End of the Rainbow (2020)

A lush green part of Vietnam, the Central Highlands, was where I was in March 2020. I had a flight booked for March 17, but on the day prior, it was decided by government officials that people with my passport couldn't fly into Phnom Penh. Which meant... waiting.

Five months passed. I was in Da Lat, hoping to lay low and keep waiting there until the 'end of the pandemic.' But it wasn't going to happen for who-knew-how-much-longer. My choices were to bear with the storm season or to go somewhere else and try sometthing new. This was a difficult move to make, since I didn't want to do anythign new at all. I wanted to go home. To reunite with the places I could undersatnd, to see the people who were closest to me, and to feel at ease, with those comfortable things. A routine is so good for me.

So, I made a new one. In Da Lat. Before shifting to Ho Chi Minh City (Solitude / 2021), I stayed and thought and focused and mostly looked outside from my balcony windows, and went out to them, if it wasn't raining. The storms came, and I was done. This book is about what it felt like to experience a famous tourist town at thevery strt of the pandemic, quiet as anything, stillness all around, and a great deal of discomfort within the confusion of starting-days-of-covid, or 'coronavirus', as we all called it, then.

More than anything, it's a celebration: of quiet, of peace, and it's also an acknowledgement of the zillion steps it takes to reach those things. If you do, when you do, you'll know. At least, that's my bet. This book shares why I've come to think so.

September 2020