Mikes Thoughts

people catching up

Somehow this other world that used to be comes moving into this one. I left behind so many people. Some just faded away into rarely used synapses. Firing only when some unbidden thing comes up. Then the links happen. I think back on so and so. How long has it been. For some decades.

Today it was at the speed of email. From a message I sent someone about using the Signal app 5 years ago when I think I saw him in San Francisco for awhile. Before I left for Hanoi and after a 2019 spent just going. Anyways, I awoke to an email from DK. We go back to 1998 and working at this amazing yet star crossed Linux startup. We would work on custom Linux solutions for some of the big guys then. Time faded and became this fabric or curtain. Things became shaded. Time became nothing finally. I left behind any impact of it.

Life seemed to reboot. To tell me,

Here’s a chapter to call your own.

And I took it. But DK persisted over the years. He reminded me in the email of others. One old friend with health issues. Another person I happily left behind. But the email sits in my inbox. Perpetually taking me from now to then. And I have to stop. Remember. Think just how different life is now. How my life took its twists and turns away from them all. Don’t we all think other peoples lives are frozen though. Like what they were last time we saw them is how they remain.

When someone catches up it’s like that random wheel spun and unfroze a person for me. I realize their lives have gone in directions too.

And I choose. Like we all do. To pick up that past. To echo the words again. To write back. He emphatically asked me to write. I’ve done it before. I felt like nothing came from it for either person. So I sit here watching Time Coffee ebb and flow. Filled with Khmer people that share food and thoughts. I read the email for perhaps the 20th time. Is it a place I want back? I always think one way and then do the other.

So I will answer him on a day. Tell him what 5 years has meant. How I feel sad ER may have health issues. Between the lines I wonder. How much change is too much. When do we cross the boundary where yesterday rests. We don’t. It all comes with our wonderful but tainted abilities to facilitate those links.

When people catch up they are also left behind. Nothing remains constant. So yesterday and some times in San Francisco then remain. The email remains.

But life is so different. So amazing and yet basic. Who has moved the furthest. Perhaps he thinks I am frozen in time too.

I’ll just sit with my coffee here for a spell. Let it all wash over me. Then I’ll decide on people catching up and if I want to spin that wheel again. I will. I know it. I’m only human after all. Blessed and cursed like all of us.

Of course I go look at photos of San Francisco then. It’s my blessing and curse to remember. Was it then? Those days I wandered. Maybe.

SF 2020

I’ll figure out it all later.

Now is now.

Woke up and read this over. I have more thoughts but I think coffee and walking will let me find them easier. After today two days of seeing barang people for coffee. I also thought some in these expat vloggers on daily life in Siem Reap. They each have their formula. Their life is all good or somethings I like or 5 things in Cambodia that are nice. One person still cannot collect social security here. I would find his life daunting. The difference between some dollars and none is close for him I think. Personally I think retirement supposed to be a little more after all the years we do for others. I’m thankful I make what I make.

It does let me find my space. To look at the current crop of people I see here that are foreigners or barang. I don’t really want people relationships. Tried that. I’m no good at it. I do like the occasional coffee out.

Then I play back the emails. The past things. I can see they should just stay there. Nothing back there can ever reach now unless I let it.

Cambodia is far away. Physically and philosophically. I’m thankful. I don’t need most of that patching retread into now. Maybe it’s the same with people catching up. Some coffee thoughts here and there and a few words to go.

Finishing up on this. Made it to coffee. Always think of another thing I could write. Most of the time I will just start writing it. No discipline or real ideas or drafts besides unfinished things I feel like writing more on.

Anyways I’ll let this go. Drink coffee. Puzzlement and perambulation. Akin to overthinking.

See ya.