Thang Nguyen 555

Been laying and waiting to be discovered. No none remembers me. Even when they occasionally do, in passing, it’s their mental image of me they think of, not my current and actual stage (rotten to the bones, meatless hence brainless).

I am a brainchild of sciences in my days e.g. herbs and preservatives, nice clothes and coffins. Still rot I.

For eternity to come, perpetually irrelevant and insignificant.

What advices can a Mummy offer to grads (as if it matters from my P.O.V.). My fellow mummy Steve Jobs once said “Stay hungry” and his crowning achievement was a team of likeminded individuals (the irony is that, individuals who think different, come together for a common project…may end up taking quite a bit long time to reach cohesiveness).

Alright, alright. I know your time is short, your patience thin (unlike mine). So I get right to the point.

You need to immediately cross-out what’s on your “to be accomplished” list – after having questioned what’s on the list in the first place.

From what I have gone through and now able to look back, many of the so-called “trends” and “triggers” don’t mean a thing i.e. hair and shoulder pads (80’s), knee-high socks and disco (70’s).

Two words : “scarcity” and “values”.

Both are inter-related i.e. when you’re locked up, freedom is scarcity – an hour out in the yard for instance. Or when you need to get on that last seat before the plane takes off, the airline knows its elastic value, hence high-price.

Never ever allow yourself to be turned into a commodity, even with your un-alterable traits. You are a unique combination of millions of evolution years, of science trying to perfect itself, and of your ancestors (hunters/gatherers) surviving scarcity of foods and limited life span.

So toss those silly hats in the air (those hats are commodities, like a Hallmark card, but priced high due to their sentimental and celebratory values).

Take off your shoes and feel the sand of the sea shores at ocean temperatures. Allow yourself to be bathed in what the Universe is trying to say to you…i.e. you are increasingly irrelevant as time progresses (like musicians of the 80’s or oil in the near future).

I am a Mummy. I leave behind a large footprint and a damaged environment. What I touched died. I am very sorry for my existence then extinction. My only Mummy’s regret is – I should have planted more trees, whose shades I would never sit under.

Grads, Be Glad, for a life ahead, not a rear-view mirror one like mine since they mummified me. When you are “deleted” from the space/time continuum, you float for an eternity of nothingness and regrets (visualize a George Clooney unplugging himself to be dissipated in space – making it possible for Sandra Bullock to come back to Earth).

I root for you, am your fan, and wish you always are of values to your family and community, a scarcity to be valued, not a commodity to be exploited.

Signed, secured and laminated. My vaccine card.

My pandemic passport.

Years ago, it was the draft-deferral card.

Times change. New world order, still with enlooming Trump’s shadow and a lesser Liz.

Soon, we’ll see the interpreters, the contractors and the educators fleeing Afghanistan.

History has a funny way to repeat itself.

When researching for her book, “The Rape of Nanking”, Iris Chang fell into a deep depression. Perhaps about the human condition i.e. human inhuman to one another….the deaths and destruction, the heartlessness and pointlessness of it all.

She ended up killing herself, never lived off her royalty.

Past atrocities will be repeated if we don’t remind one another the evil side of humanity. It may re-incarnate, sugar-coated and plastic-dressed…yet still the same script.

We need to soul search and soul-dress.

We need to get rid of its outer layers, to re-discover for ourselves and our times ( the naked truth has been there all along, screaming to come out).

Tending to the soul.

To our inner health as a spiritual self-defense (against un-truth and indecency). A vaccine card for our spiritual immunity against attacks and invasion (mostly sugar-high with bell-shaped curve).

Much has been said about the sleep revolution, the feminist revolution, the Industrial revolution.

It would be so strange to hear your grown-up child decide to be a priest (you’d rather see him a gay ballerina).

To look inner vs outer, to tend to your own garden instead of global events, sounds selfish and in vain.

But may I remind you, it’s the soul that makes us wholistic….languages like soulmate, soul music, soul food …and Black church as keeper of Black Soul.

When I first arrived in the later half of the 70’s, there was a music program on TV called Soul Train, a Black answer to Midnight Special….where black folks were dancing and enjoying themselves.

