In the Shade

I wrote this five days ago -- the night before I discovered this would be my last week at my school. The next morning, I learned that this surprise COVID wave, first sprouting up in Da Nang four days earlier had become too concerning, and classes were to cease the next day.  Since then we’ve not gone into total lockdown in Hanoi as yet, though social distancing and mask-wearing policies have been put in place. Today I learned that shops in the old quarter are to close.

 

In the Shade

The glow of the city light and the night sky bounce off the lake and deliver specks of color for me deep in the shady lane. Here I walk home to my place. I said goodbye to Giang, and puppies Noodle and Sausage. It’s a time for the self, and mine is along Ho Tay, in Hanoi, Vietnam.

There he is now. A once again single man of 37. Not rich, no great fame, uncertain prospects, disappointments and grumblings plaguing the soul. Most of those beasties are familiar creatures.  

I can walk with those grumbly grimlies. They sleep deep in the tree shadow in the quiet night. But there’s something of a livelier dance. It’s strange and I just start to fathom. I realize this scene will stick with me. It’ll be in my dreams sometime. Sometime it will come back to me just where I am now. There’s something large then.

 I am dismissive of my accomplishments as a blind person, cause any accomplishment as a blind person will be jacked up with steroids and jet fuel in the mind of the ignorant by-stander, who’s never met a blind person with decent education and exposure. But what of my accomplishment’s solitary? I’m still blind, and a person. No one’s watching, but here I am, a year now across the ocean in Vietnam, where I’ve done so much shit I never did before and didn’t anticipate. I came into this knowing I would have to do things I never did before and didn’t anticipate, and didn’t I? I didn’t know it’d be a year away from all I left behind. I guess I made it have to be a year’s out of sight and out of mind with my decisions. I made a change in my world, even though I didn’t start the little fire that sprouted in my wake.

Somethings you force yourself to do. Sometimes, though you can’t quite believe it—it is so unfamiliar – they work, ever so slightly. Sometimes you can feel this alone in the dark as you adjust.