It wasn't so late but I was tired after a whole day running everywhere in the city. I took a GrabBike to go home and it wasn't until I returned the helmet to the driver that I realised it was a Hello Kitty helmet. I shall need two moon cycles to recover from that!

Finally, after twenty-nine years, I'm back in Huế, the home city of my parents and my grandparents, the land of my ancestors, the place where I can hear people speak the same dialect that I speak. The home of my soul. 

I am staying in my grandfather's house, in the very room that belonged to my father.

O joy!!!

Sài Gòn: We visited my maternal grandparents' tomb today. Neither my mother nor my father knew where it was, so we went with my mother's half sister - the daughter from a second marriage. 

I unfortunately never met my maternal grandparents. My mother never saw them again after she left Vietnam for France in the 50s. My dad was the last person to have met her father. I remember how in our newly bought house in Saint-Maur, one Saturday afternoon after lunch, the conversation between my parents got stuck on some topic I dont recall now. It must have been about family, for my mother asked to listen to a conversation that my father had taped during his first trio back Vietnam after the end of the war and the fall of Saigon. The trip was in 1982, one year before her father would pass away. At first, my father objected that it wasn't a good idea. But she insisted. "Don't I have the right to hear my own father's voice? Please!" My dad had to bow down to the demand and played the tape. Her father's voice began to fill the house. He was talking about his old years and his weak health. But he could joke about it. My mother said that he was a very witty and funny man, and I could feel some trace of it in what I heard. My mother's tears began to fall and soon she was weeping unconsolably.
That was the only time I had any physical connection with my maternal grand-father. 

The cemetery where my maternal grand-parents were buried wasn't well kept. It took time before we could locate the tombs. It was noon time. The sun was hitting hard. We first found the tomb of an older sister of my mother's, then her husband's and my grandfather's. My grandmother's tomb was the last one. The tone was casual at first. I was helping my parents to navigate from one tomb to another. I was looking at the picture of my grandmother taken when she was spending her final years at the Buddhist temple. My mother came and stood by me and began to address her.

"Dear mother.... I miss you so much.... Here's my first son... your grandson..." Her voice started to shake. "I love you so much.... I miss you so, so terribly..."

Blank page (blank sheet)

Ròm ~ writing the film score... The situation isn't new... I am sitting in front of the piano or my computer, and nothing comes out. Mind you, it's my third long feature film this year, so that may be understandable. And I am to have finished everything in about two weeks, and Franco is coming this afternoon to record his guitar parts, and my head is blank and I haven't written down a single note...

Bonjour.... I feel I could stay in bed the whole day today...
First lie in in months!

Half past midnight. Paris. I was in the metro, headphones on, iPod playing Philip Glass and reading a book. I stood up to get off the train and put the book in my bag. I noticed a grey-haired, bearded middle-aged man with a dark blue woolen hat on, drinking a can of beer. As the doors were about to open I felt someone tap lightly on my coat. It was the man. He was pointing up at my bag, his dark eyes twinkling . "Do you like it?". As he saw my confused expression, he added "The book!". I was reading Virginie Despentes' Vernon Subutex. 

"Yes, I do like it! Very much!", I replied. 

The man smiled. "First or second?". A young girl was watching our exchange with a puzzled look. 

"I'm reading the first tome" I said. "It's great", the man continued. He seemed so pleased and smiled broadly. The door signal was ringing. It was time to get off. I looked back one more time and made a thumb up sign to him. 

It wasn't the first time I had this kind of connection, this sense of kinship with other readers on the train. It was heartwarming.

I don't mind long days of hard work when I get do much joy out of what I do. I must have spent one of the happiest and most fulfilling week of my life, working on, editing composing, mixing and finalising the score for the black and white and silent reworking of The Third Wife, now entitled Between Shadow and Soul - which was the film first title before Ash changed it to 'The Third Wife'.