A lot of this stuff is cut-pasted, mix-and-matched, or snatched from the ether that is Twitter: it's great for getting bite-sized insights, but really hard to find back a comment read one time, so parts of this post will be combinations of things other people have said, but which I can't find back. John Delury, Sino NK, Jonathan Cheng, Robert Kelly and Ask A Korean's twitter feeds have been covering this stuff in detail, so do take a moment and spend time clicking the links they share, and if anything here was in a tweet you saw, please leave a link so I can attribute it properly.
News outlets reported that North and South Korea are working on officially ending the Korean War, a war fought from 1950-1953, but which never moved beyond an armistice to an actual peace treaty or normalized diplomatic relations. After announcements of planning a summit, and indications that denuclearization is on the table, Kim Jong-un's visit to China, and Mike Pompeo's visit to North Korea, it is starting to look like the ducks are getting in a row for some actual, substantive progress in the area, something I have not suspected to be possible pretty much since I came to South Korea.
While we try to keep our hopes guarded at Roboseyo whenever it could just be that Kim Jong-un opened a new box of girl scout cookies and "All The Single Ladies" came on the radio at the same time, there are indeed indications that this is not your run-of-the-mill repeat of North Korea's patented "Global Media Attention Maximizing Friendly/Unfriendly Yo-yo Diplomacy" actTM. Let's go through some of them, and let's read/write quick, before everything goes squirrelly again.
North Korea's Strongest Position Ever
First of all, let's start off with the notion that getting together for the Pyeongchang Olympics laid some groundwork for this.
Hey there.
You've probably heard about this guy: There's a Korean student, about 19 years old, who's suffering from lymphoma, a kind of blood cancer. There's a page for him on Facebook. Basically, he has B- blood, which is extremely rare in Korea, and also a bad blood type to get sick with, because it can only receive from O- (in certain cases) and other B- types. There's been a push to get some help for him, and because so few Koreans have B- blood, word has been circulating among the expat community.
Now, on Saturday, for 2S2, I'd really like to bring a group down to the blood clinic to donate blood. If you have B- blood, especially, really, seriously think about coming out and helping out, because this kid is not doing well. Even if you don't, giving blood is a cool thing, and, frankly, a powerful symbolic action that projects a really positive image at a time when English teachers in particular are taking a beating.
I've located a blood donation clinic in Sinchon, and I even went down there today with a good friend to talk with the people. After a bit of talk, here's the score:
They don't usually take blood donations from foreigners, because of communication problems, concerns about where we (typically well-travelled folk) have been, and maybe also other... um... less scientific reasons, that aren't the focus of this post.
Now, we might be able to go down there and give blood on Saturday, but before we do, the lady we talked to gave me her phone number, and has asked me to have a bilingual friend contact her, to make sure she can explain the process in detail, and have that information accurately relayed to any would-be expat donors. She spent a lot of time talking about the correct process for donating blood... fair enough.
So, readers, here's where you can help: I really want this to happen, and I have a phone number, but not the language skill. Is there a reader out there who's fluent in Korean, and able to talk to this lady, and then explain the "process" to me, so that I can clearly pass that on to anyone else who needs to have it explained? I'd totally owe you a beer at the microbrew of your choice.
And that's our tentative 2S2 for Saturday: Meet at Anguk station Twosome Place (same time, same place, every month), go down to the donor clinic in Sinchon, and give blood... IF we can get the communication issues cleared up. This means that if you can talk to the lady tomorrow, I need you to send me a message tonight, to roboseyo at gmail dot com, with your phone number, so that we can clear up her concerns about misunderstandings or improper adherence to due process.
Also, if any of my bilingual readers are free on Saturday afternoon, please accept this as a gentle nudge that your presence would help de-stress these poor, nervous nurses at the clinic. It would be hugely appreciated, even if you're not B-!
If you want to donate blood, here's the nitty gritty:
1. You need to have an Alien Registration Card. Bring it, and be ready to present it.
2. You need to have been in Korea for a year.
3. You need to be able to answer some questions about your medical history... this part was a bit murky, and this might be the deal-breaker which will decide if we can go ahead or not. The guy at the Seoul Global Center, while very helpful, was pretty sure that if you don't speak enough Korean to answer the medical history questions yourself, you wouldn't be able to donate; hopefully we'll learn a way that we still can tomorrow, even if we can't speak all the Korean. I'll keep you posted.
If this doesn't work out, we'll do something else for 2S2, probably involving really, really good food. But I hope we can make this work.
Soundtrack time: "One More Time" by a band called Jewelry, a kind of K-pop hottie supergroup. Kind of like Eric Clapton's old band Cream, or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, except with less rock legend and more sexydance.
Observe here some traditional Korean dancing styles (I don't, unfortunately, know the Korean names for old dancing moves like the classic butt-jiggle or the shoulder-wiggle torso-twist). Also note the traditional fashions they use to present the best of Korea to the world.
Also, you can play a game of "who's using pitch correction," if you listen to their singing.
This song has been emanating from every cosmetics shop in the downtown for three weeks straight, now, and that accordian/guitar chords riff has been bouncing through my head like a pinball all that time. And now it can be stuck in your head, too. Catchy, that's for sure.
