Waiting

I see Cambodia now: the palm trees, the tuk-tuks, the kramas, the iced-coffee. The smell permeates the New England atmosphere, taking over everything that is familiar. I want to go back to my other home, the home in which I felt free, the home in which everything was new.
But I sit here, in my dorm room. There are papers to be done, math problems to be figured out, friends to text and email, and windows to be shut from the cold. In Cambodia, there is no cold; only a perpetual heat that is hardly noticeable after the first couple weeks. One stops sweating as the skin pores become used to the humidity.
Adventure awaits! It little profits an idle student to be stuck in one place. There are mountains to be climbed, temples to be explored, people to meet, smells to be smelled, food to be tasted, roads to be run on, drinks to be drunken, jungles to be blazed through!
But these images fade away as the present moment appears full force.

In these moments, these lonely moments at night, Cambodia returns with full splendor, like a symphony that quickly reaches its crescendo.
It disappears just as quickly, awaiting the return.