No Map Needed

"There was a map of Vietnam on the wall of my apartment in Saigon and some nights, coming back late to the city, I'd lie out on my bed and look at it...That map was a marvel especially now that it wasn't real anymore....That's old, I'd tell visitors, that's a really old map." ~Michael Herr

Wandering the Old Quarter of Hanoi, the streets narrow and fill with picturesque alleys and railways and images ripped from history. No stop lights or stop signs, weathered buildings, muted colors, people and motorbikes fill every inch of space. I look down at my phone and see a blue dot. You are here. 

I slip into a cafe complete with a piano, a floor to ceiling wall of books, and soft jazz music playing in the background. Immediately, the Murakami section catches my eye, and I pull a book from the shelf--Hard Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World. My entire existence in Vietnam has bordered on the surreal from the start. I've not read any Murakami lately so I hadn't considered the Murakami factor, but it could explain a lot.

If you've ever read Murakami, specifically this novel, perhaps you'll understand how a couple days later I ended up in a unicorn themed cafe sipping coffee while wearing a pastel unicorn onesie. Or how seeing pieces of a B52 jutting out of a pond in an upscale neighborhood seemed the most natural thing.

I first read Murakami in a tent somewhere in the interior of Alaska camped out on the median of a deserted highway. The nameless narrator slipping between worlds--one of secret labs and tunnels running through underground Tokyo, the other in a magical realm full of unicorns and stolen shadows. Somehow, an accumulation of all the choices I'd made in life had lead me to that moment--in a tent, somewhere Alaska, reading Murakami. No map needed.

Perhaps we wind up in the most interesting places by not following any sort of map laid before us, but a built in navigation system that we create by tuning into the divine and allowing guidance. Allow the magnificent and surreal and wild to fill your essence and watch it become your reality.

Toss your maps of yesterday away and create a new one. Old roads destroyed, new ones created, boundaries always shifting. There are parts of me that no longer exist and parts that I have created and parts that I have refined. Looking into my past, like a map, in awe at where I've been--a marvel, now that it's not real anymore.

How do you navigate your life? Was your map laid out for you by society or do you create your own as you move through the world? Tune into how you feel about where you are and where you've been. You are here. Look down on that blue dot. How you feel about it will tell you all you need to know.

Ten weeks in Vietnam--stunning, indescribable landscape, shocking, war ridden wounds, and an intense energy unlike anything I've ever felt. It feels good to be back in Chiang Mai, back in the jungle, but I look forward to creating more Vietnam adventures down the road.