Pumpkin Pie

There was a time when I would have a slice of pumpkin pie for lunch almost every day. I was sixteen, a senior in high school with rarely a spare moment for lunch. I'd fly through the cafeteria between meetings and classes and clubs and sports to grab a saran-wrapped plastic plate of pie. Sometimes I'd stop for a quick chat with Chris, the kind bald man who managed dining services, or Kathy, the chatty wide-smiled cashier lady, or Shirley who was new and shy.

I always made it a point to say hello to Shirley, sometimes with fork in hand and pie in mouth, but always a hello would spill out of my mouth. She had an air of that timid shyness about her. As a citizen of humanity, I guess I sensed then what I know now: some people are shy, but it doesn't mean that they want to be left alone. They just need a little more time getting used to the idea of someone new. And to be receptive to someone like me who wants to know your dog's name immediately, I should also tone it down a notch or two at the beginning. And whaddya know? They turn out to be sweet as candy and sometimes even have a wicked sense of humor.

Anyway, where was I? Pie, was it? Yes, pie. Right. So I'd take that pie and run to my next meeting. End of my story about pie. Sorry, that was kind of a whole lot of nothing that led to a whole lot of nothing. Let me try again.

That time, that time of pumpkin pie, was a different time. I had thrown myself into a busy web of high school shenanigans to take my mind off of things that I didn't know how to handle. I did it then and I do it now: I distract myself to avoid things that make me uncomfortable. I take whatever seems too much, bury it, and lock it away. Who wants to handle things that are too heavy to carry, too dark to lighten, or too tangled to straighten?

Since my little high school love affair with pumpkin pie, I rarely have any. It's still one of my favorites, but I just don't have the occasion. But every time I do find a pumpkin latte in my hand or a slice of pumpkin bread on the plate in front of me, it brings me right back to that time so long ago and how so little has changed since.

Let's Take Autumn, Fold It Up, And Tuck It Away In My Pocket

You know, to keep me zen and centered when, come January, in the bitter chill of winter, I'll be forlorn and depressed staring at my ashy, ghost white legs, wondering if I'm using the wrong moisturizer because one's legs surely shouldn't ever be this dry, no matter how cold temps drop outside?

Providence, Rhode Island

Sunday. 3 November. 2013.

It wasn't until my twenties that I began to notice the pretty of autumn. Up until then, fall held little value other than signaling the first term of school and field hockey practice. The physical metamorphosis happening outside was more of an annoyance, what with all the lawn work that came with the season. Do you know how annoying it is to locate a field hockey ball that rolls into a patch of leaves caught on the fence lining the sideline? High school problems: they are serious.

My mother's parents, my maternal grandparents, came to visit the States exactly once. My mother grew up on a farm a couple hours outside of Seoul. Knowing this, I did not, for the life of me, understand why my grandfather flew such a long distance and, as a man of few words, when asked what he wanted to do, said that he wanted to go for a walk.

A walk.

A walk?

I had absolutely no interest in strolling outside to admire the scenery. I mean, the trees? Aren't there trees in Korea? Branches and leaves? Grass? Yawn, dude. Yawn.

Oh, the simple minds of ignorant pre-adolescent know-it-alls.

Now, every year around this time, I look up at the vibrant firetops of the trees, how they perfectly blot themselves in front of the city skyline and think, oh, I bet weh-halabuhji (Korean for maternal grandfather) would have loved this. He would have adored a November walk on the East coast. There's nothing quite like it.

My grandparents' visit was a long one, overlapping a chilly March when there was a freak snow and ice storm that closed Philadelphia schools for a full week. That was the second and last time that I would spend time with my grandfather. I've visited his grave once, more than a decade ago. He's buried at the highest point of a mountain, one that is so steep that the only way to descend is to side step with your feet perpendicular to the slope of the mountain. I bet at this time of year, he enjoys a sweet, breathtaking view.

Tina Fey Grew Up In My Backyard

When I wrote hyacinth tea in the last post, I meant hibiscus.  HIBISCUS.  The internetz is saying that hyacinth tea is, in fact, very much poisonous.  I'm still here and not strong enough to combat poisonous teas, so yeah, hibiscus it was.  I don't know how I mixed up the two, but if I'm being honest, I will probably mix the two up again at some point in the near future.  Nothing sticks, I tell you.

