My brain is full of thoughts as we pack up and close out this chapter of our Lopez Island summer life. I DO want to write it all down because I DO want to remember everything.
But where should I start?
Should I fill in some blanks from the winter in Hanoi before we even came home to Lopez?
Like the joy of seeing good friends who made the journey across the oceans to hang with us without knowing exactly what they’d find? The friends, family and acquaintances that came our direction and brightened our days?
Richard and Liz from NYC spent 3 glorious weeks exploring with us.
Doug with Eliza, our niece from Oakland, locating skate shops. 
Maelle, center in red, a friend’s daughter from Lyon. 
Elizabeth from Seattle, and Doug, eating bun ca.
Bich shared her family recipes, including these gac-colored tapioca pearls, a special Tet treat when cooked, cooled and smothered in sweet coconut milk. 
Ack. My gac balls were accidentally enormous.
Or the enthusiastic learners in various rural areas that I was lucky enough to meet throughout the year? These high school students live in Thanh Miện district, 1.5 hours SE of Hanoi.
Stage view of the student audience.
Along with teaching, other fun stuff happened. I could write about Doug’s bass addition to the short-lived but raucous psychedelic surf-punk band called Super Yoko Space Cult.
Or fast forward, should I talk about the work we’ve done this summer on our studio? How Doug has ‘all the clever’ when adapting ways to lift and hold heavy plywood over our heads, fitting it perfectly in a not-so perfectly square building? How building a studio together is actually an eNORmous lesson in patience, for both of us? Let’s re-measure, just in case. Good idea, regardless of who suggests it.
And there ARE actually tools for smaller hands and yes they’re hard to locate.
Totally. Worth. It.
Hello, little trim saw.
Or how about one week of the summer that was spent tucked away at singing camp in the Oregon Cascade Mountains with a group of 40 others who sang, talked, laughed, cried and tried to make sense of this confusing world with love and music? A monumental week indeed.
Some of the brightest highlights I could include were the emotional meetings I had with my birth family relatives for the first time. I have brothers from a shared father! Cousins my age! How can I describe the overwhelming feeling of being accepted into a family 60 years after being born when they didn’t even know I existed? I continue to explore and enjoy the open arms that have been extended my way, and open mine in return. Thanks, Smith Family. And nope, I didn’t get the chin cleft but I did grow up with that sweet gap between my front teeth. Jet-spraying water out that gap was one of my childhood super powers.
Or I could write about how hard it is right now, saying our goodbyes to our family. Like our new grand baby, born last winter and is now 8 months, who will be walking and probably even skateboarding next time we see him? Shouldn’t we just camp out in their back yard and watch him grow every day? And admire how loving and parental his parents have become, now that they are the parents? He’s adorable, the smartest kid ever, and has a smile that will melt an iceberg, in case you were wondering.
Those toes! That smile! 
That sunny personality!
Not to mention ALL the kids and grandkids that we’re leaving for awhile. Sure, they’re grown up and don’t need us at all anymore but what about the fact that they’re so interesting and engaging that we just want to hang around them because we like them as the people they’ve become? How to write about that?
Or the Oakland family visit…if there was a way to pack everyone up and drag them with us, we would.
Or how we like to sit and watch the roving band of wild turkeys pass our front door, knowing they’re unaware of the crisis this planet’s population is facing?
View from our porch.
And listen to the bird songs, and watch the brown creepers hop only upward on the trees while the nuthatches hop only downward, and the towhees hop anywhere on the ground. How can we explain the beauty of the sunsets and clouds on our bay, where the colors are indescribable? Where the seabirds fly and squawk and the sea otters dip and dive? And the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station growler jets regularly scream overhead, their core-shaking roars a jarring reminder that they are training for war? With no power to do anything about it? It’s a lot to feel.
Mother Earth,
from the Lopez Island portion of the global climate march.
I think I won’t write about any of that. I’ll leave it like this, tuck in a few photos once I remember how to use the new Gutenberg wordpress editor. Then call it good.
UPDATE: We are happily back in Vietnam, where we feel like we belong, for now.
We still love Hanoi but want a little less big city and a little more fresh air. The average low/high temperatures in Hoi An City are 73° and 86° F.
Goodbye Hanoi.
We will miss you.
We’ll find a place to unpack our bags and live our lives for another year. We will make music. We will fit in dice games, stories, visits, and trips (still have to restamp our visas every 3 months), popped corn, fried lotus root and happy hour concoctions. And daily beach swims, weather permitting. Because now with the monsoon season, the typhoons, hurricanes and tropical storms may happen. We are learning the difference.
We signed a rental lease on a sweet house in Cam Ha, outside Hoi An City. We are unpacking, settling in and forging onward.
Ready for visitors!
Great summary Beth! Enjoy your new digs… sounds heavenly. xoxox