A Welcomed Alien

Oneliness Notes — Tuy Hoa, April 2026

Every day, around 4 p.m., the sun is close to setting but still warm.

A breeze comes in, the air lifts. The beach strip in Tuy Hòa fills up. Motorbikes roaring, up to four people on one — sometimes five, if two of them are tiny. Some arrive with bowls of food. Others come straight from kindergarten, work, school, and run into the ocean with their clothes on. It’ll dry soon enough. So it begins again: the slowing down, the cherishing of another day. Children squealing. Young love, old love. Some watch over children, some stretch their bodies, others dive alone straight through the waves, deep into the sea.

A ritual to mark the end of a day. Collective ease after hours of work.

Flow as a river, not a single drop of water, said Thich Nhat Hanh. I think of this waiting at a red light, surrounded by motorbikes in every direction, and again here at the beach.

I’m alone, but not truly.

With my few words of Vietnamese, my comparatively tall body, my Asian-but-something-else look, it’s obvious I’m not from here. Not many tourists pass through Tuy Hòa, and fewer still alone, fewer still women—so I’m a kind of alien.

A welcomed one.