Family news:
As some of you know, my sister, and my brother's wife both got pregnant last summer. Well, on Marpril twentyteenth, my brother's wife had a little boy named Silas David Oprivacyhand, and shortly after, on Birthdayvember the tweenth, my sister made me an uncle twice in a week, with her little one, Aria Privacy. If you want to read the detailed stories, you can read them on their sites, but let's leave it at both babies are now home and healthy and doing baby things like crying, sleeping, eating, and pooping. But unlike other crying, sleeping, eating, pooping babies, I'm related to these ones! So I'm giggly and glad, and moreover thrilled for my brother, sister, and their spouses, who get to head out on the parenthood adventure. I'm limiting myself to two, small-sized pictures per niecephew, to protect myself from accusations of being a sappy, unclish goober.
My sister Deb was a really beautiful pregnant woman -- you can see the picture on her blog -- and I think she's a beautiful mom, too. You can see the feeding tube on Aria's face, because she was born a bit early, but she's doing just fine now, thanks. There are a few important reasons why this is a very, very special niece, and I can't wait to meet her.
Here's Silas David Oprivacyhand. My little brother announced they were having a baby during the last week I was in Canada before returning to Korea for this most recent stretch. I miss'em. Dan's a special friend to me, so I'm thrilled he has a kid now. I love the change that parenting brings to a person -- every friend of mine who's had a kid has turned softer and gentler in a really touching way -- it's just dead obvious that there's a new Most Important Thing in their life. I'm thrilled to have these lill'uns in the family, and they're sure lucky to have a cousin so close to their age -- that's how it was on my mom's side, with six or so cousins within five years of age, and the way we got along and connected together was really fantastic.
Now there's only one more of my nearest, dearest expecting, and she's also a beautiful pregnant woman, with two amazing little ones already. You can read more about how great she is here.
2. Found this really funny site: Youngme Nowme. You take a baby picture of yourself, and then a picture of yourself now doing the same thing, and the gallery is consistently cute and/or hilarious.
some highlights:
You can now vote for my "next big blog topic" on the sidebar. Tell me what you want me to write about, or suggest a topic in the comments.
soundtrack: hit play and start reading. Scroll down. Please. Seriously -- the images with the song are . . . not related. But "Send Me On My Way" by Rusted Root is one of the best road songs I know, and more appropriate to the tone of the passage I'm posting than another sad song.
Bill (or Will) Kapoun was the English teacher in Seoul who was hospitalized after an apartment fire and later died from his injuries. These words are from the Save Bill Kapoun Facebook group: Bill's sister, Laura posted some of Bill's writings on the site, as a kind of tribute and thank you to those who have (and still are) helping Bill's family. I, and a lot of the other expats in Korea, have gotten kind of involved in this guy's story; he's been on my mind all week.
While the inciting event is a terrible tragedy, it's kind of beautiful to see such an outpouring of concern for a fellow human, and it's really restored my faith in the expat community in Korea, which can sometimes come across as a bunch of privileged (predominantly) whiteys pointing condescending fingers at the flaws in Korea's culture as a way of dealing with culture-shock (all the while getting paid handsomely by the same ones whom we judge and criticize) and then sometimestaking aim ateach other instead, for variety. I'm guilty of it too.
Anyway, seeing this kind of communication reminds me why we're overseas to begin with, and it's a refreshing look at that so, so human search for meaning:
"...The semester before I went to Ireland I had been living the life of a typical frat guy in a typical American college and was dealing with my first serious break-up. Going to Europe was nothing like what I had expected. I thought I was going to be partying and meeting girls all the time. I thought I would be taking the life I had been leading in America to a new level. Instead I started a completely different life. I met almost no girls during those five months, I had almost no friends and I had almost no fun. At the end of that time I started reflecting on my entire life, on my past and on my future and I realized that there were many parts of it that were not at all how I had planned or how I wanted them to be. I saw large chunks of my earthly days completely wasted, unappreciated and unused and it sickened me. I started writing about it. My writing was then immature as was my outlook on my life. I do not claim maturity or ability in either life or writing now, but I see myself going in the right direction in both attempts. When I first started travelling I spent a few days walking around capital cities with a stupid look on my face and a guide book in my hands. Today I spent my morning digging for clams in a mud bank on the Algarvan coast of southern Portugal before spending my morning trying to sell tickets to go dolphin sightseeing. Afterwards I went on a hike to collect almonds, oranges and sage to cook the mussels I collected off the shore (mussels are much easier to find than clams), which I cooked on a hotplate in my rented room which overlooks the bay of a small fishing town. So I have come a long way, as a writer, as a traveler and as a person. Or at least I hope. . . .
"That was life, when I wrote that. I was really living. Despair is life, pain is life. . . . Happiness is life, laughter is life, there are so many kinds of life, but I, like so many of us, did hardly any living, instead I spent most of my time looking forward, always anticipating, one day, yeah, one day, if I just keep waiting, planning, one day, I'll be happy, I'll be living.
". . . In retrospect, we remember, we give credence to our waiting, proof that living life is possible, but if we are truthful to ourselves, we remember, most of those past days were either days we had wished had gone sooner at the time, or were just the beginning of the list of days hoping.
