the Sunday force
Woke up this morning realizing I need to get away from the house. There is something here which sometimes just doesn’t feel right. My wife tries to do all the things for me to make this feel like home. Nice meals. Lots of love. Trying to talk to me about things. I’ve realized over the years living here, it is not her. It is me. I am broken here. So when I start feeling that broke feeling and the desire to not be here. I know I must go there.
So in some bit of time, I will PassApp and coffee downtown and spend time in the Siem Reap I love. It is almost Khmer New Years. Three days of water guns and whatever else. I’m not a big holiday person. I try to stay away from places like Pub Street during this holiday if I can. So today ahead of the holiday I will just go and enjoy a Sunday to traipse around and do what I usually do.
Vicarious enjoyers and readers welcome!
Noi Cafe is the one
I’ve felt for some time this disconnected or just wanting to be left alone in most things. Part of my going daily is to find the moments where it’s me with some bit of Siem Reap but just not in my face. Khmer people love the interaction. The talking. The social networks. I don’t really like that. So here I am at Noi Cafe yet again. The companion is the coffee machine and I can hear the loving sounds of beans grinding. The big windows showcase one slice of the river. This makes Noi feel both inside and out. Like there is comfort right here but there’s also the river. It’s the connection and combination I have loved for years here.
Isolation here
Since I watched the persons vlog on his life and then blogged some of it, I’ve felt this sense of distance. Like our best pathways living in this culture is to maintain the distance while still feeling a part of life. I coined the idea once here,
Respectful distance
I believe it’s what I need to live here. There’s always the sense of escape here. Like life here travels along different wires than anything one can find in America. But there’s a cost to the escape. A lot of us are willing to take it. And sometimes we find another. Finding a Khmer woman has meant that this life has become interesting and funny and strange. Most of all it’s loving someone in the escape. I needed the escape this morning. The house sometimes holds me down. Makes me feel less. So I go. Not away from her.
Just away. From words and feelings and whatever else manages to come along. When I just went for years, a place would stop for me and I would go. Often it meant another visa in Vietnam. Another time spent there. Just going.
Now escape means a gentler rewiring of my circuits. So I come to Noi Cafe. It offers comfy chairs and decent WiFi. A place to just sit before I do the other thing which means a lot to me. The walking folks.
I needed that too. Soon I tell myself. The iced americano waits. Words wait.