Home

After nearly two days of flights and airports I'm finally home.  You don't know the relief.  I loved Vietnam, I really did.  It's a phenominally unique country filled with, well, there's no better way to describe it than randam character.  Bicycles still pull rickshaws and women crowned in whicker triangles carry baskets hanging from a pole on their backs like weighted scales measuring the days ahead of them against the days past.  These faces of rural villages can be seen walking astride the Rolls Royces that drift near the more expensive hotels and restaurants.  The whole place is in organized chaos.  It is defined by no traffic laws nor any sanitation we know, but they have a system that works for them.  Every morning at dawn the streets flood with a quiet peaceful people intent on balancing their physical lives with walking, running, or tai chi.  In the evenings, shops relinquish their garbage to the trashmen that pierce the air with their ringing bells and then store owners burn what small piles are left along the side walks.  Families line the walkways to eat their dinner.  Three and four generations can be seen seated at ttheir short plastic tables filled with steaming food, laughing with one another and keeping an eye on the toddlers too distractable to sit in their seats.

It is for family and friends, my own relationships, that I am most grateful to be home.  I miss the people in my life terribly when I'm gone.  As much as I enjoy the company of the people I am working with, the sights I see and the memories I make I so wish to be sharing with the people I love.  If only they could all come with me, but since that is not possible, I do find myself relieved to be home and recharging with the energy of their embraces and smiles.  The same is true of the mountain air, snow and pine trees that are so familiar to me.  There is truly no place like home.