with my family, and the friends I've loved in my short life I have had so many people I've deeply cared for

(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)





(Morning has broken, by Cat Stevens)

Not the FULL meaning of life, but a good chunk of it, I think.

Finally: yes, it's true. Fall is gasping into winter here in Korea. Last night I chatted with friends, eating sushi, and looked out the window as the wind showered leaves down from the trees onto the street.

Huge floppy leaves streamed into a dark little side street. No picture, but it was sure beautiful. Fall is waning, and the multicoloured leaves are falling fast, to make room for winter's starkness.

(PS: A bald tree in front of a streetlight is a really beautiful thing -- the way the thinnest twigs catch the light in a halo makes me think of spiderwebs.)

Next morning, street looked like this:


Unfortunately, some of those leaf piles concealed restaurants' compost bags, so it was a bit risky to stomp through them, and this pile (and many others) were big enough to conceal a sleeping hobo (who prefer to be left alone, rather than kicked by big kids like me), so I was a little cautious dragging my feet through them and letting the leafy crunchy sound fill my head up with happy-sauce and happy-sense.

I love the vein pattern of these kinds of leaves.


Today is Sunday. I walked with Matt for a good two hours this afternoon, on a riverside, a hill, and a university campus, talking (which was nice) but basically just being out in the middle of fall, letting the wind blow around us, and being alive. Fall in Korea is heaven, I swear. Even in the city, and even more in the country.

Trees are so beautiful. In the words of Annie Dillard: "You are God. You want to make a forest, something to hold the soil, lock up solar energy, and give off oxygen. Wouldn't it be simpler just to rough in a slab of chemicals, a green acre of goo?" Sure glad God decided to go for the glamour and make something really, really, ridiculously good-looking instead. My friend Anna once used the word gratuitous, as in "We have a gratuitous god" and I'd have to say the beauty set into the world around us is absolutely gratuitous -- totally unnecessary! Beauty for beauty's sake alone! Almost shocking to my sensibilities, if I actually think about it, and definitely an apalling degree of overkill -- one tree ought to be enough beauty for any city in its entirety, yet instead, we're just overwhelmed by them, so much that we don't even think twice about cutting down these miracles of beauty and function!

Trees and colours against the sky: here's late fall in Seoul (today was the first properly cold day in Seoul -- gloves instead of pockets, heavy coats instead of layers).


Yet somehow the bamboo trees kept ALL their green.


Next: a path. With colours. I wish you could have been there. The green and red on the path is recycled car tires or something -- it makes the surface very pleasant and springy for walking or jogging.


Certain trees' leaves curl up like a hand when the cold gets to them. It's a bit hard to see this one, but imagine an entire tree where instead of falling, the leaves have curled up into fists -- not unlike some people who curl themselves up in the cold (instead of just going inside). Almost like Christmas tree ornaments.


This was a little tree grove in Kyunghee university: every leaf colour imaginable was somewhere in the grove, layered above and below the other colours. The leaves hadn't been swept up or rained upon, so they gave a really nice crunch underfoot. Matt and I lay down on our backs and stared up at the layers of leaf-colours and bare branches.


Like this. There were a few hundred birds in the grove, pipping and singing away, and the people walking by gave the ground a rustle. The sun was just low enough in the sky to come in from the side, and it was as if the sunlight plugged the colours in, threw a switch and set them blazing.



This (below) was the view from on our backs, looking up at the leaves. The sun and the leaves and the breeze and the birds joined together in an act either of love or of worship (or maybe both, if that's not too blasphemous or superlative for you). It was cold enough to see our breath, and every direction had a different mix of colours. The picture is two dimensional so it's hard to see how the leaves were layered one above the other, but I tell you, the rocks and trees were singing today.


After five or ten minutes (or maybe it was thirty seconds, or maybe it was five days -- it doesn't matter) Matt stood up and said to me, "Congratulations. You have taken part in a perfect moment in time." And he couldn't have been more right if a voice from the sky had spoken along with him, and then a mysterious hand had materialized and given him a high-five.

I can't find the exact quote, but I came across a spot where Steven Hawking said something to the effect that, of all the possible universes that could have existed, isn't it interesting that the one we live in, the one that DID come about, was one that contained creatures who could contemplate it, and wonder at it. Whether this leads us to proof of some creator or not, the fact remains, the universe constantly screams out "HERE I AM! BE AMAZED!", and we, humans, are lucky enough to have the capacity to do exactly that, and from there, even to search for a meaning to it all. Thank God! Framed in religious terms, the entire world was worshipping God today, and calling all the people in Seoul to worship with it. It was absolutely transcendental, and yet also absolutely embodied, rooted in the Here and Now of creation, and I don't know if there needs to be any more meaning to an autumn day than "Autumn is beautiful" and "Here I am! Be amazed!".

