Memoir 2

I'm having a hard time to narrate the year of 1966, the year that I already called the most momentous of my life. This morning as I was awakened by an ill-timed phone call, I waxed philosophical about the very definition of life: the reproduction of a patterned process of chemical reaction. Life is just a cross over of a chemical process where a pattern keeps repeating itself (reproduction). The universe itself is nothing but a chemical process.

Enough of this sidetrack. The year of 1966 saw a full awakening of my sexuality and emotional attraction for the opposite sex. Anh Dao was still in my mind, but I had not seen her for years . She only served as an inspiration for me to study and to dream about. There was one girl in the group that went with me to America. Her name was Agnes. She went to a French lycee in Saigon. She had an oval face and was quite pretty and of course she had long hair. Of course she was a good student, like Anh Dao. Unexpectedly, writing these words has been a tough slough for me. Maybe that is a way my mind is telling me my suffering is deep and my disappointment immense. Today is Sunday in the first week of May of the year 2011. It so happens that today is the Mother's Day. Agnes is not the mother of my son. And she never will be the mother of any children I have or will have. At one time in my life when I was young and green and stupid and naive, I wished she were. Now I am glad she is not. I am typing this as I walk around in the park in the sun. The desert air is fresh and warm and the sun shines brilliantly above. Winds from the west, crossing over the mountains and descending into the valleys and making the molecules of my body dance. I feel calm, serene, and a bit wiser. I just threw away the phone number of a librarian into the trash bin. I don't believe in romantic entanglements and complications anymore. Not at my age. I made a vow to stop at the number of 23. I forced myself not to flatter my ego and test my attractiveness and desirability to women. I didn't wish to bring pain and suffering to others. I didn't want to say things that I couldn't deliver. I do have a sense of responsibility. The sorrow that began with Agnes is deep and indelible. That does not mean she was not useful. Because of her, I forced myself to study in earnest French. As a consequence, I was always first of the class of the subject. English as a subject was tougher going, but my years at the International School and the year spent in America did help. At the tender age of 17, I was introduced to Chekhov, Skakespeare, Arthur Miller, and Nathaniel Hawthorn, not to speak of T.S. Eliott and W.H. Auden. I didn't know the hell I was reading. I was struggling with the mechanics and structure of the English language and its vast vocabulary, let alone the suggestive meanings behind the words. The more I struggled with the language, the more determined I was in mastering it. I studied day and night. I didn't go on dates although I had plenty of opportunities and my hormones were raging. I remember I once spent a weekend with a family sailing in the lake of Michigan and walking in the woods near their cottage on an island in the lake. Their young daughter of 16 was beautiful and she sported a low-cut shirt and a pair of short shorts, revealing breath-takingly beautiful, budding breasts and shapely legs, and driving me delirious and drunk with sexual excitement. I kept glancing at her breasts while she nonchalantly chatted away the afternoon, jumping from one topic to another.

I was still a virgin when I returned to Vietnam in July 1967. The year in America did wonders to my comprehension of the spoken English. I also developed a taste for reading in English. I picked up on my own some rudiments of German. My parents asked me what I wanted to major in college. Without hesitation, I said English. They were crestfallen. I explained to them that I had this crazy idea that I wanted to be really good at English. They were not happy at my decision, but they didn't nag too much. College life in Vietnam was medieval, boring, and unchallenging. I spent most of my time reading philosophy and brushing up on my French and German while enjoying a tumultuous love affair with Laura, a high-school classmate of Agnes.

You know what? I am so glad that I am still lucid and capable of rendering my thoughts into words. This morning an asshole sent me a request to take his fucking name off the email list. The motherfucker had an honor to receive my wondrous thoughts because I just hit the "Reply All" button when I made a comment. The motherfucker typically felt self-important to write to me. He just could simply hit "Delete" button to deal with unwanted emails. Fools are plagued with a sense of self-importance and sly insults. They are so fucking stupid that they think they are smart. By sending me a stupid request like that, the motherfucker got his rocks off by thinking that he got me annoyed. Well, I was and much, much more. From the very beginning since I first laid my eyes on him I knew there was something fishy and odd about the midget. Assholes like him make me want to reach for the nuclear button so they would join the cockroaches in the conflagration of Hell. At any rate, where was I? Ah, I remember now. I was talking about Laura, that flat-faced bitch that caused me so much suffering. But in the final analysis, most of the fault lay with me. I was stupid and naive and idealistic. And it took me almost 40 years to realize so. Once I saw the errors of my conception and perception of Love, I had some peace. The bottom line is that Love is conditional and very much commercial in nature because the individuals involved are concerned about their own survival and benefits. To put it bluntly, one only loves another person when and if it is conducive to one's well-being and survival unless one is sick in the head like I am. Once again, I did get inspired to really work on my French and English just to keep up with her. Also, I became a poet mostly because of her. I had to deal with pain somehow. I am breathing slowly now. I am trying to regain my equilibrium.


(cont.)