Dancing away

Greetings,

After a wild wonderful educational week with an intense secret friend gathering new material for poems, stories, novels and wild imaginings I leave Saigon and Vietnam tomorrow. My work here is finished. Six months is long enough, or as someone said, 'We haven't been here very long but we've been here long enough.' True.

As some of you know, I was here in the U.S. Army in 1969 for one solid character defining year. I was based near Hue. While teaching English in Indonesia I decided to return and pay my respects. As I told my 4th graders, 'Congrats! You've graduated to Grade 5 and I've graduated to Vietnam.' Pure and simple motivation.

Return is a strange word. Like making a U-turn or a spinning whirling Dervish dance celebrating Rumi the Sufi poet, seer and mystic. Rumi knew life, transitions, celebrations and expressing the spirit with love and devotion. Joy.

I begin a new chapter in Cambodia. As a ghostwriter said, 'To travel is better than to arrive.'

Metta.