You ever been right tight? all wound up but you know you shouldn't be and yet you are but you're travelling and you have so much to be grateful for and you're tight like real tight but it's 98% humidity and you're overtired but its hot, real hot and it's loud but it's quiet quiet right in front of you and there's so many people to talk to but there's no one and it's so damn loud but it was fun and it was good and right now it's not fun, it's not so good but you're in this big beautiful city and in a tiny little place but it's stuffy and the air is full of piss and its hot but it rains so damn hard you've never seen such a thing and it's raining and that's actually nice but it's wet and its hot and its humid and it's so open and thrilling but there's so much to look at, and there's so much to be curious about but you just should be some way and should ...should?
The absolute pandemonium, and somehow fruitful chaos of Hanoi had filled my cup, my entire body was telling me it was time to go. It's not that I don't enjoy a frantic pace, spontaneity, or a loud hustle and bustle. Indeed, these are qualities in who I am that frequently come to the surface, and I thoroughly embody them. It's simply, that like most states of being it was a season and it was time to head for peace. I enjoy quiet morning coffee, winding roads through empty fields, and silent nights alone with a cigarette and the serene babbling stream of my thoughts.
I made my way through the streets filled with late night reveling and cheap liquor to a popular party hostel and arranged with some back-and-forth a ticket to Ha Giang province, home to a motorcycle loop that I had heard other travelers bang on about for the better half of a month. Fatigue took chunks from my memory, hungry for sleep. I stowed my gear and rechecked my pack. I didn't want to get up there having left anything important behind.
Booking a Lyft, which is like Uber but on a motorcycle. To anyone having grown up in a western country, this may sound like suicide and indeed it's probably not the safest way to travel but God damn is it ever fun! You just have to relax and for the love of God DO NOT LEAN.
My ride arrived, I lit a smoke and hopped on the back. In perfect Vietnamese form the driver was able to navigate and somehow see or create a path through the seething swarms of people, cars, and other bikes. All with a frequency of honking that would lead to an assault charge back home and yet seemingly without difficulty.
We hit the highway and a large bridge over the Hong River. Having taken a few Lyft’s before in far worse weather I was accustomed to a degree of spirited driving, but this man really enjoyed speed. We wove in and out of traffic on the bridge and I gave a little whoopee to which he chuckled. Arriving at the bus station far more awake on adrenaline I hurried to get my bus. There was a short wait before departure, and I re-checked my bag looking for my passport. Fuck.
How can I be so stupid! Self-pity reared itself from slumber inside me, holding its variety of now dulled, ineffective weapons and roared. I hadn’t seen this beast in quite some time. I knew now a far more gentle hand with myself. Usually, I castigate myself in silence and withdraw, however this time I was outwardly angry. Unconsciously I screamed out “fuck” and threw my hat to the ground. Oh how dramatic, how boring. Those poor folks around the bus station gave me the worried look I'm sure I've given to others when they lose their shit around me.
Frantically, I called the hostel, no answer. I decided in a panic to take a Lyft back. It was the same driver; this time he wanted to play Vietnamese to English charades and leisurely cruise. Selfishly I needed speed! Couldn’t he tell, while speaking no English what I wanted? How often I have done this to other’s when drunk on emotion. I egged him on for a speedy return through the promise of a tip.
As we crossed back over the bridge every dark thought that anxiety can create around such a scenario blew through my mind like some foul wind.
I won't be able to leave the country, I'll be stuck in fucking Hanoi in rainy season. I'll have to go to an embassy. Goddamn, what if I can't get another passport before my visa is up, are there fines? It’s Hanoi did I get marked by a pickpocket, is this going to be a disaster? Anxiety - too many potential outcomes.
Suddenly just past midway on the bridge, peeling around cars, a thought. “Let go. not in your control.” it bubbled up from where all thought bubbles up from, nowhere. A strange calm fell into me, not so much a voice in my head or a feeling but a gentle pull towards accepting a truth I couldn’t rationalize or defend against, a certainty. I know this feeling. I’m going to be okay.
My own inability to control myself, to sleep adequately, to eat and drink, to do the things I know to do. To be overcome by excitement with a new city, new people, the lust for a new adventure. Its not a bad thing, its one of the joys in my life. To wrestle with myself seeking “balance” but to point a finger outwards and blame the world when I am way, way off? No, a lack of attention led to leaving my passport and taking responsibility of that was freeing. It was agency.
We made it back and I headed through the now substantially more rowdy crowds on foot, sure as shit I left my passport on the table when booking the bus. The booking agent gave me a playfully hard time and I expressed my gratitude for my passports safe keeping. My only moment of being forgetful with the damn thing for almost 8 months.
I trudged back to my old hostel to see if they still had a room and was in luck. A few smokes, a quick shower and then crawled into bed for a short sleep. The calm of letting go, still clinging to me.
I spent the next day wandering through art galleries, drinking way too much Vietnamese coffee and although definitely ready to go, enjoying the moments. Nothing had changed around me, same hustle, same bustle, same heat, same wet, same smell, but my experience of it was radically different. The posture of my mind had changed. I had given myself flash packers fatigue, too much, too fast. Too little rest and repair. A failed attempt to take control of the outside and a repeated lesson to let go, one that I continue to learn and forget.
That evening I boarded my bus and headed off to what was to be one of my favorite mornings of that entire trip. Sitting high up, in the quiet morning mist with my cup of coffee, looking at winding roads through empty fields, at peace with myself and the world.
-
I got asked a little while ago how I can be so fucking optimistic. I don’t even know if this can be called optimism its more of a surefootedness psychologically that I am going to be okay and that everything will work itself out in the end as it should. I suppose it's a countless series of circumstances like the one above in which over and over again I am led to a choice. I can try to grip life, to bend it to my will, to get what I want or I can let go of all that and decide to lean into all the terribly beautiful detail of the life I have in that moment. For me trying to bend reality is insane. Me? As if I’m going manipulate the fabric of existence HAH!
The truth is, I'm just not that important. I'm not that powerful and I don’t want to be. I'm not in the business of outcomes. All I get to control is me and enjoy him to.
I control My actions, My thoughts?… well sometimes, and my emotions? While not the rollercoaster they used to be, it is a thrilling adventure I'll take everyday.
My heart and mind are in my keeping and my keeping alone.
-Mackie TVM
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