And now it’s November [by Jesse Lee Gray]
The 2nd to be exact. If you write the date like Europeans, like most of the world, today reads the same forward as backward. 02-11-20. Anagram. A dog with its head stuck in a fence. Driving in a blizzard and deciding the conditions are too bad. You want to turn around. But you’re halfway there. Might as well keep going.
It’s November in Cambodia, which means something different than the Novembers I’ve known further from the equator. Leaves aren’t turning, clothes aren’t really changing, food stays more or less the same, and though the temperature does drop, it’s not by much.
It’s the end of rainy season. The Mekong River reverses its flow. It’s the only river that does that. In the whole world. In place of rain, tourists start to trickle into the deluge of high season. Elephant pants and backpacks. Skyrocketing prices of hotels. Salad days for locals. The rice harvest begins.
But this year it’s the beginning of high and dry season. No tourists this year.
Normally, Water Festival is right around the corner. Everyone comes from the countryside to the capital to see the river be blessed by the King and change direction.
This year the lanterns and fireworks have been canceled. Citizens stay put. The harvest has been washed out by typhoons in Vietnam and excessive floods have flushed people from their homes with nowhere to go.
And this year the river keeps going as it has. Despite the floods, it doesn’t overflow its banks into course reverse, thanks to the dams built upriver by the Chinese. Don’t shit where you eat, even upstream. But the jokes on them because we live in a closed system. Downstream always returns.
....
It’s November. In the morning. I hear birds. The fan is cool but I almost don’t need it on the terrace. Someone sneezes nearby and really goes for it, as they do here in Cambodia. But unlike most places in the world today, sneezes don’t scare me. One lucky star to thank for that.
I hear hammering at a construction site. Like always and everywhere in Phnom Penh. Despite it all, the machine keeps going. High rises erect themselves quickly with a little help from coffee-with-milk-colored men in flip flops and jeans, loading bricks by hand, climbing on trellises made from bamboo. Sometimes in orange vests and yellow hardhats, but often not.
It’s November and it’s cooling off. 83 degrees feels cool. At 75, I run for a hoodie and scarf. Keeping up with the seasons is a question of how relatively wet I am and whether it comes from the sky or from me. Hot-dry, less-hot-wet, cool-dry. Of course, cool-dry is the shortest. But temperate is always hard to hold on to, no matter where you are.
And in the back of my head, I wonder how long the fish will hold out for a place where so much depends on the presence of fish. Jobs, protein, the cornerstone of a cuisine, a whole way of life really.
I can’t think too much about tomorrow, in general, but today, I’m trying hard not to think too much about it. I hold my breath, having launched my drop into the bucket across the world, wondering what kind of home, what way of life will hold sway when, finally, time and money align with a lack of global threat.
With crossed fingers and a sigh, signing off from the Kingdom of Wonder.