On a post about hanging out with aunt and watching a kids’ movie, someone wrote:

“Hey Great post. This is a bit off topic but im making a site on gold pawn shop [link removed]. I was just wondering what theme you are currently using for your website .Thanks “

On a post where I talk about visiting the Peterson Rock Gardens near Bend, Oregon, I got three of ‘em:

Hi! Is it ok to use these information in my prject? thanks!

Your blog is awesome. Thank you so much for giving plenty of awesome content. I have bookmark your blog siteand will be without doubt coming back. Once again, I appreciate all your work and also providing a lot great tricks to the audience. [tricks?!]

Blasphemy! Hehe Just kidding! I’ve read similar things on other blogs. I’ll take your word for it. Stay solid! – your pal.

Don’t worry, chum, I’m solidly solid.

I wrote that I’d finished another chapter and put a little snippet of it in and got this response:

I am doing research for my university paper, thanks for your excellent points, now I am acting on a sudden impulse.

Excellent points like “I want to eat bun cha at the Thanh Hoa market. I want to sit on the porch breaking open red watermelon seeds with friends.” Yeah, I’m sure s/he’s using that for that sudden, impulsive research.

One of my favorites on a post with ZERO comments:

Took me time to read all the comments, but I really enjoyed the article. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commenters here It’s always nice when you can not only be informed, but also entertained I’m sure you had fun writing this article.

I read them, I delete them, and more often than I’d like to admit, I see these same posts on other blogs. The same comments that I’ll receive a half-dozen times this week. Usually it makes me smile at the sheer idiocy of the Internet’s evolution.

We’re supposed to go back later this week and I think it’s going to be a little less balanced–he’s been back to practice. No fair!

“You just need to turn the monitor on when you want to play,” he told her as he walked past her, sitting chin in hand on the stairs.

She sighed heavy and low then stood to go into the living room.

“It’s not gonna work,” she said to no one. “There’s no way he could fix it.” Click.

And with that click she realized just how magical her brother really is. “OH.” She ran to his room, busting the door open to give him an uncomfortably long hug and a kiss which is almost always refused, but managed to sit stoicly through. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re the best man in the house!”

Being the only man in the house, he wasn’t impressed.

“He’s the best big brother I know,” I shouted down to her.

“Yes! Yes! You’re the best big brother a kid could ever have! What can I do for you? I will do anything! Do you want a snack? A drink? A back massage? I’ll do anything!”

S. sat facing his own computer. “Anything?”

“Yes! Whatever.”

“Okay, then please just go away.”

And with that it was over. A. happily ran back to play and S. was back to being a typical teenage boy.

Most of the time, I just eat without thinking too hard about where the food is coming from. I avoid processed foods and work to get fresh fruits and veggies into my body every single day. It’s one of the lasting effects of living in Vietnam, where processed foods were nearly impossible to find and fresh foods were everywhere.

I eat zucchini and potatoes, pineapple and bananas, artichokes and avocados, feeling blessed that I have access to so many variations, but rarely thinking past the grocery store or the imagined, universal, farm. The truth is, I don’t even know how some of these plants grow. I’ve never seen an avocado tree or the flowers that cashews grow on. I’ve yet to see peanuts to grow. I have been lucky enough to see pomegranate trees and bananas grow from flower to fruit.

On our drive through California in July, I got to see lots of things growing, plants I’d never seen, or maybe just never taken notice of, before. I drove through Castroville, home of the artichoke, and were awed by the acres and acres of big bushy plants topped with a single ball of artichoke. Strange looking plant, to be sure. I saw olive trees grow, ashen green and sad, along the edge of I-5 for miles. There were orange trees and onion farms. Gilroy smelled intensely of onions and garlic. There were hundreds of acres of corn and I wondered if any of the unidentifiable crops were soybeans, a plant I have eaten plenty of yet never seen.

I love seeing these plants grow here as much as I was thrilled to see coconuts on the trees in Thailand. There’s something so interesting about seeing where our food comes from, how it grows and is harvested. And it makes me a little sad how detached I am from growing it. Someday I’ll remedy that when I have some garden space. For now, I’ll continue to be amazed at how food grows from the ground, in such mass that only a small percentage of the population is in charge of producing all the fruits, vegetables and grains for the rest of us to consume.

Back home, my father’s heart is giving him problems. My grandfather is dying. My daughter is losing weight off her already thin frame. She misses friends and cousins. My son wants to see his own friends again. I seem to be the only one who wants to stay and I feel like a terribly selfish mother.

Something has to change. I know we have to go to back to States, but I don’t want to.

I know it’s what I’m supposed to do and in that moment, as the taxi passes deep green fields of rice and transitory bia tuoi shop, my life changes.

The happiness that has filled my body for the first time in my life over these past few months suddenly withdraws and the tears start. I won’t be able to stop them for months.

But I know that being a good mother, and making my children happy, is more important than being a happy woman. We had to go home, to a place that no longer felt like home to me.

SheWrites has just announced a new contest for unpublished non-fiction/memoir writers who have works in-progress. That’s ME! They’re offering a bunch of different rewards for the final winner, helping her to develop the best proposal/query possible. I certainly could use the help and it is a good impetus for me to keep working on what I’ve got. More info here.

Visit She Writes

Today I was able to get the first half of another chapter done. Up to nearly 60,000 words and about half done (maybe a tad more) with the story. It’s getting to the really stressful part of our adventure and while I thought it might be fun to write, I’m finding it difficult to relive those moments. I was determined, but scared and feeling more alone than I had in a very long time.

But I’ll struggle through it and make it back to the parts that made me really happy to be in Vietnam.

Three years later his predictions still have not come true: I’m still single and don’t even have a Chinese boyfriend, let alone a Chinese husband. I also haven’t been to jail. He was right about the traveling apart; living abroad is good for me.

So are long weekends at the beach.

The next three days are pure writing, editing, figuring out some sort of plan for this monster so I can get it finished without getting too much more unwieldy. Hopefully I’ll come back to town with a well-written synopsis, a complete story outline and even some chapters written. Here’s to some hard work…

And sometimes I wonder if the reliving of the moments is part of why I’ve embarked on this endeavor to write my story, our story. I never want to lose those lovely moments when my heart was filled with love for my children, for the orphans, for the country. But to remember those, I have to remember the sad times, the scary times, the mother-guilt that pervades so much of what I do. I have to feel those moments again, too, as I write. I don’t like it, but I think it has to be done.

Then I sat there for the next hour, bathing in it, drowning at times, and wondering just what it is that makes me feel so blissfully content.