Nothing in Return

There are big smiles and two familiar women in old lady hats wrapped in blankets with their sunglasses, slightly inclined to each out talking on the front of the boat. There are people looking at the water. People having extended conversations with the strangers next to them. There are lovers wrapped up in brightly patterned fleece blankets. People writing. People looking. People being.

An old man with a mustache using a knife to cut something from his backpack, making a surprised face - looking down his glasses. the woman with him has her blanket wrapped around her head, looking out onto the Mekong as it slips by. We are not hopeless. We are not divided. We are alone in our stories, our journeys, in what we face. We are alone in who we are but the distance is never too much between us.

Everything I need to know I can see in someone else. Maybe they don’t even know. And maybe they are alone in something and maybe somehow someway my living can teach them too. Perhaps all of us just by breathing are keeping someone else afloat. Perhaps there is nothing anyone has to do except be. And in our being we will always find each other.

Taking time to notice. Nothing in return. No matter where we’re all from we all belong here. And repeat.