"It wasn't until I started traveling that I realized that not only does life not have to be that way; it isn't meant to be that way. . . . The natural world we spent most of existence alongside, already physically distant becomes emotionally even further when we don't celebrate and enjoy it. . . .I have become a better person by seeing the world; there is much more that I hope to see and experience, but above all, I hope that by sharing my experiences, others will feel compelled to push themselves; and be reborn into a world without limits, where everything is possible and the pursuit of the new and beautiful takes the place of security and seclusion.
"On its most superficial level traveling allows us to see and discover new and beautiful things, on a slightly deeper level it allows us to know more about our neighbors in the rest of the world, which is one of the things America needs the most right now, but at its deepest level the greatest gift of traveling is the personal journey that allows us to see our own likes and dislikes, passions and perversions, history and future, under a completely different light. Only then can we be truly satisfied for; truly, many will shed a tear when we pass from this world, but besides our nearest loved ones, our days on this earth are quickly forgotten. Few will remember us a year later. The things we do, the attainment of the goals we spend so much time striving for, all mean little beyond the here and now. That is why, when I die, all I hope people to say of me is he lived life. The good, the bad, he took it all in, and relished it. Yes, he lived life for life. Which is how we should all live our lives, never letting a precious moment slip by.
Whoa. That's weird. After writing in my last post about why people do these kinds of destructive actions, I came into the staff room after a class and my coworker told me about the gunman in Northern Illinois.
I still hold to everything I said in my previous post, but it's sure freaky having a shooting happen the day after writing about it. Maybe I should write about stuff like my sister winning the lottery instead.
I'm reposting this clip from fight club. Just like yesterday, it's still graphically bloody, but the monologue in here (matched with the imagery, for that matter) just about perfectly describes what I imagine would have to be going through the mind of someone when they decide to actually pick up a gun and start destroying things.
"I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn't screw to save its species. I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I'd never see. I wanted to breathe smoke."
Somehow, each of these people have convinced themselves that the entire world deserves to be as unhappy as they are. Why or how they reach that state of solipsism is different for each one (and yes, I recognize that depression and mental illness can warp a person's world-view -- but they're not off the hook that easily. Each person has choices to make, too, and some chronically depressed people get help instead of torching national monuments or killing strangers), but their own agenda (sometimes spite, sometimes something more ideological) has become more important, in their minds, than any human life, any treasure, and certainly any law.
Now, I'm gonna throw some JD Salinger at you, because when I struggle with getting down, old Jerome David always picks me up. Thanks for that, Jerry!
You see, I've been struggling with/coming to grips with cynicism lately. I'm spending more time reading the newspaper and following news on English Expat in Korea -type websites, and I've been dismayed by both the cumulative drag of constantly reading about tragedies in the paper, and the amount of cynicism and negativity that sometimes gets packaged along with the news in the comment boards (and some of the writers) in the Korea Expat Blogosphere.
It's hard to stay up to date with the news and such, without getting dragged down by bad news. Add to that the fact I firmly believe that our characters are determined by the things we choose to look at and the way we choose to look at them -- my mom used to say, "Garbage in, garbage out," and the dilemma comes into a little more focus: how do I keep a positive attitude while still being aware of what goes on in the world, and doing my part?
And then, just when I think I'm finding a balanced way to view the world, that is realistic but also positive, that is both honest and edifying, something shitty happens.
(Northern Illinois University. Condolences to all involved. Peace Be Upon You and God, or Richard Dawkins, Be With You all.) Maybe it's apples and oranges to compare a national monument's destruction with the loss of four lives, but the fact remains that both of those guys chose the best way they could think of to raise a middle finger to the entire world they knew.
In one of my favourite passages of Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield complains about graffiti in his childhood school: “That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose.”
And that's just the thing about life sometimes, isn't it? All that shit we can't control, that jumps out at us from behind the door, and derails our gravy train.
And you know, in the same way it's easier to watch TV than to read a book, it's easier to get caught in the cycle of negative thought, than to claw back up into the positive stuff. In a text message, I wrote to a friend that "Hate is just a way to postpone grief" -- all that hate, and then the grief, NEEDS to be sorted out, as much for my benefit as for anyone else's, but it's easier to shift blame and resent someone than to look in the mirror, deal with how I feel, grieve, and then (eventually) grow and move on. It's easier to decide I have a right to be miserable, and from there, to decide that the entire phony world deserves to be miserable with me. That negative energy feeds itself like feedback in a microphone, and can get blown all out of proportion, and from there, all bets are off on how I might react.
It takes work to pull out of the whirlpool. But if you can. . . (back to J.D. Salinger, at last)
Holden Caulfield's teacher, Mr. Antolini informs us that, “Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as some day, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”
. . . but it takes work to get into the positive cycle, the good reciprocal arrangement, instead of lapsing into the negative reciprocal arrangement, where my bad attitude makes other people miserable around me, and then I soak up that misery and radiate it back out again wherever I go.
