Sitting in Cong Vien Tao Ban, a park in the middle of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon to everyone except tourists) on my way to the next meeting in a 5 day marathon of meetings and appointments. The never ending sound of horns, motorcycles and cars that seems to fill every second of everyday pounds in my head giving a whole new definition to migraine. Thunder crashes overhead as the sky turns gray almost instantly. Sitting and drinking my tea waiting for the rain to come to wash away the filth, pollution and general discontent with my life. Several brightly colored umbrellas, or at least once brightly colored, now laden with a layer of black soot that fills every cubic inch of the air, offer shelter from the sun, and now in this case the rain. Dozens of people sitting, talking, people with lives much like mine. Most of these people probably have family, bills, jobs, stress and chaos in their lives’, yet seem to cope with it. Another thunder crash, still no rain, still no break in the constant barrage of noise coming from the street. I find myself slowly being lulled to sleep by what sounds like Tuvan Throat Singing, as I realize the harmonies of the motorcycles over the cars and the horns, I seem to have finally after five days have gone beyond the noise and chaos and achieved harmony, or maybe it’s the 90 degree heat and 90% humidity and the fact that I have been in 3 different countries in the last 8 days. I begin to doze off for a brief moment hoping for the rain to come contemplating is it all worth it? What brought me here anyway? Is there something more in life than working to make money to pay bills to run new bills up to work more to….you get the picture. I pull out a popped rice cake from my bag, and then a second. A hint of ginger lingers within the sweetened puffed rice. It hits the spot enough to quell my hunger for now, but I seem to still be wanting, or more like needing more. Not food or drink, but something to fill the insatiable emptiness inside. Finally! The rain begins to fall, ever so lightly, the people sitting out in the open under the trees don’t even notice, maybe just don’t care. One drop then two then another hit the stone plaza with a random sense of order. One umbrella stands alone with no one taking shelter under it. It’s nice to sit in the rain, then suddenly it stops, as quickly as it began, it was gone, never living up to its potential, never realizing what it could have been. For now, only a few tears from the angles to suggest that all that we know is that we know nothing and all that we see is merely illusion.