Tight clothes, wide smiles and great soul music.

From Sly to Aretha Franklin…. oh my. “Killing me softly…”

See, there is such a thing, called …Soul.

And it’s invisible, colorless, nevertheless, real.

Soul search, you will find.

Google search,…you may not.

Machine and Artificial Intelligence have gotten there yet.. That’s what makes soul so special.

I wouldn’t dwell too deeply into the Dark side of humanity….I want to tap on the better side.

Of me, of you, of us. There are plenty of things to do, music to hear in the light of Day, “Blinded by the Light”…for instance.

Although the darker the night, the brighter those stars,…we still have plenty to exploit and to explore given those daylight, the times of our lives.

Breathe the air and the virus…goodness and evil….all there in one mix bag.

Up to us to embrace our brighter side and make it viral.

Saw a bunch of rough-looking…in goatees, dark T’s and caps…milling about the Hallmarks section.

It’s Mother’s Day.

In my telephony days, Mother’s Day was the busiest. Network planners worked over-time load-balancing the circuits and CPU’s.

Even during Operation Frequent Wind – later re-branded as “Honorable Exit” – one of the code phrases was “Mother wants you to call home”.

Much has been focused on Mothers.

How about taking it one notch up, to the future (I hope Climate Change doesn’t do us all in) when my daughters and yours become mothers themselves…(Hope they don’t do it all at one time as the Malian mom last week).

I’ve got friends who on top of staying home due to the pandemic, double-duty as first-time grandpas.

In case I don’t keep up with these “Jones”, here are hugs and kisses to my daughters, future moms. ________________________________________

These are for you. Happy Mother’s Day, signed and sent through the nodes, 21st-century version of a time capsule.

My mental image of a mother goes like this, in case you’re interested.

She rises extremely early, gets herself presentable, gets foods on the table and prepares to greet her students who are charged with carrying piles of graded homework to class (she finished them the night before).

She teaches in school, long hours of instructions in all subjects (Vietnamese schools back then did not have speech specialists, music specialists, arts specialists and P.E. coaches).

TIEN HOC LE, HAU HOC VAN.

She models both civic life and intellectual life. The attitude and gratitude, reflect in her hand-writing, her oral and written communication; how she interacts with colleagues and relatives (in-law side) who got nothing but praises for her.

Then she puts dinner on the table and labors deligently at those assignments late into the night (I know this all too well, since I did not have the luxury of being “tugged in”).

Mothers. Old-fashioned? No yoga spandex Nike outfits? No women nite-out? No pepper spray in her purse?

Yep. I grow up quite conservatively. The unselfish genes. Encoded with millions of nomad years, hand-me-down.

She took it all with grace: twice a refugee (even from Northern to Southern Vietnam, it’s quite a world away by her standard)

Then North America, without knowing a single soul native much less Native Americans.

That’s your Grandma. Be like her. I would gladly give parts of my body for her since I know she would me.

Your children will know you by your deeds more than your speech (the louder the less effective).

So, what to do to de-code those “unselfish genes” ( in today’s dynamic equivalent – where if one loses, it’s the other side that was cheating.)

You look deep into yourselves and your souls. Grandma will be there to speak to and through you…Moana….just kidding.
That quiet strength is in you. You are now mothers… with encoded “know what to do” depends on the circumstances.

You can join the Army, Be All You Can Be.

You can apply to Yale…think all you can think.

Or you can stay home, and be the best Home-Ec your kids could ever dream of .

No right or wrong answer.

Just beware that the genes and instructions, the algorithms, are encoded in you, just like that accent you struggle to rid of or the eyelids that brand you as Asian.

Asian Heritage Month.

What is that??? Like Earth day, Native American Day? Teacher’s Day. It’s on the Calendar, but is it at the bus stops?

Celebrate them with vigor and vibrancy. Know you have every right to be here, to thrive and to fight for what’s yours.

Hard work, determination and a sense of mission: we are not here to feed the payload, ours or others….No no no. We are here as a MESSAGE. There is no need to re-hash and re-brand betrayal as “Honorable Exit”. Just thrive honorably, live compassionately and speak with confidence. That message is encoded from centuries through you onto others, yet to be born. It’s human, albeit a bit nomadic, but it’s compassionate and creative.

