Mikes Thoughts

wandering along Sunday

Writing for me has been an every day thing for some time now. It seems when I start a markdown file in iA Writer the possibilities are endless. I don’t need some list of things I want to write. Or a plan or schedule. Or drafts really. I guess because things just come to me as I write other things. Little life events here in Cambodia which seem funny or sad or memorable. Things I think on every day with a coffee somewhere. Today it’s Spring Coffee with their wonderful warm almond croissant and an iced americano. Earlier coffee at home with music. I’m always stunned by John Mayer. His voice and emotion always seems to just plow through my moments. This morning it was Why Georgia and it’s soulful and wonderful sounds. The man has talent and speaks to some inner person in me. I guess music and walking and coffee. Those things make me want to just go on this Sunday sans rainy season in Siem Reap.

Daily things in my city

Siem Reap is probably one of the prettiest towns ever in Cambodia. The river ambling through gives people places to enjoy a drink, food, or just escape to a bench. Maybe sit by one of the beautiful old wooden bridges. It’s not just downtown and people make mistakes thinking the city is Angkor Wat and shopping. There are beautiful districts like Wat Bo and Wat Damnak to wander. Old temples. Some multiple hundreds of years old one can just enter. Of course respectfully. Restaurants that reach any food desire from burgers and beer to fish amok. The city itself always seems a mix of hurry up and wait and perhaps that makes it the quintessential southeast Asian city. Hanoi was the same. In the hustle and bustle of old quarter my friend cat took me to hidden gems of coffee shops. Down little alleys and side streets. Her laughing and explaining in her beautiful precise English I would never find the place again if I did not invite cat.

I’ve felt at times I wanted to just write on the city. It’s little moments of life like the small and wonderful Khmer coffee shops I go to coupled with more elegant places. Finding a street I know I’ve walked yet it all seems new again.

I mention all this because combined with this sense of exploration is the safety I feel no matter where and when I go. I’m not a barang that assimilates nor am I one that wants some expat bubble. I feel stuck between at times. I’ve felt perhaps that’s why it seems we all are isolated in plain sight here. We all are ill at ease inside. We cannot be Khmer people and we can’t keep our western identities. We seem to be placed in a strange and wonderful land that we want. But wanting and want to be a part of are miles distant. Even with my wife being Khmer I don’t feel particularly desirous of becoming more or less anything.

Maybe that’s why Siem Reap accommodates so well. It knows. We all cannot totally lose where we come from even if we never want to go back. America is a flash in the pan in a painful sometimes reflection. Cambodia gives me a place to live and find a little more. Not all that it offers. And not less. Instead like I told someone I’m a mongrel. I just taste of the bowls. Each one spiced to taste. The western bowl has so few parts I find savory. It seems cruel and stunted these days and it’s far easier to find my life here. I also cannot just take here for it all.

No wonder I’m all fucked up inside. Lol. I don’t know what I want to be besides what I am. I know what I do not want. Cars and motorcycles and homes and fancy jewelry and clothes. Bangles that mean nothing.

Instead Siem Reap offers the mix. The wonder of having both this and that with no hard choices to make.

That’s a wonder. It’s a life that seems like so many others could just take. I don’t understand why anyone would persist in places like America. Forget politics and people. What about life and moments. Don’t you want more? Or less? Or like me nothing. Perhaps my wife doesn’t understand. Never will. What I know wandering this Sunday and seeing my coffee patiently waiting is this is it. This city right now. Right here.

Wander on

I think I will catch up on this when I get back to the house. Sometimes I feel the blog doesn’t do for me. I think on change. We all do change. Let’s see where I end up today. Writing and wondering. Wandering and walking.

Life never is like its reflection in some mirror. Instead it gets even more distorted and fantastic at times. Weird and displaced. Perhaps I say this after some beers at viva. But it’s not just the beer talking. It’s this sense that I can’t see the whole thing. Somehow things are withheld and colored. Perhaps tomorrow walking will let me see some yesterday wandering. And wondering.

Meanwhile there’s beer. And a small dose of overthinking.