things. Before maybe we were adventurers and risk takers. We work our decades and just when a new life beckons we stop. Why?

It’s not like moving to Asia or wherever is particularly challenging. It isn’t. So many things are the same. Some things are notably different. Like a bowl of beef pho for less than $1 in Hanoi. Or a cellular plan for the phone in Cambodia that costs less than $5 a month. But then we come to the differences. Those things over there. Different than the clock ticking. The people and culture things. Perhaps the history things. The truth is no one forces an expat to be any which way in Vietnam or Cambodia. There’s no rules that say you gotta live in some path. I chose the things before I wanted. I took a lot of what Vietnam offered me. It never asked for anything back. Friendships came and I found Vietnamese people to be the most amazing and loyal friends ever.

So what’s the purpose of this then. This rumination on things. Well it’s to encourage people to stretch. Life in Cambodia is not about just taking again what you had in America. Who wants that? But it’s also not just becoming somehow Khmer. You can’t do it. Your little star stuff is different. So what to do?

Find the things you do want. The differences you need. The change you can take a step at a time. There’s no reason to just stay in a place that could give a shit less about you. A wise person once said,

There’s nothing to fear but fear itself

So why fear. Be bold. Or slow. Find your new words and old shoes. Maybe each thing will amaze you.