Why I Keep Coming Back to Vietnam

The first time, I came for two weeks and left with a list of things I hadn’t gotten to. The list has never gotten shorter, no matter how many times I come back to work through it.

Every return trip is proof of how much the first one missed.

This time it’s a noodle stall three streets from where I stayed on my first visit, run by the same woman, who remembers neither me nor, understandably, why that matters to me.

I’ve stopped trying to finish the list. I think the point was never to finish it.