Thailand — Not!

I was supposed to be in Bangkok today. I’m not.

March to May is my window. Somewhere inside it I cut out a month, sometimes five weeks, and fly to Southeast Asia. Heat, noise, temples, street food. A reset I quietly look forward to all year.

This year geopolitics got in the way. Not the slowly seeping kind of news, but the kind where suddenly the airline’s cancellation email is sitting in your inbox. At some point you stop searching for alternative flights and accept it: the trip won’t be a trip this year.

So here I am. A different sky. That’s fine.

The disappointment is still there. Not dramatic — more the variant that arises when something has been firmly planned into the year and then doesn’t happen, without you having contributed anything to it. You pack the feeling away and find something else for Sunday.

Maybe next year. Or sooner — October, November are still ahead. Different light, different season.

Maybe this year will turn into something after all.