Sunday, January 31, 2016

Post-Saigon Blues




The hardest thing to do in Cambodia is wake up. 
Once you can get past the desperate clutches of a jealous sleep, you can handle anything the day will bring you. Sleep is especially greedy in a windowless room, where you both can be tricked into believing that the morning hasn’t started yet. 
You give into sleep’s seduction at first, letting it keep you longer and longer, making you feel worthy and important in its arms. But then you realize - this can’t go on forever. And when you pull your body out of that darkness, go down the long winding steps to the front door, where just outside the sun is strong enough to break a lover’s courage and the growling of moped engines threatens to send you screaming back up the stairs, you know only then that you’ve been tricked by sleep. It can fool anyone into believing that it more important than any sun any day. And you hate yourself for believing its lie.

Now we are at Jay’s Diner and I have a To-Do list of nothing I want to do. I don’t want to write emails, translate, or even leave the hotel. But I don’t want to be in my dark room either. Maybe I am just having post-Saigon blues….

- January 30th, 2015

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