So I'm trying not to get too down today. I'm trying to remember all the wonderful things that make my life joyful, and to focus on those things (without blinding myself to reality). Hopefully, I'll get back to the last fifteen pages of Franny and Zooey again (I'd quote it, but you really just need to read the whole book for it to make any sense anyway) "There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady" see? Pretty opaque, huh? -- if you read it, you know.
And maybe, if I stay in the positive cycle, I can even get to my favourite Salinger quote of all: "I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." (the fat lady is Jesus, don't you know?)
Anyway, it's been a bad week. . . by my lady found me some dairy free chocolate for Valentine's Day that was really really great, and I'm reading Lord of the Rings, which is such a flippin' awesome book, and today was payday, and my best friend is back from traveling in Europe, so things aren't all bad.
Pray for those folks in Illinois, though. And read Franny and Zooey, if you don't get the "fat lady" stuff, and want to.
I was the best man at my brother's wedding. Here was my toast for him and his wonderful wife, Caryn.
Dan And Caryn Ouwehand's Wedding Toast
Don't worry. It's shorter.
I remember one day going down the stairs to the room Dan and I used to share, and being greeted by a
funny kind of sound.
WHOOMPH!
Rustle rustle rustle.
WHOOMPH!
Rustle rustle rustle.
I was probably eleven years old then, and I opened the door to Dan, about eight years old, lying on the floor beside our bunk bed, wrapped in a sleeping bag, looking up at me with big, wide, excited eyes.
"Hey Rob! If you're wrapped in a sleeping bag, it doesn't even hurt to fall out of the bed!"
So I did what any wiser, older brother would do: I grabbed a sleeping bag and joined the fun.
We dumped ourselves off that top bunk or about twenty minutes until Dan's zipper got stuck on the bedframe and broke. When the zipper broke, we had to stop.
I tell this story because that was always Dan: he was the one jumping off and over things, riding his bike all around town and taking the dare where I'd shy away from it.
It's a bold step to get married. It takes courage to choose a person and entrust that one person with your future.
Dan and Caryn, though, have set up a solid foundation for their marriage. Their lines of communication are almost ridiculously open. I've spent some time with them, just relaxing and hanging out with them, and all of a sudden, Dan makes a joke, and Caryn doesn't laugh, and they start Communicating -- with a BIG big C.
"Oh. Sorry. You didn't like my joke?" Dan says.
"It wasn't funny," Caryn says.
"Not funny, like, inappropriate, or not funny, like,
not funny?"
"No, you know what? It's OK. It was funny. Really."
"But you didn't laugh. . . "
and so they go in circles as if it's a race to each be more accomodating than the other. It's silly to tease them about trying to hard to communicate excellently. In truth, it's like teasing a sprinter for having long legs.
I really respect Dan and Caryn's relationship, and the amount of commitment and effort they put into it. They work hard to have a healthy relationship: I was talking to Dan one night about Caryn, and how much I like her, and their way together, and he said it best when he told me "It's great because . . . we have a lot of fun together, but we can also solve problems." That's exactly it. They shore up each other's weaknesses, and encourage each other's strengths in amazing ways.
I've had the chance to see how they lift each other up and support each other in difficult times. As most of you know, Dan's and my mother can't be here today; a few months after Dan and Caryn got engaged, we learned that Jane Ouwehand has incurable stomach cancer. Most of the relatives on Dan's side that are here today, are planning to travel out to BC after the wedding, to visit Jane, because she's no longer strong enough to ravel here and see the wedding.
For our family this year, the joys and sorrows of life got mashed right up against each other. I know this is a bittersweet journey for many people here at the wedding, but I've also seen, because of these times, what a great support system Dan and Caryn have here in Red Deer, in their church, and especially with each other.
Dan and Caryn have built their love on trust and honesty and, moreover, on God. God has always been an important part of their relationship and their lives, so now, instead of diving off a bunk bed, Dan and Caryn are jumping together into a lifelong commitment, wrapped not in a sleeping bag, but in God's goodness and love -- and God's zipper never breaks.
Not many people get to speak for their mother and their brother with a speech, both in the space of a few months. I'm proud and honoured that I could do so, and I will never forget having the chance to do so.
For me, in the words of my old Creative Writing bud, Sparkey, 2007 has been kickdonkey awesomepants, friends.
A rundown of reasons for the spring in my step:
1. Girlfriendoseyo: we met in April, we hit it off almost right away, and it just keeps getting better and better. You've heard guarded hints roundabout allusions about her on the blog, but friends, I'm crazy about this woman. We like all the same things, and (______________ insert your own mushy cliche here__________________). It's pretty great.
2. Teaching adults. No more pee fights, tattle-tales, crocodile tears, or insane mothers. Instead, I learn from my students: there are areas where they actually know MORE than me. A lot of areas! I'm actually kind of dumb, except in a few fields.
3. Words - I've written more in this year than probably any three years previously. Seeing as writing professionally is my stated life goal, that's pretty significant.
4. Living downtown - every day living in the downtown is like a people-watcher's festival. And I get to be a tour-guide when my friends come into the downtown.
5. My Colleague/Friends -- I have some friends here who are really cool, including one gentleman who has invited me to his family's house, and who's opened up, despite big differences in age and culture, and really made me feel welcomed and appreciated as a westerner living in Korea.