Someday, when we all meet again, on the other side of the de-coding process, we’ll know…Right now, all are fuzzy, as if looking through a kaleidoscope distorted ( we need each other to help us “see” ourselves, since none of us by design ever saw our faces with our own eyes, only their reflections).

If current data hold, I might still be around to help watch your kids once in a while, like my friends, who double-up as a filial son and grand-father.

We’re all hyphens, to help transmit values (source code) from one to the next version 2.0, 3.0 understandably not without bugs.

It’s best that way and the best way to humanize the message. Being both a message and a messenger keeps us humble…and not high-heeled like little Hitlers running around.

My mom embodied an important “feature”: what constitutes a woman in her time, in war and in peace. She is buried now (Serenity, a section of the cemetery). Many are taken away pre-maturely during this pandemic: moms of all colors and stripes. But you Moana (kidding again) are still around, to take up the torch and run that race toward the Sun.

I so am glad to be an active participant in your lives, your children’s future lives – my mom’s version 4.0.

Happy Mother’s Day , my daughters – future mothers.

I will be right here, at the Hallmarks section, picking out the card.

We all suffer “data deficit” i.e. not having enough data to make informed and wise decisions…stocks market, “meat” market (spousal choice) or “hot” career choice.

To add insult to injury, we carry inside these un-altereable genes….besides happenstance in our forever unfolding lives. So we seek counsel and advice, only to see the hyper-actives and hyper-ventilators exacerbate our crisis.

We did not realize NOT knowing too far ahead is a gift. A “just-in-time” version of ourselves, with each day as a page to be flipped over, not racing and cutting through the chase toward the Director’s cut ending.

Many years ago, all I wanted was to get over the Embassy Wall ( 4 years later, for 444 days, it’s the opposite for the Iranian crisis hostages).

Later, I was told to write down 3 life-goals as a Management class exercise. Currently, 2 out of 3 were crossed out.

My current goal is to travel safely when we’re back to “normal”, our new post-pandemic, post-Trump norm.

Even as simple as that, I doubt it will happen (per BioNtech CEO, mid 2022).

We need one another, to survive, to share “data” and doubt.

Was Malthus wrong about feeding of the over-population (in Mali, a lady has just broken the World’s record, by delivering her 9 babies all at one time).

Or is it Moore who is right about the doubling of the chip’s speed (every 18 months)

These scholars suffered their own data deficit and bias.

And they died, at a younger age as compared to our current longevity (average 77-78 in Western World).

Because Artificial Intelligence will rule, leaving us- human- to do the “hand-holding” and empathic work (not dirty and grit work), we need to train ourselves – if unable to move forward in time, then sideways to other people and race: the Irish and the Amish, the American and the Armenian.

We are people with a responsive chord (to use Tony Schwartz’ term). Just need to know where to push: Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye – where the young sister followed her brother despite repeatedly told to go home…..A count (Monte Christo) who hid his face behind the dark curtain, afraid to “lose” it upon seeing his love….Fitzgerald’s Gatsby who heard party noise traveled across Upstate pond….

Tears are good, said the Centennial Man, who could do everything except dying.

In the final hour, he asks to be un-plugged…the human gift of death…comes after the gift of not knowing everything (omni-scient)

Young men went to war, were asked to press the button. to play God, to kill. …then later, back to civilian life, with PTSD instead of omnipotence.

We’re encoded (notice the passive voice) to be re-assembled at the other end, like a data packet traveling through various nodes on the Internet.

What ending version suits us, as our lives unfold toward it? Director’s cut (Horror, horror as in Apocalypse Now)

or Coca Cola version (“I’d like to teach the world to sing…in perfect harmony)?

I am afraid it’s not up to us ( how and when we’re re-assembled and re-fashioned after the image of our Creator).

I know Andy Warhol is wrong when he pronounced (pre-internet era) that in the future, everyone would get their 15-minutes of fame. Today’s thanks to Samsung, Intel, TSMC, MediaTek etc…more storage can be packed onto a tiny chip set.

