Non La

The haze is ever present these days 

We’d come to (hopefully) the end to a rough run of AQI, possibly the worst we’ve seen in our years here.

We deal. And make sense of bad air, with a mask, and

with gratitude.

Because we are here by choice. And the pros way outweigh the bad air cons.

Not to mention, many Hanoi residents don’t have the choices we do. They live with it, accumulating hours upon hours in the haze, without compromising their spirit, drive, or eternal, boundless sense of community. 

We are here

Today they’re all out. The morning AQI started rough, but has since cleared. We’re down around the 200 range.

Just slightly hazardous. 

And, believe it or not, just around the ‘slightly hazardous’ range picks up our mood.

The sun peeks through the haze, muted and toney. Like all the joggers who make their way past. I’m sitting near the pond watching the farm ladies set up some sort of scaffold for the plants they will grow.

Hard work is not a novelty here,

it is the norm.

And these six hat wearing worker bees are putting it in, both metaphorically and literally. 

As they strain to support each other, one of them makes some kind of comment, and four of them at once burst with laughter.

It seems there’s joy in this work for them.

And it seems they’ve created their own. 

And I remind myself that being happy is a choice

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