Post Viet Nam and in Hoa Ky Reality

So it has been several weeks since I've been back 'home' and still -I am trying to adjust. My departure from Viet Nam was a pleasant, almost lonely, one. I spent most of my last 2 days there wandering the streets of Ha Noi, doing some shopping, and mostly reflecting on my experiences. I was a little sad to be leaving but a little excited to come back 'home' and see the fami I missed all summer. 

I was able to get one last bap tran street meal in with Kim and Karyna before I left for the airport by prepaid taxi. It was around 845pm when the taxi showed up and I headed out. I'm glad I left at night- that is also the way I arrived. I had a knot in my throat like I would cry any second and felt like I shouldn't be leaving. I watched the traffic of people, motorbikes, cars, and bikes make their way through the streets and markets as we tried to make our own way to the freeway- I watched. I just watched. I watched and thought, the people of Viet Nam are awesome people, I'm serious! It is a HARD life in almost every corner of every place I got to see there and still the people are not filled with hate or anger or jealousy or resentment or bitterness. The people are friendly, loving, caring, some very shy, working with their best to earn a living or just scrape by. They work hard and they also play hard. 

Do you want to know how we can build community here? Do as the Vietnamese, go out every morning and evening before you start and end your day and play with others! Yeah it's that simple! We don't know how to do simple :o(

...I think we lost our way here in this western society a loooong time ago. It makes me sad especially because we go around thinking we know it all, force our ways upon other places and people, and exclude or punish them if they don't conform. We got it all wrong! We rush right through our lives, stressed, angry, overworked, hateful, and perhaps sad and delusional. We hurry others to keep up or get out of the way. We rush, rush, rush as if we are racing to see who gets done with life faster or richer or wiser or better than whatever and whoever...why? Slow down, live in the moment. I don't mean squander your life and have no direction for the future. I mean just slow down a minute and appreciate the people and places for what they truly are and/or represent. Remind ourselves why we choose the paths we choose and what that means to us and how that affects others and remember that some place else someone is just trying to stay fed and breathing....We are a privileged and mostly spoiled society that still hasn't figured out how to play well with others even just among ourselves...sad...

Viet Nam... I miss Viet Nam...it took me a good two weeks to understand that this is my home, here in the states, here in this society. I felt like I had been asleep or in a coma having the best dream ever of traveling in Viet Nam only to wake up back at home, right in the middle of the life I left in early summer. I felt very disconnected and almost disoriented being back home. That is as best as I can explain the feeling of coming 'home' but not feeling at home, home. There's a feeling I know that means home to me and I've felt it every time I've returned from visiting others out of town- not this time. There was no feeling of being home just an intellectual understanding that I'm here. I'm still working on that...

Perhaps I've just entered a different reality, a different state of mind. Perhaps that is how Viet Nam changed me- the lenses I had before aren't the same ones I have now and I am very much not grounded....I'm working on that.

What is next for me is getting back to work and school. Classes began today although I had to attend one of my classes last Friday as an orientation/placement deal. I am trying hard to ground myself in the work I have ahead of me this coming academic year but I find myself thinking about Viet Nam, my experiences there and my goal to return no matter what... I want to go back! I am not grounded yet....something is brewing or transforming inside this head of mine. I wonder where it will take me...no fear, just anticipation.