We will have our chance, each of our life story like a book, whose pages are to be turned, at leisure – in a lonely celestial library. And the ending, oh well, I afraid am not one to say, since I myself experience my own data deficit, not knowing what the future might hold in the arc of life..as they say, life can only be understood by looking backward from the future.

See you at that “assembling” point. My hope is that in my end… my beginning.

Every week every Monday morning, we start again, with vigor and vision.

Yet to move forward, we need to look back, learn and improve e.g. auto companies are steering away from just-in-time manufacturing (shortage of chip components).

In other realms, we watch the fall-out of a huge presidency…most likely, self-inflicted.

Michael Lewis calls this “Premonition” in his latest title.

We already saw the hand-writings on the wall…yet we ignored them: crumbling physical and mental infrastructure.

More people addicted to opioid than to books, more of homeless than housed.

The rhetoric has been: “Drain the swamp”, “Build the wall” and “Hang Mike Pence”…

Herd mentality vs health/healing.

Mob vs Mop-Up.

The world has longed for the right Leadership (capital L).

Not run-of-the-mill types who seek short-term profits over long-term gains.

Right after the War (WWII), FDR figured he needed to build on the momentum (of good will and national confidence), to harness the skills and strength of both women and men back from the front.

We saw the G.I. Bills for college education and housing subsidies.

We saw a nation that discovered Paris (Hemingway at his Immovable Feast) and its own potential.

We saw an America in the 50’s and early 60’s with exuberance and, oh well, to slip back and grow stale.

But right now, we can’t even have our turn at “Revolutionary Road” those “good” boredom (Richard Yates’ view of cookie-cutter’s housing and housewives).

Then their kids revolted….mud-sliding and spiritual awakening at Woodstock 69.

Hell “No”, We Don’t Go!

Average wages in the 70’s in today’s dollars were in the low $900. Today’s somewhere in the mid 800’s.

The American Dream diminishes and dismantled, with more broadband and less connection (human).

The new scapegoat for all ills? Asian Americans: that Filipino nurse, this Indian soft-ware programmer and the Chinese cook (Japanese “Chef”), Korean massage parlors and Vietnamese drive-ins.

Easy targets.

Easy preys (they were waiting for the bus – the elderly).

Fix the infrastructure, zero in the root causes. All boats will rise. All men/women count their daily income.

America back to school, learning new set of skills e.g. what does it mean by civility, by leadership (self-leadership)

It’s a new century and a new world, come about due to past investment e..g. steam ships, electricity and women in war time. Today, we need to make full use of minorities same way we did with women when men went to war fighting Hitler. Biblically, it’s Joseph who got promoted to the King’s court, Ruth, the Moabite, who swore allegiance to her new land. America’s new poor gave rise to “Dollar” stores since they have to consume to contribute.

It’s easy to blame others for the failure of ourselves. It’s easy to follow an Easy-Answers Giver at the expenses of sanity and civility. It’s easy to blame the South Americans, the South-East Asian, the South China Seas. While the truth is, all along, staring at us, in Michael Lewis’ Premonition, in the South where CDC is, not South of the border.

Then we will have our Tuesdays, Wednesdays and rest of the week for course-correction and collaboration ( before game-time).

But first, learn from past mistakes or, it’s We who turn to be one.

Climate change and pocket change, racial discrimination and vaccination, voter suppression and voter turn-out, all have a common denominator: up to us.

We can create the problems then solve them (like Charlie Chaplin the window fixer) or we can pro-actively solve them (by education and re-boosting infrastructure).

21st-century problems demand a 21st-century playbook.

Can’t bring the Chinese back to build the railroad.

Can’t ship the African slaves over to expand the plantation.

Even G W Bush comes out with “Out of many, one” to plead the case for a continuing Afghan surge (unintended objective of the 2-decade long war).

I remember he talked about “axis of Evil”….Now, the Evil is men in beard who ride donkeys.

(Nobody dares to touch the Saudi, who used to ride camels themselves).

21st-century.

Make-over.

