I’ve been away for 8 days ... 4 to go before I head home.
It's strange to call Hanoi ‘home’. It is familiar, but not familial. I don’t know where my 'home' is any more—which sounds worse than it feels—so I use Hanoi as a geographical marker.
Today was dominated by getting from A to B (actually B to J). Although my flight was only 3 hours I started packing at 10:30 and finished unpacking at 19:15. International flights require early arrivals and long taxi trips so even a short hop takes a big chunk of time.
This day has been filled with things: little things that take longer than they should. I am travelling alone and so accustomed to the drill that I operate in a disconnected, mechanistic way:
Wake up, check email, down to breakfast, avoid pastries, PowerPoint, pack bags, check out, cab to the airport, queue, check in, queue, customs, queue, departure x-ray, visit duty free, wander down the wrong escalator, browse through duty free, complain about the Diesel cologne tester being faulty, get wifi access, fail at getting wifi to work, complain about wifi, queue, board, read the newspaper, eat half the meal, turbulence, fill in Arrivals card, lend my pen to neighbour, sneak look at his date of birth, bumpy landing, queue, disembark, queue, customs, wait at luggage carousel, bags arrive, queue, arrivals x-ray, queue, taxi, hotel x-ray, check in, unpack, eat complimentary granny smith apple, go to fancy steak restaurant.
Today I was invisible.
No one will remember me and I will remember no one. Even the duty free salesperson who was wearing a Lancôme shirt (and insistently pointed to the logo above her left breast as I complained about the empty Diesel bottle) will soon forget me.
I experienced no connections with people. No moments of truth. I saw no friends or colleagues. I shared nothing and nothing was shared with me.
This wasn't sad or lonely. It didn't feel bad. In fact I didn't even notice it until I sat down just now to reflect. I actually felt nothing at all as I shuffled through my tasks until they were completed. My methodicals.
Today I was that tree which, as it fell over in the forest, was seen or heard by no one. Even I wouldn't remember the sound I made.
Maybe life needed a day off and chose this one? If every day was like this it would be soul destroying . It's OK every once in a while though.
I did listen to a lot of podcasts. I guess some of the things they taught me will remain in my head: the Danish egg caravan, brain plasticity, the social importance of swearing, Philip Johnson's glass house, the philosophy of "Good Intentions" and this Chinese guy who learnt English by wandering around campus shouting it at himself. In turn, I may recall the occasional fact and suddenly recall which queue I was in when I first learnt it. Stephen Pinker and Thailand Customs, forever linked.
My day is ending now with me sitting at this beautiful hotel bar. I order a Vodka Martini with a twist. This drink, like me, is invisible so it makes sense.
I sip my drink and feel like J Alfred Prufrock:
"For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;"
I wasn't using coffee spoons today. In fact it was steak. Half an hour ago I sent back a steak which was ordered medium and arrived rare.
My life is marked out by a string of customer service grumbles, in the same way as Prufrock marks his with coffee. "I have measured out my life with steak complaints" doesn't quite have the same ring to it so I'll stick with the spoons.
For I am sitting at the window seat at a swanky drinking hole and the view is fantastic.
There is a fountain in the middle of a large pond, which in turn is encapsulated by a busy roundabout. I squint at the roundabout and it looks like giant kitchen sink being drained, with the cars sucked into the middle like floaties from dinner.
There are lots of tall buildings surrounding the roundabout. A statue is being harrassed by candle-wielding protestors. There are lots of people, cars, movement and neon. However, I can’t concentrate on this because he is too busy eavesdropping on the conversation behind him.
The women in this particular bar are not talking of Michelangelo. They look like hookers. One of them has just walked up and introduced herself to the lonely American businessman sitting behind me. She has sat down across from him and is now warming him up with chit chat.
As I listen to her enthusiastic small talk, I imagine that I can see her words. They are weaving out through her smiling mouth in a string which transforms itself into a long worm. Another sentence turns itself into a hook. The worm wraps itself around a hook and starts wriggling seductively.
The American has just landed. He has been here in Jakarta for 2 hours ("OMFG really? just 2 hours? Wow!"). It's his first visit and yes it's for business. I hear him start talking about tyre manufacturing and imagine her makeup cracking as she widens her eyes further to feign interest.
He doesn’t seem interested in her at all, but I imagine that he’ll still wind up buying her drinks and fucking her.
Or does she fuck him? Fuck is a verb whose subject and object seem to be determined by whoever wields the sword. In this case I can't be sure, but I am certain they will both be fucked in the end.
"And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,"
And time to think how much I love TS Eliot. I stop listening to the small talk and look up The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufrock on the internet. I read it carefully and promise myself that I will spend more time studying his poems. I know I won’t keep this promise but it feels good to make one.
I start reading another poem, Portait of a Lady, which begins with a quote from Marlowe:
"Thou hast committed—
Fornication: but that was in another country,"
It reminds me of my neighbours and I tune back in. The hooker has just asked Tyreman if he is on Facebook. He answered her with:
“Well … y’know … my son. He said to me to get on that Facebook. He said ‘Dad then you can keep in touch with people and let them know what you’re doin’ … but I said to him ‘That’s the point Don – I don’t want nobody to know I’m doin’ …”
If tonight is any indication of what he gets up to, I tend to agree.
She responds with a hysterial fake laugh and listen out for the faint cracking sound of foundation.
I try to imagine what his Facebook status would look like tomorrow:
“Harry is ... hungover and I can’t find my goddamn wallet.”
I order another martini and think about my own potential goddamn hangover. Martinis are spontaneous. You can feel perfectly fine in the chair, but be clueless about what will happen when you finally stand up. It usually involves falling on a table or tipping over a glass. I think I'd rather stay invisible for now.