Here it is. Be amazed.



The earth is visible in this picture of Saturn.







And look at this one again, too. Just soak it in. It's as beautiful as a liturgy. . . I don't know if the picture is, but the moment sure was.

A chapel is a beautiful place to worship, sometimes (I'm thinking of those cathedrals that create a space of holiness by their mere design). . . but when God builds a place of worship, it's never exactly the same for two days in a row, and that says something.


Sometimes I think that's enough meaning for life -- just that it's so darn full of beauty. Some stories have no real meaning except "here's a great story" and some autumn days are the same, and seeing that, and accepting and enjoying it for exactly what it is: breathtaking beauty -- is an act of worship to whichever deity one chooses to credit. I'm glad I'm alive! Thanks, God, for giving me senses!



Other stuff:

The trivial:

how many song references can you spot/recognize in this chart?

It's Autumn in Korea. . . hang in there and I'll tell you about it. If you remember Josh Barkey from university, here's his blog, and a post that I really enjoyed -- a cool perspective on sin, if you will.

Some pictures, just to increase the tease.

In a city as crowded as Seoul, sometimes parking solutions get creative.


From a hostess bar: white fetish, schoolgirl fetish, the name of the bar (if you can't see it) is "better than beer". Matt and I decided there were probably no white girls OR school uniforms on the premises. . . and it wouldn't take much for it to be better than beer anyway, given the quality of Korea's local brews. Won't find me in there checking, though.


A little konglish

Combing through. . .

I've decided, in a similar spirit to people choosing to read their old diaries, and see what insights/points/issues defined them at some past time, and maybe even re-collecting something that nearly got lost in the shuffle (what if I had some great insight that I set aside because I was too busy with X, Y, Z, or Giraffe, and never got back to it, to think more on the topic? What if I never properly incorporated some event into What I Learned This Year?)

So, I'm digging through my old e-mails, especially the ones between me and my dear friends Ma, Me, Ta, and EJ, who corresponded me during the time Mom was sick, and also the year after that, as I grieved Mom and Exgirfriendoseyo. It's been interesting, but it's going to take a lot of boiling down. I want to create something -- some kid of testament to loss and grief and connection and sorrow and vulnerability and disillusion -- but I won't know what kind of shape that might take until I've been through it all. There are literally hundreds of pages to go through, trimming the fat and digging through the peripherals to the heart of things, but I think what I'll have at the end of it will be quite valuable.

You may get some scraps here on the blog of some of that stuff, but some of it might need to go in some other place.

Do YOU ever read your old diaries?

Two new posts. Read them.

Konglish.


How to park in a crowded city.


Little corners like this are littered through the side-streets in Seoul. I had a bunch of other pictures of the city at night, but my camera just can't quite hack it.


Here's another way Japan really desecrated Korea's culture while they colonized them (for which Korea still hasn't forgiven them, cheerfully forgetting that Japan also built a lot of infrastructure, like roads and institutions that have helped Korea reach its current state).

This is a temple on a mountainside. I have NO IDEA how they got it up there -- it wasn't an easy climb -- but there are some seriously impressive temples on mountainsides here. Make a special note of the rock on the left. You'll see it again in the next pictures.


A lot of temples in Korea are on mountainsides: mountains are holy in Korea, they carry great spiritual power (just climb a mountain -- see if you disagree when you're looking across an entire valley). Colonial Japan nailed iron spikes into big rocks like this, at the most consecrated places on the mountain peaks, as an attempt to ruin the geomancy (geographic energy -- kind of like feng shui on a macro scale) of Korea's mountains, and break the spirit of the Korean people. They also outlawed the Korean language. As we all know, threaten a culture's language if you REALLY want them never to forgive you -- French Canada still hasn't forgiven English Canada for Lord Durham's report in 1838.

Here's a close-up of one of the iron spikes. It's on the bottom corner of the giant rock above, and this rock is right next to one of the most important mountainside temples in Seoul -- where the king used to come for spiritual counsel.


Another thing Japan did was slightly move a lot of the palaces and important buildings in Seoul: the buildings' locations were also chosen by geomancy, so changing their dimensions or orientations poisons the energy flow through the capital. These days a lot of these buildings are being re-oriented to their original places, or rebuilt entirely, to put Korea's colonized past behind them.

Also. . .

Chicken feet, anyone?


Hey! What's that?


In the subway station. . .


Oh. Nevermind. Nothing special.


(p.s.: I'm famous. Just a little, though. See here also. Let the pictures on the homepage scroll. This is what happens to you if you stick around in Korea long enough, and have curly hair to the right person.)

This clown took up three spots. An old man was poking him with his cane, and he still didn't wake up. I laughed.