Last becomes first, and vice versa.

Neck on knee?

People need to live out the rest of their miserable lives (preferably, better and more “humane” then monkeys in the lab).

In my neighborhood, couples were seen walking their dogs more often than those with children.

What’s going on? Up to us.

In Ausin, you either wash your car via drive-through at 7/11, or on Lamar, hand-washed by immigrants from S America.

No other choices.

Such is the State of the Union. Not good.

The GOP will have their turn. But it needs to soul-search. What’s the core competency, competitive edge?

What are the political philosophy? Policies? (Axis of Evil? or Nation building?)

Come on!

Drink up the tea, and be a party.

Grow some spine. Get rid off some busy bodies, who buy time until the next fund-raising cycle.

I got to go. But deep down, I sense that many of the mega problems can be and will be solved. By all of us, in empathy and collaboration.

Nothing we can’t do when we have a gun against our head. That gun (or knee), takes on new, albeit not too urgent forms as I mentioned: climate change, pandemic avert (via vaccination), racial and voter inequity.

Underneath them all, a common denominator: our ingenuity and determination to leave behind a much better world.

When I first saw it, I was shocked!

It had my sister’s name on it.

Yet, she is still here, alive and well.

Her name was engraved, on the copper marker, next to her husband’s.

It makes New Orleans’ stack-up grave yard look like junior high.

This is serious. She planned ahead of time, for the inevitable.

After all, she is 84 this year.

Married to the only man she loved. Before or after four kids together.

You don’t often find that nowadays. Or perhaps I don’t know everyone among our almost 8 Billion folks.

The reception hall where their wedding took place – Dong Khanh, Saigon – had a fire last week.

Nothing is permanent.

Out of that wedding hall came many happy couples, sharing lives and sharing the fate of our nation.

Torn, trembled upon and bombed to dust. The destruction even spilled over to neighboring Lao and Cambodia, Vietnam War’s Sideshow.

A lot has happened since my sister wedded to her huband, whom she picked over other suitors.

I was there. Witnessed and remembered everything.

God bless me with photographic memories. Of events near and far. Of people hurting and loving each other.

I wish I don’t remember.

But they – bad times – are there, ever present and co-existed in my brain.

Hello Darkness my old friend…

I wish I only remember the wedding hall, the music, the mingling and yes, the last on the menu: fried rice.

Makes me mouth-watered. Us kids could never hold that long. We stuffed ourselves with appetizers (since weddings in Vietnam often took place 2 hours AFTER what was printed on the invitation).

Events take place WHEN everybody gets there, not because it is time (as in Western society).

The band played on, the Cognac poured and peanuts kept early arrivals company.

If I had one happy memory, it would be that day, seeing the newly-wed couple radiate with happiness and joy.

Guests shared the same sentiment evident in their generous gifting (via the money inside those envelopes).

Earlier in the day, per tradition, the groom went and “stole” the bride away from the only home she had ever known.

I, 5 or 6 years old at the time, didn’t know better. I thought she was gone for good. Tears streaming down my cheeks, as I chased after the 10-mile-an-hour car (no coke cans dragging and “Just Married” sign).

The next day, the day after the wedding, they visited us and graced me with a surprise: “see I am not gone for good”.

Now I understand, after all these years, how two individuals can commit to each other beyond the grave despite all that lovers’ quarrel. I get it.

I had thought disagreement was meant to be shunned and avoided. Yet its absence is even scarier and colorless.

But they were made for each other. Forever. With graves next to each other, I would say, it makes for a convenient visit. More permanent than their recently burned down wedding hall.

It’s the cemetery that seems more tranquil amidst our transient life.

I must admit, I still am uncomfortable seeing my sister’s name along with my parents’ and her husband’s plots. She is so practical and well-prepared. A mark of a good accountant, and more so, a great wife.

My sister. The only one I have and know.

I sure hope that plot is empty for a long time to come. Good siblings are hard to find, and of course, a rare thing money can’t buy.

Oh well. When I get my 2nd jab (Moderna), I will get out while observing CDC-guidance.

