Same Song Blues

Arrived back in Brisbane last night, and been unpacking all day. It never ends. And there's already so much to do, so many chores to be finished, and I can't even get started because of the date. The country's paralysed, and I have to empty bags taking out Burmese-teak Buddhas and lacquerware tissue-boxes, and pause with pain at memories.

I even tried listening to some of my fave Bollywood songs to help heighten the mood, but to no avail. Its official. I feel the alienation in my bones. In the fibre of my being I know that I'm looking around like a departed sprite, hollow and otherworldly.

I want to go back to Yangon, where people suffer but care, where movies in cinemas are five-years old but watching kids play on the street is far more entertaining, where people are very hush about forced labour but will donate what little they have for a gold leaf to be laid on Shwedagon in their name.

Where food is bought fresh off the streets and tastes like it should, where monks place themselves in danger just in order to confirm new military directives, where housekeeping boys insist on paying for you, where email is an elitist concept, where your teacup is never allowed to be empty because quenching another's thirst is supposed to bring you spiritual merit.

Ah, I have to write about Yangon, so much, and soon. Yet I have to take care of things so mundane I want to scream. Help.