I can sit on a rain drenched morning like the one we are experiencing in Vancouver today, listening to Chopin and sipping excellent coffee, watching the rain drip onto the leaves in my secret garden home and then unbidden I am back in Vietnam, on the road with the crazy band of travellers that I was so blessed to travel with. Climbing into a basket boat similar to the ones that I’d heard Irish monks used to get into when they cast their fate upon the sea and God, and sailing out across a patch of sea with my Vietnamese guide and a couple of Aussie friends…one of which was part Aborigine, 6’ 5” tall and about that wide, bearded and covered with tattoos on every visible part of his body, heart of a lamb, but as he stepped into this precarious reed structure I thought OMG! This is it! But miraculously we all survived and floated between brightly colored fishing boats, yellow, blue, red, eyes painted as figureheads on the bow, all watching us silently as we floated by, laughing hysterically.
This was the same man who the day earlier in a small village surrounded by bamboo and frangipani stood in front of our Vietnamese host as he offered us a fermented drink said to contact “magical qualities” and housed in a bottle with an ossified scorpion, a python’s head and a snake said to him, “You go first, mate, I never trust anyone who won’t drink wid ya.” Staring at him with a laser, focussed gaze.
And then, also unbidden, I am in Thailand, near the border of Myanmar, on the back of a motorcycle fording rivers and going across swing bridges then through small herd of elephants, before ending up in a small Karen village, desperately poor, smoke rising from the hillside, the smell of food cooking, the brightly colored beauty of the robes of the women, and their wide smiles of welcome.
It all happens in a moment and then Chopin brings me back to Vancouver once more and I smile, finish my coffee, and fully engage with my garden once more.
Layers upon layers of memory tucked away in every synapse and pore, food for me to engorge upon in the oddest moments.
This was the same man who the day earlier in a small village surrounded by bamboo and frangipani stood in front of our Vietnamese host as he offered us a fermented drink said to contact “magical qualities” and housed in a bottle with an ossified scorpion, a python’s head and a snake said to him, “You go first, mate, I never trust anyone who won’t drink wid ya.” Staring at him with a laser, focussed gaze.
And then, also unbidden, I am in Thailand, near the border of Myanmar, on the back of a motorcycle fording rivers and going across swing bridges then through small herd of elephants, before ending up in a small Karen village, desperately poor, smoke rising from the hillside, the smell of food cooking, the brightly colored beauty of the robes of the women, and their wide smiles of welcome.
It all happens in a moment and then Chopin brings me back to Vancouver once more and I smile, finish my coffee, and fully engage with my garden once more.
Layers upon layers of memory tucked away in every synapse and pore, food for me to engorge upon in the oddest moments.