Great Expectations

"Show up. Pay attention. And don't be overly attached to the outcome." That was the message on Sunday morning and the timing couldn't have been better.

This is my third trip to Vietnam. The first was with some trepidation, the second with much anticipation. And this one? I'm wrestling with expectation: expectation of what our group will do, where we'll go, what we'll see, even what we'll feel. I want to approach this week with no preconceptions, no "been there, done that." In short: I want to show up and pay attention.

I arrived Hanoi late last night, got a good rest, and spent today walking through the old quarter and twice around Hoan Kiem Lake. From the hotel I strolled down skinny streets clogged with weaving motorbikes and crouching sidewalk vendors, wandered past stores specializing in everything from headboards to headstones, and finally reached the path around Hoan Kiem. The air was grey and heavy, traffic manic, and the lake a whisper-still sanctuary in the midst of it all. White-haired men and women practiced tai-chi at the water's edge; schoolgirls gossiped and giggled; twenty-somethings flexed their cell-phone texting muscles; and young couples sat entwined on the benches, oblivious to anything but each other. It all seemed familiar, yet at the same time completely wonderful and foreign and new.

Tomorrow morning we fly to Hue, then drive on to Dong Ha where we'll begin our work with PeaceTrees. I hope that my time there, too, will be both familiar and wonderfully new. May I have no expections... except, perhaps, the expectation that I can practice showing up and paying attention, knowing that whatever the outcome, it's going to be a great adventure.