The man on the couch

5/2022
During the months when the candle inside was lit up,
I felt the cement walls on the ground floor were really cramped,
so I moved to live in the attic of the house — for the first time — a large, empty room with two pine-paneled walls and two large glass walls overlooking the green space in front and behind the house.

I called that room my gallery because that was where I painted and displayed my paintings — a very new hobby, which only appeared after the fifth chakra was opened.

During that time, when reading or sitting still, when drawing or writing, I often “visualized” the figure of a man sitting silently on the sofa/couch in the corner of the room. Of course, I did not know who he was or why he was there on my sofa.

That figure-man often smiled while watching me write, draw, play, laugh loudly, or cry alone — in the quiet attic room.

When this vision, plus this feeling, became too much and too intense, I had to release my emotions by pouring them out through words — and that was how I wrote this poem about a man on the sofa/couch/whatever.

Of course, in my imagination at that time, this man must have been a lover/a boyfriend who looked at his girl — which was me — with love and affection. I had no boyfriend at that time.

The crazy, unexpected thing was, just about a week after I wrote this poem,
the man actually appeared in my life, as if coming out of the poem I had imagined.

The first sentence he said to me in the text message asking for acquaintance was:
“I’m so glad and so happy, almost stop-breathing, to find you here, a beautiful lotus in this ocean of mud…” — wow, how poetic, how touching…

Melted by this charming and poetic way of speaking, I replied to him that I was also glad and happy to know him — one who had “good eyes” for recognizing the lotus blossoms. That was how we started talking…

Quickly after the talk, he said that wherever I was, he would love to come to see me. Just to see if he was serious, I told him where I was and invited him to visit me in my hometown, which was a 3-hour drive from where he was.

And everything happened the way it should: he turned out to be the man on the sofa — who sat there silently, smiling to himself while watching me draw, watching me read, watching me write, watching me laugh and cry in the corner of my world — untouched, so peaceful, and extremely satisfied.

And it was no surprise when I recognized he was one of my fathers in a previous life. In this life, at the right time, (unintentionally and unconsciously) he returned to give me the feeling of a little girl sitting peacefully in the corner of the house, while her father just silently watched her play happily.

So the poem below — although at first I thought the man on the sofa was the reflection-shadow-image of a lover — turned out to be the reflection-shadow-image of a father.

A father, of course, is also a lover — but his love, in the moment of watching the little girl playing alone, is so immense, intense, yet gentle: the love of a father for his little girl — how beautiful, how dear, sacred in a way — that love.

That man — the man who was on my couch — visited me shortly in my home. His name is Nathan. He is British and has lived in Vietnam for many years. He was married once and has an only teenage daughter named Sophie — and my name is also Phi.

“Phi Phi” was how he always called me.

He didn’t speak much Vietnamese, but the few sentences he said were super “standard Vietnamese” — of course, mixed with the deep, warm, and charming English accent that made the words even more charming.

The Vietnamese sentence he said the most when he visited me was:
“Oh, muỗi cắng em hả?” (which means, “Ohh, mosquito got you?”) — with the word “hả” very smooth, very affectionate, and full of emotion, just like how any father talks to a baby — how sweet, how lovely, how “father”!!!

Today, on the occasion of Facebook reminding me of the day I wrote this poem, I re-post it here for you to read…

The Man on the Couch

Oh, I’m dreaming. I’m imagining…
How beautiful it is,
to have someone sitting silently on the couch in the corner of my gallery
watching me doing my things —
writing, painting, dancing, crying…

then observing me doing nothing
and just letting me be —
be anything and be nothing.

in that moment of being silently together, we will be one
Nothing can disturb our bliss nor our feelings.
Nothing can separate us.
We are just one — or even better – we are less than one.
We can be nothing/zero together.

How lovely it is,
to have him right there in the corner of the room,
silently touching me with his soft eyes,
quietly nourishing me with his sweetness,
slowly showering me with his love.

How peaceful it is,
to have him right there on the couch in the corner of my world —
with his arms always open
anytime I need a refuge,
anytime I need a break…

Oh yes, I really do need a break.

a-b-r-e-a-k

I open my eyes
and find no one on the sofa —
just me and me,
alone with many pillows.

Is it time to wake up?
Is it just a dream?

If it’s just a dream,
why are my cheeks and my pillows so wet?

…

p/s: anytime and everytime I see the Samsara, tears are just flowing like river on my cheek…

The painting behind the couch, I named it “Samsara”