Calm and Noise and Withdrawal

I find calm in the most hectic place I have ever visited. Not completely, no - in my head, it still looks like the street: Thoughts about people and plans rush by, stumbling over past situations, braking before my expectations of myself, rushing past alongside uncertainty about work and the question of what I want to eat later or tomorrow, all jumbled together like the mopeds on the street. Sometimes they also get stuck in traffic, overtaking others with risky ease, and there is also a honking noise to make it clear: Here I come!

My calm begins on the outside, in that I somehow wander aimlessly through the streets, intentionally getting lost because I don't care which way I take. It's sitting with a coconut in front of my hostel, typing and reading until this enchanting seller at a vegetarian Bánh mì stand has prepared her nearly depleted mushroom sauce again (Her beaming smile when I said I would come back in an hour is almost the best moment of the day - the best is the laughter when I really return and she tries to teach me a few phrases in Vietnamese). Although we talk a lot, there is also a slowed-down calm during the time spent with the nice American. We go to Hanoi's trendiest café, to the nail salon, try mangosteen, and bargain at the night market. At least 50% of that is absolutely uncharacteristic of Katie, just like: Not packing every second, not running everywhere, not listening to the honking (except for the real honking from the mopeds, which is important because they, unlike thoughts, actually stop).

I stroke the cat one more time before I leave and switch off back to home, I am very far away, away from the calm hustle of my everyday life, which is currently not a life at all and perhaps that's why it's so loud inside me and around me.