Not Thailand

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

This time of year, I usually am. March through May is my window — somewhere in there I carve out a month, sometimes five weeks, and head to Southeast Asia. It’s become a rhythm I don’t really question anymore. The heat, the noise, the temples, the street food. A reset. I look forward to it quietly all year.

Geopolitics had other ideas. Not a slow drift of news you can ignore, but the kind of shift that makes airlines reroute and insurance companies pick up the phone. The kind that makes you quietly accept that this particular year’s trip is no longer a trip.

So I’m here instead. Looking at a different sky. It’s fine — genuinely. But there’s a specific flavour of disappointment when something you’ve built into the structure of your year just doesn’t happen — not because of anything you did or didn’t do, but because the world decided to rearrange itself. You pack the feeling away and find something else to do with a Sunday.

Same time next year, maybe. Or maybe sooner — October, November are still ahead. A different light, a different season.

Perhaps this year might still come together after all.