-^-for posterity-^-

yesterday i was thoroughly alone and sad. i wrote a long analysis of the situation. i thought it was good but it got deleted. being depressed, i didn’t bother starting over and just left it die.

today felt very different. there was something wonderful in the air. maybe some pheromone or gas leak. whatever it was, i saw the leaves on the trees dance and the sun warmed my back.

i ate alone today at a very small restaurant. the tables were pressed against the walls and there were only four other men eating there. we all faced the road and ate alone. i stared at the man’s head in front of me and munched silently. it felt like we were eating in a garage and on a plane at the same time.

a dog walked by the store apparently busy. he was large and brown with very short hair. all of the sudden he turned and looked directly at me. i had finished eating and stared right into his beady eyes. he turned his body and trotted over to me. he closed the 20 foot gap between us quickly. i had no time to respond. what did he want? why me? there were other people much closer to the entrance than i was. he didn’t seem to notice them. he came with a look of determination and i treated him as a beggar. averting my eyes and trying to busy myself with something in my pocket. he stayed for a bit and then left without saying a word. that is the second unexplainable run in with dogs.

i walked around after lunch and everything was wonderful. i passed a large dead rat on the sidewalk. he seemed to die of some natural causes and laid peacefully, as if asleep, on the dirty sidewalk. he was on his left side. i wondered what his last thoughts were and i wondered what my last thoughts will be. if i’m lying on my death bed with my loving family around me, what will i be thinking? wouldn’t it be terrible to have a really annoying song stuck in your head then? that’s what i thought. maybe, “jailhouse rock”. that’s not a song i want to die thinking about.

also, i had another session with ms. hà. fascinating. we started off talking about the phrase, “money can’t buy happiness.” she asked what i thought. i said that i agreed with the phrase. her face changed quickly and she became very emotional. she works as a cleaning lady here and puts in 12 hour shifts. she said that she has a hard time making enough money to get by and that, yes, money does buy happiness. she notices foreigners spending very much money on trivial things while she sweats and cleans. she thought, if she had more money she would be happy. she isn’t always happy.

how do you respond to that. the world isn’t fair, understood. i couldn’t rectify the injustice and she seemed to understand. “vietnam is very poor, i think”, she said.

she also talked about marriage. she said that, “many, many people think i can not find a husband. i am 33 years old and have no one. they say i should be sad but i am not. i do not want a husband.” i asked her why. in vietnam, it seems that everyone is constantly looking for a mate to start a family with. she explained to me that she sees so many couples arguing and fighting. she is happy alone. everyone lives so close to one another that it’s easy to see what’s going on in another home. she said that she saw her neighbors hitting their wives very often. this makes her very sad. her father used to hit her mother when he made a lot of money. her mother didn’t make any money and needed him to survive. when ms. hà was small she wanted her mother to leave. now her father doesn’t hit her mother because he doesn’t make much money.

her eyes went red. she looked off at the ho chi minh city skyline deep in thought. what must have been going through her head i can only imagine. the rage that those beatings must have caused. no wonder she wanted to stay single her whole life even if it meant 12 hour shifts cleaning rooms for opulent foreigners.

i could have split at the seems right then.

the wind blew all around us on the roof as i thought of something to say. i ended up saying, “ms. hà, i think you are very strong.” she looked at me blankly. “you think i am strong? i can’t be strong because i cry.” she cries. there was another long pause and she looked back over the city. i said, “you know, i cry too. i miss many people at home and i cry too.” i wanted to right there. i wanted to understand everything she’s seen and get inside her head and root around for a while. i wanted to make her life right even though i had no idea what that meant.

she looked at me and said, “maybe you are not strong either.”

maybe not.