Moving on to bigger and grander, more fascinating news: I have been reading this summer.  Woo-wee, have I been reading.  I've been sluggishly moping around with brain-splitting headaches caused by my terrible dry eyes to prove it.  The amount of ibuprofen I've consumed this summer is alarming.

Tina Fey's Bossypants was just as bad as I thought it would be, which doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it.  I've always had an interest in Ms. Fey's talent and success.  She grew up in a neighborhood adjacent to mine.  By virtue of the fact that we were raised drinking the same tap water, there's a certain level of camaraderie in that, you know?  Before we moved to a Philadelphia zip code, it was an apartment complex in Upper Darby where I learned to eat solid foods, walk, and potty-train my baby doll.  It's a real wonder how I would carefully position my doll on top of my potty training bowl (there's a picture to prove it), but my own behind?  Not so much.  Let's just say that I was not a good potty trainee.

Bossypants was a good, light read.  In two short sittings, while I didn't laugh out loud or find her stories particularly engaging, I smiled whenever she mentioned one of the many neighborhood landmarks that I had forgotten about.  From the local parochial schools, the aquarium, the hair salon where I had also gotten a hideous perm, and to the local Dairy Queen where my mother always got her vanilla cone dipped in a butterscotch shell, I recognized them all.  It was the act of pulling these small memories from a time so long ago that kept me turning the pages.

It wasn't that I have particularly fond memories from that time period; it was that pieces of those memories were familiar.  The mind is a funny thing.  It so readily and willingly settles for the odd comfort that only the familiar can offer.

By Patti Smith

Success.  I weeded my way through half a growing pile of magazines and publications that was annoyingly taking up prime real estate in my bedroom.  About 140 square inches to be (sorta) exact.  That doesn't seem like a lot to you?  Then you must live elsewhere, outside this city's limits in a dreamy town where you have windows in each room, actual built-in closets, and kitchen counter space wider than your sink.  Living spaces here are... very humbling.

It seems that the fall and winter of 2011 was a busy time, although I don't remember why that could possibly have been.  I know this because the aforementioned pile had a ton of New Yorkers from that period.  One of the October issues had a collection of essays, Sticky Fingers, about events that involved the act of stealing, penned by well-known creatives.  Miranda July's was rather disappointing, but isn't that always the case with talented people you so admire that your expectations are set too high from the onset?

I took to one piece so strongly that upon reading the last word, I tore out the page, thinking of displaying it somewhere, although where, I hadn't the faintest idea (please see first paragraph).  Patti Smith's short and touching tale reminded me very much of the hardback children's books for sale next to those hefty encyclopedia volumes at our local supermarket.  Is there anything more classic 80's than a book display at the end of the baking goods aisle?  Although my mother regularly frowned upon my growing reading habit, especially inside dimly lit cars and in bed (I was ruining my eyesight, she said), she let us bring home a few picks over the years.  They're probably exactly where I left them, inside the yellow night table in the bedroom my grandparents took when they visited.

This short story affected me in a surprising way.  I bet I'm not the only reader who says so.  Give it a scan if you have five minutes.  I think it'll speak to you, too.

And yes, those are chocolate chips scattered across the page.  I got tired of reaching into the narrow opening of the bag over and over again, so I dumped a handful out in front of me.  That's right: no plate.  I don't have kids who can learn bad habits from me, so I'm ok with this.

Off the Shelf
from the October 10, 2011 New Yorker {+}
by Patti Smith

When I was ten years old, I lived with my family in a small ranch house in rural South Jersey. I often accompanied my mother to the A. & P. to buy groceries. We did not have a car, so we walked, and I would help her carry the bags.

My mother had to shop very carefully, as my father was on strike. She was a waitress, and her paycheck and tips barely sustained us. One day, while she was weighing prices, a promotional display for the World Book Encyclopedia caught my eye. The volumes were cream-colored, with forest-green spines stamped in gold. Volume I was ninety-nine cents with a ten-dollar purchase.

All I could think of, as we combed the aisles for creamed corn, dry milk, cans of Spam, and shredded wheat, was the book, which I coveted with all my being. I stood at the register with my mother, holding my breath as the cashier rang up the items. It came to over eleven dollars. My mother produced a five, some singles, and a handful of change. As she was counting out the money, I somehow found the courage to ask for the encyclopedia. “Could we get one?” I said, showing her the display. “It’s only ninety-nine cents.”