But this pandemic brought back memories of past lonely times, like the time I was “parachuted” into lily-white Penn State, freshly arrived from South Vietnam.

Missed Move-in date, missed Fall orientation, I started from ground zero literally all-by-myself.

In the rented dark basement (with side-door entrance).

Yet I managed to bring over a bunch of fellow students like myself, for a Christmas get-together.

Dim the light (not much lighting to begin with) and put on the music (cassette tapes).

Gotta to celebrate, first Christmas away from home. White Christmas, like the coded song from the Armed Forces Radio that signaled the US withdrawal and evacuation.

Isolation is not healthy for the brain and body.

Loneliness is a feeling, but it is nevertheless real.

” I am Mr Lonely, …I’ve got nobody….”

Broken. Unmendable.

Hole larger than the body’s ability to heal and fill it. “Cry, my beloved country”…like a book title.

This gap looms large, spanning decades….in the genes…before I was born: 1954 partition of North and South, then my own 1975 hasty departure.

Car, barge, battle ship, plane, bus, car..then trekking through the snow, to class, to work..(my daughter now needs vaccinations before she could follow in my trail).

Penn State.

In the Fall of 75.

Here comes the Sun…it’s alright.

But before the Sun, all I’ve got was “Feelings, nothing more than feelings, trying to forget mine….feelings like a flood”.

Perhaps I tortured myself…(self-recrimination)….for leaving behind both of my parents (father stayed behind, mother in the refugee camp).

Perhaps I tortured myself for facing a future with inadequate resources (two sets of clothes and a Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, a birthday gift from co-workers at Indiantown Gap’s Bureau of Child Welfare).

Perhaps I tortured myself for squandering my war-year opportunities, for going to the dance instead of solving math equations….or recently, for fawning….(viewing myself through the “white” lens).

Whether it’s true or not, I found myself the only one to blame.

The enormity of culture shock, albeit with vast opportunities on the other side. But first, the compartmentalization (of feelings, of what is personal and what is public, of memory and reality)…

Lonely, Mr Lonely….I’ve got nobody….

By the time this pandemic hit, I have developed a reserve of immunity against social isolation.

To withstand the invasion of the invisibles.

Yes, they knocked down quite a few of us during this past year. And still doing so with variants.

I, mr Lonely 2.0, can face this head-on, with 1st and 2nd jab.

With Moderna and modern medicines.

With new techniques of vaccine production, and new techniques for survival and thrive in the 21st century.

e.g. empathy, collaboration and enlarging the pie. Unlike in centuries past, when nations were in isolation.

Cold and hot wars. Mistrust and distrust. Partition and parallels (17th in my country’s case). This year marks the 50th anniversary of Ping Pong diplomacy (Chinese-made balls and paddles).

It’s OK who is making what, and who is paying for what.. Just stop the killing, the blaming and the dis-information.

We can collaborate in making a bigger pie, and prove Malthus wrong (Moore is right – the chips get smaller and the speed faster). Since 1948, every country seems to have gotten to its “next level” of progress and growth.

We will together do the right thing right. First thing first: getting out of our-selves, with imaged fear and associated delusion. Just turn on the music, put on a friendly face and sing….sing out loud…”to last our whole life long”…

Please, any song but Mr Lonely or Feelings….early 70’s soft- music were the worst. Unhealthy and uncalled for.

It always gets me down, on Rainy Days and Mondays….LOL

My nephew who left Vietnam a few years later, mentioned – during the course of our conversations- that he came by the house, saw my Dad living all by himself (we were apart for a good decade). And he mentioned something interesting: upstairs, in our bedroom, those beds were left just the way they were when we left back in April 1975.

My empty bed. My security blanket. And all the songs I loved so well…

Memories.

Came flushing back.

All the longing, dreams unrealized and interrupted relationships (relatives, neighbors and friends – inc. one x-girl friend).

I left behind more than just that empty bed.

My whole youth. My identity. My other self.

Years later, when I myself drove by the house (now occupied by who knows who), it wasn’t the same feeling as when we left it (see Fleeing).

From the look of it, it felt different.

I felt different.

One can never go home again.

We took “home” with us on that fateful trip.

