Xôi By The Ocean

I always wanted to escape to the ocean side, but every time I arrived there I wanted to be back here. I thought I had two nationalities: Vietnamese and citizen of the country of longing, and I would live on the borders between nations.

But then I realized it is the acceptance of the ordinary existence with my total being, not desiring some other world, not hankering for the other shore, that very acceptance transforms this shore becomes the other shore.

Now I’m sitting right by the fake ocean I printed out, but it is tremendously real that my ordinary sticky rice becomes sacred, becomes one with the ocean.