Monday, December 26, 2011

Reflections on a great year

I'm a sucker for resolutions and reflections. Even though many people talk about it only being a date in the calendar, for me New Years is a hugely symbolic time to do both of these R's.

In just under a month in Vietnam we'll be experiencing 'Tet', the Vietnamese lunar new year. This new moon'll be a much more auspicious time to manifest I'm sure, so perhaps I'll leave my resolution making until that time. However, I feel the time is ripe for a fair bit of reflection on this amazing year.

I do believe that this year has been the best year of my life so far. The older I get, the more amazing the world seems to me. Is this normal? Who knows... normality's never been a favourite word of mine anyway. Here are some other words to sum up 2011:

Seemingly endless Kiwi summer - lazy barefoot days, two months of farewells, tear-jerking weddings and music making.

Snakes in the bushes in Queensland - time spent with my nephew and niece reading Richard Scarry on repeat and running Thomas the Tank Engine endlessly around on his tracks.

Finding a Sanctuary in Thailand - literally - 'The Sanctuary' of Haad Tien beach (on Ko Pha Ngan island), an incredible getaway filled with yogic delights.

Cambodian compassion - the beauty of Siem Reap contrasting with gritty Phnom Penh and that haunting museum of torture that reminded me just how little the world has learnt from war.

Saigon the first. I kinda liked it actually... I seemed to gloss over the pollution and traffic congestion.. funny how things are always different when you're on holiday.

Return to India...

Geez, you can NEVER Write about India in a sentence. My words are: annoying-as-hell-at-first, I'd-changed-a-lot-in-the-five-years-since-I'd-been-here, big-lack-of-peace-within, HIMALAYA, transformative, PEACE again, Russian and Ukranian whanau, Bhagsu community - alchemical...

Holland and Germany (Bavaria). Old friends and their families, enjoying the luxury of the first world again - fresh sheets and clean air never felt so good...

Ljubljana. Even writing the name makes me romantic. One of my favourite places on the planet. I don't know why... quiet river, good memories, bridges to play music on, lovely Slovenian folk... I would love to find a teaching job in this place one day...

Croatia. Alternately masculine and meaty, and beautiful and gentle. Best and worst busking experiences (best = Korcula. Worst = money hungry Dubrovnik)

Italia. Bella bella! Bari, Roma, Siena, Verona, Venizia. Pizza! Spaghetti Pomodoro! Bellissimo!

Austria - gallavanting with a fire pixie from my past. Fun times! And swanky busking near a touristic lake polluted with yachts. Good for my pockets though, so, can't complain.

London town - Vauxhall, Clapham, Chiswick... and some other places I've forgotten. Beautiful reconnections with friends, especially my Russian soulmate.

Brighton for three weeks - well, HOVE, actually... good busking, unwanted attention from all the mad hatters on George Street, and a home away from home at 'Small World' festival. Living off my earnings and totally close to the edge of life... wondrous but scary at times.

Portugal - roadtripping without a map with Vladi, both literally and figuratively, barefeet on the dashboard and arms out the window. It's HOT HOT HOT. And an amazing two weeks together, writing music in the parks and drinking endless cups of tea.

London, Brighton, Scotland again. More cups of tea, and my final goodbyes because the money has more than run out this time and it's high time to get a job somewhere in the world. I'm choosing SAIGON, and two months in, I'm happy with my choice.

In the present again, at my office desk in Saigon. Working through the Christmas holiday but I don't mind too much because it's been a good year, a damn fine one actually, and although I've glossed over the details there is much in my heart that I will never succeed in translating. I love where I'm at in my life and I look forward to 2012 whole heartedly. And if I could choose a few words for the coming year, I would choose: CONSCIOUSNESS, MOTIVATION and MOJO. I've been such a cruiser for ages, I think it's time to get a bit more hip to the possibilities of being alive. They are limitless...

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Just getting along.

It's so much easier to write when you're travelling. There are new things to see every day, interesting anecdotes, chance encounters with new friends... all of the same things that are possible wherever you are in fact. Now that I've been here (Saigon) for two months, things are becoming more ordinary and I sometimes struggle for new material.

That's why I love travelling. With no ties or responsibilities, the world is limitless once more - there are no deadlines and few decisions to make other than what to eat for lunch every day.

But this is not how life is all the time necessarily, or how I would even like it to be - I love working and feeling more settled (from time to time). I have noticed lately however, that with this settled feeling comes a kind of complacency and a sense of 'just getting along'. There's nothing wrong with this, but I do sometimes miss the creative outbursts that used to colour my days in India earlier this year. I guess this means I just have to try harder, right?