6. Rosetta Stone - an amazing language study program that's building my vocabulary, my spoken Korean, and (most importantly) my confidence in speaking Korean. It's been a real boon, and I'm really enjoying the noticeable improvement in my Korean ability.
7. Moving into an apartment with no TV. TV sucks.
8. Downtownucopia: the variety and quality of restaurants in the downtown make eating a joyous practice over here in downtown Seoul. discovering that good food is one of my main pleasures in my life was also good -- putting one's finger on the things that makes one happy, sure helps one REMAIN happy. In no particular order, I really love:
-Indian in Jonggak -Blood and Cow Stomach Soup -the Oktoberfest microbrewery -spicy beef-bone stew -california rolls and sushi -beef bone soup (with AMAZING kimchi) -world class dumplings -okonomiyaki -the Moroccan place I just discovered -the funny old lady who's been making pickled garnishes and organic side dishes her entire life -the fat, old Chinese ladies who make dumplings and never smile
(If any of you readers lives in Korea and wants to know where to find these places. . . let me know in the comments section. We'll figure something out.)
9. Living closer to Matt, hiking more often, and generally getting healthier, in large part because of his influence.
10. Blogging as a new, more enlightened, more frequent way of keeping in touch with my loved ones in Canada (and elsewhere), and being able to share a little more detail than you can fit into a bi-monthly, text-only e-mail update.
11. Almost all of the friends I've kept close tabs on back in Canada are doing better now than they were last year -- you know who you are. Yay for you! I'm all squirming with happy for you.
12. Going to Canada in July to see my Dad's wedding, Matt's brother (and my surrogate older brother) Joely's wedding, and all the other people I saw then, too.
13. A MILLION BABIES -- like, everybody I know is having a baby. Except me. It's awesome, and overwhelming, and awesome, and exciting, and awesome.
14. Is a luckier number than thirteen.
the bummers:
Myspace, Facebook, Internet, Blog, Youtube, Collegehumor.com et. al = New Years resolution 1: waste less time on the internet.
With all that good eatin', it's easy to get fat, fast.
I didn't call home enough: I have no landline anymore, so all phones home must be cellulexpensive, plus, I'm a bad son/brother/friend/uncle/grandson/stalker. I just don't do my duty enough.
Thanks God, and everybody else involved, for a fantastic year. I'm glad to be alive, and really happy with my situation these days.
Rilke again, 'cause dammit, he deserves to be read twice. (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
"How we squander our hours of pain. How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration to see if they have an end. Though they are really our winter-enduring foliage. . . place and settlement, foundation and soil and home" (still elegy number 10)
Another pitfall:
I am surprised and amazed at how impatient people who grieve can be, for their own wholeness (myself included). I am dismayed, but not quite as surprised, at how impatient OTHER people can be with mourners, dispensing Bible verses like medical prescriptions and declaring the issue done with. "Why are you still sad? I told you to give your grief to God a month ago!"
When Bruce Lee injured his back in 1970, he spent six months in bed, reading, because if he took a short-cut or rushed his recovery process, he would have put a ceiling on his own post-recovery ability, or worse, re-injured himself. The human body needs recovery time for injuries. That's just how it works. (Bonus points: I just compared myself to Bruce Lee! I kick ass!) Seriously, though, why do I think my heart would work any other way than the rest of me? The only part of me that can change quickly is my mind, and even then, the mind often has to wait for the heart to catch up -- that's why it was so hard to break up with exgirlfriendoseyo, even when I could see that we had no future.
I finally realized it's OK to say "actually, my life is pretty shitty right now," instead of "God is teaching me patience", when my friend wrote "I think God honours honesty more than anything else we try to give him" in an e-mail. I'll buy that. Isn't that what the entire book of Job is about: finding an honest answer instead of a quick answer? Also: thanks for that, Mel.
I believe an honest doubt honours God more than a blind faith, and waiting for real meaning is more beautiful, and more consecrated, than skipping to a rote, ready-made meaning, even if the quick answer comes in the form of a bible verse. I think an afternoon volunteering at an orphanage or a soup kitchen honours God more than either of those. (And helping others can do wonders for one's own hurt.)
During the dark, disappointed, meaningless parts, I found comfort remembering that during the wait for a messiah, God made Israel the nation it needed to be, not through a series of growing successes, but through a string of spectacular failures. (Don't believe me? Go read Numbers, Judges, and Chronicles.) Ditto for Saint Peter. The word Israel does not mean "He Who Has All His Shit Together" or "He Who's Squared Things Up With God". Israel means, "He Who WRESTLES with God," and what a wonderful name for a chosen people!
So after all that grief, after avoiding those false trails, where am I now? What meaning HAVE I found? Well, my ideas about God are very different than they used to be, and I think that's a good thing. There's a lot more honesty in the mix now, and a lot more knowledge of my weaknesses.