At least, the essential parts i.e. papers, documents and pictures.

Had we got “cloud” back then, we could have uploaded everything, and while at it unloaded our burden.

The burden of those who fled for a new life. A new beginning and a new start.
Like an FBI witness protection program for informants: new ID, new re-location and new job.

I was no longer a student at that pre-med program. I answered not to my father for a decade.

New-found independence. New life of my own, all on my own and by myself.

Fresh snow and sudden start. Could have chosen to get high.

Could have gone down that slippery road.

Or learning the rope and learning the language (lingo).

The body language and the lab language (of TV production).

Acronyms in an Agronomy TV studio.

How was I viewed? Just blend in. For survival sakes.

For success.

To gain back what was lost.

In an up-hill battle to re-assemble the pieces.

Until the man I become no longer resembles the man I was.

Sleeping in beds not of my own, from dorm room to motel room, from apartment housing to rental housing.

20th-century nomad. Displacement and dislocated.

A man of sorrow but not of regrets, making all the mistakes but not being one.

All the movement, all started that morning, out of that unmade bed.

The bed that was left untouched “just the way it had always looked”, as my nephew put it.

I can see myself sleeping in it, that very night, hadn’t we decided to leave, or, failed while fleeing, then returned.

Things would have been the same as it was,..day after day…minimum subsistence, minimum interaction.

No fuss, no glory.

Just is stoically as opposed to “making it happen” as American like to put it.

There are no right or wrong answers. “Just the way it is”, as Cronkite used to end his broadcast.

I am sure I laid my pajamas somewhere upstairs. And it would still be there, unworn and just like the bed un- used, waiting, had I returned that night. To once again, sleep in that very bed, upstairs, of a place I used to call home.

To some people, April 15 used to mean paying up.

After all, we have exploited and maxed out our infrastructure e.g. water, wifi and right of ways.

To others, it starts with April Fool, then Holy Week and Spring Cleaning.

To my little exile community, it’s Black April. The time to be reminded how we came about.

Each group has its own story, from the Dutch to the French, from the Irish to the German.

One has to add the Syrian refugees into the mix. America, America….

Forever in search of itself, of becoming its best self and not a divided one.

Defenders of the old days operated on their selected memories i.e. the Roaring 20’s, the conforming 50’s and even the Rebellious 60’s.

Those were the days. Industrial might and military might. Until Vietnam. Until the “fall” of Saigon.

Until Operation Frequent Wind.

So “frequent” that it airlifted anyone and everyone who dared an escape. To bet one’s life on hope.

The braves and the darings.

Us.

Me.

Losing my environ. Fish out of water. Confront the inevitable ( war on its last leg ).

A long disruption. Everything for a new identity, a new start and a chance to hope again.

Stardust forever. In the wind. Learning the meaning of fate, of life unfolded and unplanned.

It’s not the mechanic of ejection. The turn of event on that last day, mine, in Saigon, was participatory in nature ( otherwise, I would be writing this in Vietnamese instead. Otherwise, I would be cooking a simple dinner right now as opposed to waking up on the other side of the world.)

Frequent Wind. We did not take the high ground. We went low, by barge, battle ship and waded water to strange shores.

Forced to flee, I have developed a new consciousness. That there is no permanence, including our troubles.

In the scheme of things, we will evolve and recycle into other life forms (nano particles).

Dust in the wind.

The only routine that is permanent is Here comes the Sun (each morning).

With new morning, we’ve got new beginning. New attitude and receptiveness. New opportunities and obstacles.

A new man for a new day.

Facing up to our imperfection and life impermanence. Seeing ourselves (reflection of ourselves) as if for the first time. And forgive ourselves for not having done it sooner.

It’s been 46 years. Long enough that Black April can belong in the Museum (infact, I have just read that that infamous staircase of Operation Frequent Wind is now on display at President Ford Museum in Michigan).

Group yourselves in batches for a helicopter’s load. Crouching, crawling and crying. Drop everything. Walk away.

That’s how one’s life changes. That’s how liquid turns to air, in heat, to flow and be lifted up. To fly, to flee and to be free.