Last week’s moment, Barefoot Cafe got a bit of feedback (thank you) and all of sudden, there is this need to achieve, to out do myself. This place, where I come to deposit —- moments —— moments that don’t fit in the books, articles and stories I write suddenly became something different. Isn’t that always the case?

Today’s office is Workshop Coffee, around the corner from my apartment. Blue, white and dark wood. I wish I know the name of this shade of blue. Its got the tinniest hint of green it it, it is not navy, though it might look like it on your monitor. It is R2, G44, B84, or somewhere there about. Values are never as fun as names. She finishes her lips with Russian Red, the final touch, before she meets the board for the inevitable massacre. But I digress.

There are four tables in the cafe, 20 seats at best, and it is fully staffed with 4-5 people on any given day. The cafe is never full. Most days I am the only one here. I take over a four-top (suffering zero guilt) and work through the afternoon for the price of a cappuccino. The staff is always lounging about, often with their heads on the table, nearly asleep. They all jump to attention when someone walks through the door. We are working, we are working! Maybe one day soon, only one of them will get up when I come in, he would go ahead and make me the usual. I won’t hold you to any standards of work and you will treat me like a regular. Deal!? Today, they’ve taken over a four-top playing a vigorous game of UNO.

Through the large picture window I watch Hanoi happen. Students in button down white shirts searching for lunch; girls on motorbikes zipped up in floral patterned hoody shielding them from the sun; street vendors in conical hats with their goods balanced on poles and baskets trying to catch my eye. I strain and I focus and I will for that next brilliant moment, that moment that will out shine the one I wrote last week.

…but its never really about that is it? Not in life, not here and certainly not in any creative efforts (professional or just because).

You get to that next moment by living this present moment. The one before was good; the one right now might be ordinary; the one after could be sublime. There is no telling. I won’t get there until I fully experience this present one. So I write. Not because this moment is significant but rather, it is how you get to what’s next.