I no longer think of faith as a helicopter, lowering a ladder from the sky, to rescue me from my griefs -- I think now that faith is more like a walking companion, someone with well-worn shoes and holes in the knees, who doesn't always know the way, and certainly doesn't have all the answers, but who'll point out a root across the path, or pick me up after I trip on it, who makes interesting observations about the trail, who'd have my back in a pinch, and who's always good company. No, he doesn't make the path shorter, but at least he makes the time pass faster, and maybe from time to time, he just happens to have an umbrella when I really need one, or a pocketknife, or a joke that helps me laugh through a windstorm. In my diary, four months before my mom died, I wrote "I want a faith like a steel cable: tough, flexible, and useful." Maybe I'm closer to that now than I was before, but I'm not out of the woods yet.
I'm beginning to think it's OK not to be out of the woods, maybe that's not a statement of despair, but a statement of hope, hope that there's still more to be learned, if I keep myself open to learning. Maybe admitting "I'm not out of the woods yet" authentically IS the best thing I can come away with, and maybe The Lesson I've Learned is that life doesn't fit in boxes, nor needs to: Things I've Figured Out quickly become Prejudices, if I decide I don't have to keep thinking about them. Maybe some honest stumbling about in the woods IS an act of worship, and by being OK with that, or even celebrating that, it might even become a celebration of the fact we need nevercease our search for meaning, that every part of our life can continue being deepened and enriched, long after we stop feeling sad.
"Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight, let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels. Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heart fail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful, or a broken string. . . . How dear you will be to me then, you nights of anguish. Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you."
(Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, Tenth Elegy, Opening)
Without advent, Christmas arrives through the side door, and startles me while I'm brushing my teeth for bed. With advent, it enters with fanfare, as the culmination and final satisfaction of a month-long buildup. Opening presents is the fun of Christmas, but lighting candles and reading Isaiah, looking forward to something just beyond my fingertips, is the feeling of Christmas.
Waiting is the most underrated, quickly-forgotten experience-enhancer: nothing improves a food's taste more than hunger, yet nobody thinks fondly back on hovering by the oven door, sniffing for the smell of roast turkey: caroling, presents, stuffing and snowball fights monopolize our nostalgia. Advent, though, is soaked in waiting, it drips with anticipation.
So many of us live our lives between our reach and our grasp, waiting for. . . something, and the thing between my reach and my grasp for the last two years was another very human thing: meaning.
Meaning is the rope that lashes us to the pier. It's the string wound out, that will lead me back out of the maze after battling the minotaur. "Man's Search For Meaning," (highly recommended) by Victor Frankl (a concentration camp survivor), says that meaning has the power to make any ordeal bearable, as long as we can firmly believe that our trial brings us closer to a greater goal.
Losing meaning is a scary thing - people lash out and lose rationality when their lives' meaning is merely DISPARAGED (when somebody says, "You should quit your job and raise kids" or "Just a house-mom? I thought you'd amount to more than that" hackles rise, fast. As for religious debate -- well, nobody ever strapped a bomb on his body to prove "Pet Sounds" is better than "Sergeant Pepper"). To actually lose meaning is downright terrifying -- how do you measure anything when you don't trust your own reference points anymore? Friedrich Nietzsche described it this way:
"We have left the land and have embarked! We have burned our bridges behind us - indeed, we have gone further and destroyed the land behind us! Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean. . . but. . . you will realize that it is infinite and that there is nothing more awesome than infinity. . . and there is no longer any 'land'!"
In the space of six months from late 2005 to early 2006, I lost my mother, the woman I'd intended to marry, and several other things that were crucial to the person I believed myself to be. When my mom died of stomach cancer at age 53, I was at her deathbed. Being right there to hear her stop breathing was like being at ground zero of a meaning-grenade blast. Later, breaking up with the girl I loved was another such blast. By April 2006, every mooring was loose - I had the rope in my hand, but the other end wasn't tied anywhere! I was like a cat in zero gravity.
(hee hee hee)
The layers of meaning that had kept me warm were torn off like shrapnel shredding a winter coat, and nobody can survive winter, naked in the snow. But, I also didn't want to drape myself about with the nearest rags, overestimate my preparedness, head into the storm, and freeze anyway.
When it comes to searching for meaning, "Any port in a storm," is not enough, and I didn't want to short-circuit my own search for meaning. The German poet Rilke (one of my best friends), says, in his tenth Duino Elegy,
"How we squander our hours of pain. How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration to see if they have an end. Though they are really our winter-enduring foliage. . . place and settlement, foundation and soil and home"
Sure, things were going badly, but I didn't want to squander my hours of pain, to short-cut through them and thus waste them, if I could instead come through them richer, deep green with tough foliage, rooted with place, foundation and home.
See, sometimes it seems like the world takes a perverse pleasure in poking our softest spots (it actually doesn't: sometimes life sucks, but it's nothing personal. Just trust me on this one). Faced with disillusionments that are sometimes sudden and forceful, like a nuclear bomb, and other times slow and soul-sapping, like a trench war, short cuts are easier than gritting teeth and gutting through life's challenges. Bad ports are rife in the storm, and inviting.
To boot. . .
I used to say things like, "God is teaching me patience." There's nothing wrong with saying that, and sometimes there's deep truth there. Sometimes, though, skipping to the lesson one wants to learn from a situation is a way of hijacking any true learning that might have happened.
