Diary of a journey to myself / The Fifth Insight

30.12. Breakfast room at "Rendezvous", 08:30 am

"Man, I have a headache", Fabian groans. "Come on, stop it. I do too," I reply quietly while massaging my temples. We are both still having breakfast. Just had some fruit and yogurt. The two cups of coffee didn't help me get rid of my hangover. I have no idea how many beers we had at Mao's Red Lounge yesterday, but it was a lot.

When we arrived at the Red Lounge yesterday around 10:00 pm (I actually fell asleep last night), there were no wooden stools available outside. It was pretty dull inside and we couldn't get into the mood. Plus, we couldn't find a proper topic to have a lengthy conversation about, so we had just decided to pay when a group of 7 or 8 women and men, who were roughly our age, definitely from the Asian region but hard to determine where exactly (Malaysia?), entered the lounge, sat down two groups of seats away from us, and started a lively and rather loud conversation. I couldn't help but glance over to the group from time to time because they were having so much fun, which somehow infected me and made me curious. One woman in particular, around 40 years old, caught my attention. She made eye contact with me and cheerfully raised her glass to toast. She reminded me so much of Joan Baez, maybe just because of her short hair with bangs and slightly crooked front teeth, but I immediately found her very likable, especially when she started dancing while sitting and seemed to be having fun. Obviously, she noticed me and my interest in her, so she suddenly stood up, sat down next to us, raised her beer, and waved to the waiter to order more for us. Then she shook my hand to pull me onto the dance floor, which didn't really exist. I danced with her and the other two women, who joined us shortly after, swinging their hips, happily and exuberantly to soul songs from the 70s and 80s in the space between the bar and groups of seats, while Fabian was now sitting among the men who remained at the table and engaged in lively conversation.

The rest of the guests gradually left the lounge, the landlord turned up the music a bit louder and closed the door halfway. While Fabian smoked and chatted with the men outside the partially closed door after a few songs, we women had fun to Thriller, Sex Machine, and Sympathy for the Devil. Without stopping dancing, I learned from the 3 women that they and the men were all school friends from Malaysia (who would have thought), now scattered all over the world (Joan Baez in London), but they all meet somewhere in the world every year, wherever it suits best, to celebrate New Year's Eve together. What a lovely tradition, although it also means that each of them apparently doesn't have people around them where they currently live who might be more important to them than old school friends. Anyway, I am very happy to have a family that sticks together in times of crisis, where I feel safe and secure, and that I can look forward to every vacation. Maybe Joan, as I secretly call her, is not lonely in London at all, but that's what I spontaneously thought. Maybe we wanted to celebrate with them tomorrow (well, today), that would certainly be a lot of fun and they would be very happy.

But unfortunately, the flight to Luang Prabang is already booked. I would love to spend New Year's Eve with the nice group, especially since we still don't know how we're going to celebrate the start of the new year tomorrow. But we'll see about that. The taxi is coming right away to take us to the airport. However, it was a very funny and entertaining evening with sympathetic people.

Insight No. 5:

I keep encountering people who have a strong, almost magical attraction to me from the very first moment. Often, it's just small features that remind me of something or someone, and I always have the impression that these encounters convey something important to me.