Earlier this year I decided to turn this blog into a book, at some point. The idea seemed so simple back then, but I have not even begun to put that process in motion - I don't even have my own computer! I am sure there will be a time for more serious writing in the next few months and am under no illusion about the work and discipline involved in it... until that more committed time, my posts will probably continue to be sporadic.

But! I DO have something to write about today! I have really turned my Saigon situation around in the last two weeks, going from my tiny $8/night hotel room in the noisy soup of Bui Vien (backpackers area) to my beloved alleyway at 18a Nguyen Thi Minh Khai. I am finally enjoying walking around the streets in the weekends - midday on Saturday or Sunday is a perfect time to do this as most people are sleeping off their lunch. Yesterday, as I was walking into town from my alleyway (a 40 minute walk), I passed by the beautiful Notre-Dame-esque cathedral, the widely paved streets and green parks, and began to realise that... heaven forbid... that I have not just learnt to 'put up' with this place but am in fact starting to be wooed by its urban charm. Part of me almost doesn't want to admit this to myself, as if clinging to the sense of not liking a place would inflate my ego and sense of righteousness or something... as if starting to enjoy this place would serve as a complicit acceptance of Saigon's shocking pollution and traffic problems... all very interesting observations. I think that whenever we oppose something in life, it's to do with defending our false sense of our own 'identity' (which is actually ever changing and doesn't really exist!)... the reason why neighbouring countries are rivals is always about making themselevs right and others wrong... when you think about it, it's kind of ridiculous...

Anyways, I'm getting off track with all this philosophising... So I was walking yeterday at lunchtime, watching the blue shirted cyclo drivers snooze in their carriages and the even more impressive balancing acts of xe om (motorbike) drivers managing to sleep with one eye open, perfectly balanced on their steeds whilst still managing to offer their services to any would-be tourist who happened to be passing. I love it how people here seem to sleep anywhere... the woman in her hammock on the side of a busy road... my co-workers on their office desks with their heads crooked in their office sleeves at lunchtime... my students who pile 30+ in a room on the floor for a quick kip before another 4 hours of lessons... and as well as being able to enjoy my face-masked city walks, I've also become used to the weather - wither that or it's actually cooled down since I've got here. Gone are the days of overly sweaty foreheads and attractive pit-stains - yuss!

And last night I even managed to get out of the city, quite spontaneously. It was after a friend's 21st and we'd all heard tell of a music festival going on somewhere near the city. After jumping in a taxi adn managing to somehow help our driver navigate the forty minute journey, we got there - I have no idea where it actually was geographicaly, but I just know that being in a palce with so much grass and breathing the clean air felt amazing!

The music was allright as well - I'm not massively into house or trance and know very little about all the different sub-genres, but I just know that I loved the last guy's set anyway, and at 4am we were still up for more. It felt kind of nice to recognise certain faces in the crowd - lots of long-terms travellers/teachers/ex-pats - as wel as spot a few hippy types in there as well. Made me feel at home...

We got lost on the way back into town afterwards, thanks to our Irish friend who didn't know the way to his own house so we ended up back in sleazy Bui Vien again for breakfast. I tell you, fried rice had never tasted so good... and instead of xe-omming it up I opted to walk home in the breaking dawn and watch Saigon wake up around me.

You wouldn't have guessed that some poeple were still up from the night before - at 6 am the parks were filled with ladies doing their morning exercises. As I heard the exercise tape from a hidden speaker I realised I could count to 20 in Vietnamese with them. I passed the school I teach at every weekday and saw full fledged games of badmington going on in a court opposite, the participants full of energy at this early hour. The street cart owners wre just beginning to lay out their magazines / coconuts / sandwich fillings and I saw lots of men crouching low at plastic tables slurping their breakfast Pho. The streets were almost empty and a;though I still clutched my bag tightly to me, the thought of getting my purse stolen seemed less of a possibility at this gentle hour. Once home, after smiling at the early monring flower sellers and fruit merchants, I fell asleep straight away in my room with a clear and happy heart.

I remember just a few weeks ago despairing and wondering where the sense of peace and contentment that came so easy to me for much of this year had gone. I really wondered what was wrong with me - why I was struggling to meditate and even to simply feel happy. Now that it's over, it doesn't seem so bad and I'm beginning to get some of the sense of peace and mystery of the world back again. Really, there is beauty everywhere - even in this urban jungle. I may curse capitalism and Western influence at times, but really - we are all still people and all of us still connect to this at times, whether we realise it or not. The best glimpses of humanity I've seen lately have been at these quiet times - the early dawn and the sleepy afternoons, where people are just doing the things that make them human. Not trying to be anything other than what they are, not wanting for anything - 'just getting along' I suppose, which is what I'm learning to do: get on with things, and to enjoy every minute of a life which is becoming more normal every day, but no less beautiful.