Feeling hungry…

I recently got an e-mail from a friend who expressed discontent with San Francisco’s temperate weather — which I absolutely was unable to empathize with. Then, this past week he was finally pleased that, for the first time, he felt cold in San Francisco.

Yes, some of this is about the need for seasons in one’s life. But I think this was really a comment on the need for suffering in one’s life. I think quite a bit about the idea of suffering. You know, the “life is suffering” sort of business. But I don’t think I experience it quite enough.

So my vacation plans were thwarted (a whole other story that I’ll get into another time) and I’ve just return to Saigon so I can work tomorrow. And it’s rainy.

Really, really rainy.

So rainy that all the women selling food (it’s all sold off the street) have closed up shop and gone home for the day. So I missed lunch today and, for the first time since being in Vietnam, I am REALLY, REALLY hungry.

And I feel so grateful. In some strange way, I like it when life is a little hard. I think I understand one little piece of my friend a little better now. It think I yearn for a little bit of suffering because it helps me to appreciate all the other nuances — the seasons — of life.