On the Blao plateau, there are several species of wild flowers usually called Hoa Quy, Mai Anh Dao. They are in full blooms in lunar year season yellowing the paths, roads around town. Dai Binh mountain lies 900 meters above sea level on the right hand side of Ma Chanh’s. It is associated with a mysterious love affair of someone settling there after having leaving their home. From Ma Chanh’s, Dai Binh looks like a mother holding her beloved dying son wearing scarf- a round white moggy circle every early morning, causing more feelings of home sickness.
I went to see Long kh’mer on the way heading to Dai Binh mountain. His home ,lying in the front of the procincial grave yard, was small, uncomfortable but filled with love, understanding and with what I lacked- parental care- the everlasting passionate happiness of a family which I haven’t really enjoyed. It doesn’t mater to me if it is in the bad condition or if the family business is bad. Thi’s and Long’s families were something I wished to be in, to have, to work for and to die for.
“Is anybody home?” I asked while knocking on the door.
“Is that you, Thanh Xi?” a woman, his third sister, replied pointing at me.
“Coming to see Long? When did you arrive? Come on in.”she showed me how hospitable she was.
I went inside telling her what I wanted and why I came back. She told me Long had recently left home for Can Tho. Looking at me, she wondered:
“What the hell brought you here?”
After hearing my migratory trip this time, she caught her breath in a soundless gasp advicing me:
“Inspite of Long’s absence, we’re very pleased to have you here with us this time and anytime you could come.”
I was deeply indebted to Long’ charming sister for pushing the assignment off my way. Wasn’t that a rather humanitarian attitude? I wished I had been Long or I could have been able to subtitude his position. As any creatures in the world, I needed a shelter somewhere. Where would that be? Was it gone? Who took it away from me?
I said goodbye and sadly left having forgotten to say hi to the family. I became as childish as a thirteen year-old boy behaved.
I came back to Thi’s feeling so lost and alone that I could not realize it was spring. I was convinced that happiness could lie in a man himself and it could depend not only on the course of his life but also on his inner world.
“Sadness should not be exaggerated by thinking about it.” I adviced myself feeling a bit better, to get along with the current situation.
The weather in Bao Loc turned out to be abnormal late these days. One night, the temperature reached down at 12 degrees Celcius. On the following days, the cold wind swept through the town making such a change and giving me such an unspoken grief.
Dropping a spoon of sugar into his cup of hot coffee, stirring it steadily, father Chanh said to me:
“The first thing for you to make your life happy is to accept yourself as you are.”
The smoke around the table was so dense that I felt the red color of my heart suddently turn into dark violet. After taking a sip of coffee, which had been cool down, I replied:
“Do you mean to say that it is the time I revaluated the real meaning of what I have been doing?”
All of a sudden, he said:
“Every man must do 2 things alone. He must do his own believing and his own dying.”
Looking at me remain quiet, he went on slowly:
“Everyone has to know the ache of unfullilment in some areas, the sadness that comes when life moves in such an unanticipated direction.”
I felt as if nothing was happening outwardly.
“No darkness has ever been as deep as the one that surrounds you when you feel unsure about your parental love. Parents have a powerful impact on the lives of their children. And one of the most important things one can learn outside the fact that he can survive himself is that his parents love and accept him, not forget him.”
Tonight, the last night of the year, new year’s Eve, there were only 2 men in the home, Ba Chanh and me, sitting by an open cooker, while having coffee, chatting about what we felt and other things. I used to be taciturn but now he- feeling close to me- made me speak up. I enthusiatically told him about almost everything he had wanted to hear but not my parents as if they had been dead. Ba Chanh went to bed leaving alone at about 11- an hour before the new year’s Eve. Unlike almost the others, they did not celebrate anything special. Ma Chanh had told me:
“Make your self at home. Enjoy yourself, son.”
Now, physically I was alone but mentally I had been for so long. I brought out my guitar to keep me company. Being near the fire burning hard, I felt warm enough to move my fingers. I began to play some of my favorite pieces. Had it not been for my current suituation, I would have played something more interesting. Had I not been here, I would have come with Long to Can Tho. I wished I were dead if my dying could heal my Mom’s injuries or bring my parents back. I felt the overwhelming presence of my loneliness grasping at my heart and my mind. I wanted to give a loud cry, to use my crying to startle who could hear it or whoever understand me. Those trapped in the darkness of happiness now could have a light-bearer to illuminate their way to happiness like what I could. The music I played could wake someone up or at least make someone think of unexplainable feelings. I wondered if there was something I could do to avoid the situation but there was none. Who would be involved in my case? Who would be able to face such an unbelievable disappoinment?
It was a pain of having to say I had to suffer what I had never expected. What a devasting blow to my expectations. I recognized the social consequences, public opinions or secret fears. I recalled of some lines I read once:
“When you confront a situation that does not line up with your understanding
of how life wants your life to proceed, you are forced to stop and look for directions. Sometimes you allow yourself to be disappointed in personal expectations so that you will learn to rely on life itself fully. You never have to be the victim of your feelings.”
That was what I did- listening to myself and moving ahead. My staying there that night revealed some key principles for turning disappoinment into a joyful new direction. I was willing to forgive those making me hurtful but I was not sure what to do about it.
I kept remembering another piece:
“When someone’s inconsideration or offenses bring hurt into your experience, you can allow yourself to bring healing to the situation by forgiving. The withered and dead-feeling places in your heart, the scars of old disappoinments will melt away in your restoring love. You can not hold on to pain and remembrances of former hurts. We hold our future in our hands.”
I began thinking about how I would no longer be doing what I had done for a long time. Suddenly, I felt as though a part of me was dying. At first, I tried to ignore it by pushing it away. But that did not ease my grief. Then I realized I was able to do so by letting it be, by accepting what to come to subtitude it or at least to mix it.
The wood was burning hard as my mind was working out what was wrong inside of me. The time went by as my sadness did. I didn’t know how to deal with it but somehow I just let it go. I could describe how I felt that night but I truly did release myself . I understood what I was facing, how much love I needed, But I could not figure out how much love my parents assigned for me and how they could do what they had been doing. Then I found out if I had tried to expain to the rest of my life, they would never have understood.
The feelings I had that night there are still in my heart as the experiences I earned are here to be read.
Rach Gia 9-1- 11
Luong Ngoc Thanh
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