Consider this analogy: in university, I studied literature, and discovered that there's a huge difference between reading The Great Gatsby for its colour imagery, and actually reading the Great Gatsby, as F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote it. Sure, if colour imagery (or Freudian symbolism, or power and gender relations: pick your essay topic from those listed on the handout) is what I'm looking for, I'll find it -- but if that's all I'm looking for, a lot of other things might pass me by.
I didn't want to be like Prince Humperdink (skip to 1:58 in the clip if you can), bellowing "Skip to the end!" instead of bearing through the full marriage ritual.
So, instead of "squandering my hours of pain", instead of just saying, "Skip to the end. . . say Man and Wife!" I wanted to dig in deep, and commit to every step of the journey through the dark valley -- because you never know which patch of mud in that valley has diamonds in it, especially if you're only scanning the tree-branches for silver apples, or thinking about the beef stew at the hostel on the other side.
Another shoddy port for the storm:
One Sunday, I heard a pastor tell a story about his brother-in-law being senselessly murdered in a parking lot by street thugs. The shock-power of the story silenced everyone, and the pastor intoned, "That story just proves that life is war. . . spiritual war," the theme of his sermon.
If that really was all he learned from his brother's death, what a narrow, embittering grief he must have had! And if it wasn't, I thought with outrage, how dare he exploit his brother-in-law's murder, using it as a prop for his own message, to shock people into listening! I wondered how many other themes he'd tacked onto that tragedy, and whether he realized his lurid tactics left such a sour taste.
It is wrong, and it trivializes a tragedy, to put a false meaning in, where one is waiting for a true meaning. The pastor who blamed the 9/11 attacks on the US Government's tolerance of gays ought to be. . .what's the religious leader's equivalent of disbarred? Publicly and loudly reproached, at least. Ditto for the pastors who blame the Colombine shootings on politicians' taking prayer out of school (did any of you get that e-mail forward, too?).
There are some situations in life where, when faced with such difficult realities, the only appropriate response is deep, sad, and searching silence. No parent who has lost a child deserves to have her child's death used as a political platform, and it dishonours my mother's death, and cheapens the entire rest of my journey, if I twist that tragedy to reinforce my own prejudices. I'd rather wait for something true. The meaning will come, but meaning can be like a shy cat: sometimes we have to stop yapping, clicking and beckoning, before it'll approach.
(the pictures are explained at the end of the post.)
Before I get into that:
a thought on music: the measure of a great songwriter, I think, is that other artists can take the song and do something interesting with it. (submitted for consideration: Bob Dylan songs, Beatles songs have been covered meaningfully [or otherwise] by so many artists. See also: jazz standards, where any artist can give it their own take. If your song has been covered by a jazz artist [or by more than one] you can console yourself that it's pretty darn well-written.)
but
the measure of a great musician, I realized today, is that people don't dare cover the song, because they know they could never measure up to the standard set by the original (or at least THE version) -- Every artist who sings "Hallelujah" will be measured against Jeff Buckley, every artist who sings "Watchtower" will be measured against Jimi Hendrix. Some bands just never have, like, ANY of their songs remade, because their musical identity is so unique that no artist could measure up. Really, who's gonna cover a Led Zeppelin song? You'll never top them, so why bother trying, unless you take it in such a different direction that it's barely the same song anymore, or only do it live, where Zep is sure to fire up a crowd? Even in jazz -- "My Funny Valentine" isn't done much anymore, because that's Chet's song, and "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" is cute, but you won't be as cute as Louis and Ella. Mark of a musician.
Next:
a Roboseyo observation on life:
Problem is, the worst 1% of a demographic is usually also the loudest.
OK then. Blog soundtrack time: hit play, and then read.
I don't know if this blog actually qualifies as a public forum. . . though theoretically it is, much in the same way you can hold up a sign on a street corner and people can choose to read it or not. . . maybe this blog is more like holding up a sign in an alley at night, I'm not sure how many people come here, really . . . nor whether anybody other than folks who used to be on my personal mailing list still care, but. . .
In going through my old e-mails from the year before, and then the year after Mom died (no small task: over 500 pages just from the five I e-mailed the MOST during that time) I've been struck, staggered, and humbled, by the amazing quality of friends I have.
The thoughts and emotions shared during that time were pretty raw, I was basically bleeding through e-mail a bunch of the time, and my friends (in descending order of number of pages sent back and forth) Tamie, Anna, Melissa, Matt and (before we broke up) Exgirlfriendoseyo really worked like a life buoy (or maybe a tourniquet) for me.
So here are some specific things I'm thankful for, concerning each of these friends:
(in descending order of pages)
Tamie - was my grief buddy. We were peripheral friends during University, but she stayed on my e-mailing list, and then suddenly, when Exgirlfriendoseyo and I broke up, she sent a letter so gentle and compassionate that we've since become good friends. We connected deeply and instantly for several reasons, but you'll just have to ask HER what they are, for privacy reasons and such. Our e-mail correspondence was extensive, and traced a lot of changes in my character and faith, as they were happening. Tamie is wise, gentle, and compassionate. She doesn't give unsolicited advice, or answer without thinking deeply first. She was really diligent in speaking with compassion and without judgment, and by doing that, gave me a space where I could poke around at myself, during a time when I really didn't like being in my own company. Thanks, Tamie!
