Listen to Me, My Body Asked Me.

As I sit on the balcony of my hotel, I look at the traffic unfold beneath my feet. The honking, people speaking, engines running. Scooters drowning in heavy merchandise loads. My body feels fatigued, as though each step doesn’t find the ground. My eyes close during the day and open at night. I watch my boiling tea turn lukewarm.

The other day in the restaurant, I stood after dinner and collapsed, falling to the ground, incapable of feeling my foot as though my roots had disappeared.

Body:

I am asking for a routine.

Mind:

But m I keep telling you, one more month.

Body:

I know I am being fooled.

Minds:

I brought you to the forest, laid you on the ground for two days. When I rose, you begged me to stay. You made a promise. You have a meeting in town. Catch the bus. You’ve got this.

Body:

I know I can do it. I simply don’t want to. I am fragile. Don’t push me into immobility like you did many years ago. My candle is confronted by the wind you create. Don’t extinguish my flame. Please allow me to rest. Stay still. I know I can survive, I want to be alive.

Body:

Here is an analogy for you.

I am your home in this physical world. You have pushed me through hunger, cold weather, heavy loads, long distances, wounds, broken bones, parasites, viruses, pain. Every time, I carried you so you could strengthen. I watched growth in your capacity to rise above and find opportunities in change. Now I ask you to see me as I have seen you. I ask you to be gentle.

I have turned off certain parts of myself, like my reproductive system, to keep you alive instead of storing energy for a potential life. I have readapted so you could discover and deconstruct your narrative. But you cannot discover this world without me. Call me weak, but I will remain weak until you see me.

I am a house in winter, heating only the rooms necessary for it to be viable with the little fuel I have left. I chose wisely what to postpone from being heated. Now I ask you to heat the whole house again. Little by little, some rooms have become so cold you no longer know how to enter them, others never feel warm enough and finally some are so cold you no longer bother opening their doors.

Mind:

And what if I told you, shamefully, that I have forgotten how to open those doors? What if I told you it feels like an invisible puzzle, and I don’t even know where to begin? I give you confort but I have retrained you for so long that you don’t believe it to be true.

I am not tired. I am peaceful. But how ignorant of me not to feel your fatigue other than physically and not know the remedy.

Still, I will be. Thank you for informing me. Writing allows me to see. What drains me is wanting to see so perfectly that I forget it is seen with or without me. Dead or alive, ultimately all will remain. Thankfully we bring nothing that is irreplaceable and that is beautiful, life can always go on without us. I love to live but knowing this, I can accept that we all die. We do not need to see everything to matter. We do not need to be everyone’s eyes when we are blind, or else we will fall into the same line. We must give ourselves time. Inhale to exhale. Rise and accept that we are falling, not falling into failure, but falling into rest, into renewal, so we may rise again to unimaginable heights without freight.

Remember: we are under no obligation to take every opportunity. To take every potential opportunity is to lose clarity. We are not to be fooled by our own illusion of the definition of the word.

Ps: the rest I am referring to is genuinely sleep and meditation. I am very well this is not negative at all ❤️

Modern Colonization

Since arriving in northern Vietnam, I’ve sensed a quiet resistance, not directed at me personally, but at what I represent: a tourist. From colonization up until now, many locals seem to view visitors as extractors rather than appreciators. As a long-term traveler, I’ve come to see tourism for what it often becomes: a softer kind of colonization. One that wraps itself in curiosity and comfort while still asking the land to serve it. People come here for the landscapes, the low prices, the idea of freedom without the cost. Some even try to move here and build businesses, believing in the allure of cheap prices and the potential to cater to foreigners who can pay more. This often creates competition that is hard for locals to match, considering the disparity in resources. It’s unfortunate to see locals feeling compelled to westernize to earn a better living but simultaneously holding resentment for what they see as forced adaptation.

That discomfort is palpable, from interactions that feel purely transactional, in eyes that no longer hold welcome but weariness. One day, I approached a woman selling tofu and coconut shreds. I greeted her in Vietnamese and asked for the price, with my very poor intonations. She didn’t understand. I pointed to the food, then to myself, miming the act of eating. She didn’t look at me. She waved me away and shouted. I smiled, not in defiance but in the quiet hope that she might feel I meant no harm. That I came not to impose, but to learn. But I was reminded that personal intentions, no matter how well-meaning, does not automatically translate into positivity as we still hold perspectives.  Engaging in environments where historical, social, and cultural dynamics influence interactions.

A few days later, I reached Sapa. There, I passed a group of children. They flipped me off. I smiled again, because I had nothing else to give but gentleness, hoping that these little gestures could eventually allow them to see I do not want to be their enemy. I wasn’t offended. I could feel the tension wasn’t new. It had been passed down, a learned mistrust. A justified one. We are unfortunately not seen as part of the same world, we are seen as the world that takes from them and leave before facing the consequences we have caused.

At a corner shop, I stood in line for the cash. When my turn came, a woman behind me pushed forward to go ahead. I gently bowed, signaling that I had been waiting. She rolled her eyes and stepped back. I could see she was tired of how oblivious tourists can be. I could feel from her a desire for us to disappear.

I cannot pretend I stand apart from this. The prices I accept without question help justify the rising cost of daily life. The desire I carry for something “real” turns lived culture into something to be packaged, performed, and sold.

This awareness doesn’t diminish my reverence for Vietnam. It deepens it. I carry a quiet gratitude for every moment I am allowed to witness, every moment locals show compassion and care towards me. And in return, I carry a responsibility, one to move with humility, to support without distortion, to leave as lightly as I can. Because respect is not in what I say, but in what I choose not to demand.

Presence by Necessity

I learned presence through survival.

Through free climbing, cold air, hunger, exhaustion, health issues.

I forced myself into the moment because the moment was the only place I could stay alive.

It wasn’t flow.

It was necessity.

If my environment doesn’t demand presence, for myself I don’t always choose it.

Not because I don’t want to,

but because I’ve wired myself to believe that choosing stillness, choosing softness, is selfish.

That ease is indulgence.

That rest must be earned.

That awareness is only valid if it comes at the edge of collapse.

And I want to change that.

Not by rejecting pressure,

but by letting softness feel like enough.

We are allowed to be here without “earning” it.