Shifting Landscapes

The landscape around me has melted and reformed multiple times in the past weeks, each time shifting hues and acquiring new scents, flavors, characters, textures, and soundtracks.

The first fresh scene to grow up around me was Hanoi, where my tight little taste buds blossomed with street foods, all sugar baked and sweetly glazed, or salty sandwiches or steaming bowls of pho noodles. Easy gray skies rested on unspeakable greens, and silvery smooth darkchocolate water sank into land while the city writhed with traffic and action.

In Hanoi proper, crossing the street is an act of faith. With frantic honking and ceaseless streaming traffic, the only rule is to keep moving and let the motorcycles swerve gracefully around your little walking bundle of flesh. It really is an excellent trust-building activity. I consistently trusted Vietnamese motorcyclists with my life. The traffic also provides a tempting metaphor for our individual journeys through life: it never slows or stops or becomes safe. You just have to step into it with all your senses turned all the way up, and trust the other players in this insane game we call reality.

They appear harmless when still.

The major characters were street vendors, offering a monotone litany of every possible drug, yet throwing a literary temptation in the middle: "Coke? Pills? Marijuana? Books? ..." I guess they figure if you don't like drugs, you'll love books (and visa versa?).

I celebrated my 24th birthday in a funky Chinese junk boat, gliding across the slick rippling waters of Ha Long bay.

Accompanying us on our boat was someone who looked like the Dalai Lama's twin brother, except he had three 3's shaved into the back of his head. I assumed this was a religious symbol and asked its significance. He replied: "It's a beer brand." Enlightening.

Within Ha Long bays massive limestone formations came the most dramatic change in scenery. The caves swallowed you up into their dramatically lit textures, piled up all around like psychedelic melted candle wax. It was pretty epic.

My birthday evening featured two very enthusiastic Vietnamese guys who insisted on giving my brother and I too much tequila. Their English was limited to the phrase: "Vietnamese...good people!" Other than that, we were limited to thumbs ups and other basic gestures. At one point, one of them added: "Go home and tell them...Vietnamese...good people!" I told him I would: so consider yourself updated. It was a strangely poignant way to forge healing for a past of violence that continues to fester in the land today.

My brother and I visited the Military History Museum. While buying a ticket, the ticket lady asked where we were from. "USA," I said. Automatically, I added: "Sorry..." However, I quickly realized that apologizing to the ticket booth people for the Vietnam war seemed slightly inappropriate and strange. Still, I'm very sorry about all war. I'm just not sure who to address the apology to, exactly.

As Hanoi sank back down into the earth, the scenery relaxed into rolling hills, which were coated in different crops sewn together like patchwork: utterly dominated by sunflowers and corn and lazy floppy clouds. Ripe plums dropped slowly like days too full of sweet juices. This was Bardigues, a tiny town in Southern France.

Hay swirled into itself while vegetables roasted and cheese spread and people gathered around the glorious cuisine and whole-grain laughter. Mix in a bit of chilled wine and it created medicine for my rice infested belly.

Then a blast of cool air and the comforting grandfatherly presence of brick buildings signified a brief intermission into the old grays of London...

with the colorful exception of Selah Hennessy and her wardrobe

(which she generously shared with me).

Activities: Walking and baking cookies. Frequenting pubs and thrift stores.

Finally, the East Coast of Malaysia has risen up and reformed around me, nearly identical to how I remembered it. Except now it is Ramadan, and I am teaching rather hungry kids who wake up at 4:30AM to eat and pray before the day of fasting begins. I walk into classrooms sometimes to find the majority of my students sleeping. I sometimes apologize before teaching. I sneak off and chug water quietly in the toilet. I never thought I'd feel guilty about hydration. At first I tried fasting, but I soon remembered that I am not a fantastic person or teacher without food. But more importantly, the act carries no meaning for me. Rituals must be infused with meaning in order to be fulfilling and while Ramadan is rich with significance for the Muslim world, I haven't found my relationship with it yet. Regardless, its ample food for thought, and meanwhile I'm unfurling into the new slower and softer rhythms of Ramadan.

Another fresh landscape emerges, in a familiar place.