(also, for a while I think Tamie and Mel were the only ones actually reading my blog. . .)
(it's American thanksgiving, so I guess I can get away with this.)
Anna - my friendship with Anna was one of those "friendship least likely to happen" situations after university ended, but despite (or maybe because of) a knotty beginning, we became good friends later. She lives in my brother's hometown, and she has brown eyes full of wisdom, and she's my age, but she's still the kind of person who listens to birds, and goes outside to look at the frost on the grass in the streetlights, when it shines like diamonds. Like Tamie, our lives followed a somewhat similar arc in certain respects over the last while, and between conversations and e-mails, she's been a good travel companion through some rough patches.
Melissa - didn't get as many pages of e-mail, but it's not because I love her less (it's because we'd meet while I was in Canada, and back in Korea, I phoned her more - hard as that is to believe, considering how sporadic my calling habits are). If I had to be stuck on a desert island with one person, I'd have to choose Jesus, because then we could walk on water back to the mainland (and chat along the way) but if I got to pick three people, it'd be Matt, Dan, and Mel.
One of the things I love about Mel is that she'd beg me to choose someone else so that she could remain with her wonderful husband and her amazing two little boys (you can go read about them on her blog, which is linked on the side here). Mel makes me laugh beyond all reason, and she's been my most loyal university friend. Our friendship has had some amazing give-and-take, and I'm so grateful to have her around. She's extremely smart (but never arrogant), and she takes no crap from me, and chops me back down to size if I get too preposterous, at the same time praising me when I do well. She's one of those rare friends who can give a person the truth honestly, but also kindly enough for a person to really learn something, and maybe become a better person. She has an amazing family, and she needs support right now because her husband is far away in RCMP boot camp, so you should go put encouraging comments on her blog. She's also a badass paramedic, and you can read some of the blood-and-guts stories on her blog.
Soundtrack 2: press play when the other one ends, then scroll down and ignore the images that run as the music plays. Seriously, PLEASE scroll down so you can't see the images that play. They're really cheesy.
The song's "Call it Off" by Tegan and Sara. They're Canadian, and great.
The original version vanished, but this live version has a great crowd singalong.
Matt - Again, more that passed between us was conversation than e-mail. While I was in Canada, with Mom, he got the concentrated stuff, and the korea-related stuff, but once I returned to Korea, well, I might have made it without his support, but it would have been a much rougher, slower go, and I might be a different person than I am now. Matt's the most loyal friend, and the best friend, I've met since university, and he's influenced me more than probably anybody outside my immediate family.
Matt's smart but not arrogant, gentle but tough, honest and tactical. He, like Mel, will call me out if I'm out of line (I really appreciate people who do that), but, like Mel, when he does, it comes from a place of compassion, of knowing me well, and knowing what's important to me (sometimes I get called out by people who misunderstand me or my situation, or who press their values onto my life. . . then it's more of a "thanks for your opinion" than a "I never noticed that before. . . I'll adjust accordingly" as it has usually been with Melissa and Matt. He's funny and he keeps me light-hearted when I need it, and he's ready for a sauna, a poetry reading, a night of revelry, or a mountain-climb, as suits the situation. I love him to pieces. His wife Heyjin is so amazing she, like Melissa's family, really deserves a post of her own, so for now I'll say, I'm glad and grateful for my friendship with her.
Finally, Exgirlfriendoseyo:
Before things fell apart on my return to Korea, she was a good e-mail pal, and she got a lot of the day-to-day updates on Mom's condition. I'm glad she was in Korea waiting for me, because having someone to look forward to sure makes a difficult time like watching your mom die a little more manageable. Exgirlfriendoseyo was (and probably remains, for all I know) a sweet-hearted woman. She's caring and lovable and I'm glad I met her. We weren't quite ready to go the distance together, but I learned a lot about loving from her, and then I learned a lot about grieving from losing her, and for that, I ought to be grateful.
There's a song I wanted to have as the soundtrack for this post: Red Cave, by Yeasayer ends with the repeated lyric, "I'm so blessed to have a good time with my family, and the friends I've loved in my short life I have had so many people I've deeply cared for" -- which sounds nice, but it's miles better set in the rest of the song.
At some point in the future, some cut-and-pastes from the e-mails that passed between me and those five (e-mailing was basically my version of therapy for those two years, along with a few other habits and activities), might appear on this blog. They might not. It depends on the context where they seem most appropriately used.
There are a lot of other people who have been there for me through this time -- shout out to my brothers and sisters and my dad, of course, as well as some other e-pals and coworkers, and the people pictured throughout this post. I love you all and I'm so glad you're in my life. I haven't attached names because I don't necessarily have permission, per se, to name these people on my blog, but you've meant a lot to me. But the five mentioned that bore the lion's share of my grief (certainly my e-grief), and as I look through the old e-mail records, I'm wildly, ridiculously grateful they (and the rest of you) were around when I needed them.
Thanks, eh?
all the love in the world:
rob
(Actually, when I think about it again, maybe the one person I'd choose to be stuck on a desert island with is Dick Cheney, so he couldn't f*** up the world any more than he already has. . . but that's another post entirely)