I did not understand my mother’s mounting anxiety; she did not have enough change and had to sacrifice a large can of Le Sueur peas to pay the amount. “Not now, Patricia,” she said sternly. “Today is not a good day.” I packed the groceries and followed her home, crestfallen.

The next Saturday, my mother gave me a dollar and sent me to the A. & P. alone. Two quarts of milk and a loaf of bread: that’s what a dollar bought in 1957. I went straight to the World Book display. There was only one first volume left, which I placed in my cart. I didn’t need a cart, but took one so I could read as I went up and down the aisles. A lot of time went by, but I had little concept of time, a fact that often got me in trouble. I knew I had to leave, but I couldn’t bear to part with the book. Impulsively I put it inside my shirt and zipped up my plaid windbreaker. I was a tall, skinny kid, and I’m certain every contour of the book was conspicuous.

I strolled the aisles for several more minutes, then went through the checkout, paid my dollar, swiftly bagged the three items, and headed home with my heart pounding.

Suddenly I felt a heavy tap on my shoulder and turned to find the biggest man I had ever seen. He was the store detective, and he asked me to hand it over. I just stood in silence. “We know you stole something—you will have to be searched.” Horrified, I slid the heavy book out from the bottom of my shirt.

He looked at it quizzically. “This is what you stole, an encyclopedia?”

“Yes,” I whispered, trembling.

“Why didn’t you ask your parents?”

“I did,” I said, “but they didn’t have the money.”

“Do you know it’s wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Do you go to church?”

“Yes, twice a week.”

“Well, you’re going to have to tell your parents what you did.”

“No, please.”

“Then I will do it. What’s the address?”

I was silent.

“Well, I’ll have to walk you home.”

“No, please, I will tell them.”

“Do you swear?”

“Yes, yes, sir.”

My mother was agitated when I arrived home. “Where were you? I needed the bread for your father’s sandwiches. I told you to come right home.”

And suddenly everything went green, like right before a tornado. My ears were ringing, I felt dizzy, and I threw up.

My mother tended to me immediately, as she always did. She had me lie on the couch and got a cold towel for my head and sat by me with her anxious expression.

“What is it, Patricia?” she asked. “Did something bad happen?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “I stole something.” I told her about my lust for the book, my wrongdoing, the big detective. My mother was a good mother, but she could be explosive, and I tensed, waiting for the barrage of verbal punishment, the sentencing that always seemed to outweigh the crime. But she said nothing. She told me that she would call the store and tell the detective I had confessed, and that I should sleep.

When I awoke, sometime later, the house was silent. My mother had taken my siblings to the field to play. I sat up and noticed a brown-paper bag with my name on it. I opened it and inside was the World Book Encyclopedia, Volume I.

Eggleston

There is a set of amazing, new-to-me photographs on view at the Met right now.  This William Eggleston fellow, do you know his work?  Because his photographs stopped me in my tracks.  His tones are remarkably vibrant, saturated, and crisp.  His subjects are muted, but not as reserved as you'd think; they are not so intense as they are real.  His images capture so much of what I associate with America, its people, its places, its iconic materials.  How is that possible?  According to the plate next to this print, he took this the year I was born, but far away in another part of the country entirely.  Louisiana was no Pennsylvania, I'm sure.  And yet, the table caddy branded with the familiar red Winston logo brought me right back to the days I slunk away at my parents' Germantown dry cleaners.

I'd frequently be sent around the corner to fetch my dad his cigarettes.  One day, even though the lady recognized me, she sent me back to get a signed note from my father giving permission to let his daughter make the purchase on his behalf.  The handwritten paper slips worked for a while, but turned useless once the law forbade sales of cancer sticks to minors.  My lazy pops had a hard time registering this turn of events when I came back empty-handed one day.  But it worked out in the end because when he went, he'd sometimes stop by the Gold's Gym next door where they had a freezer full of real-fruit frozen treats.  On those days, he'd return with a strawberry for me and coconut for him.

At the Met. (Pardon the graininess.  Photo taken on my phone.)

Every Sunday until I left for college, I spent at church with my family.  I can count on one hand the Sundays when this wasn't the case.

The first, because I had missed so many Sunday birthday parties that I finally gathered up enough courage to ask if I could skip church for Beth's pool party.  Just this once, please.  Perhaps because her oldest never asked for anything, my request struck a chord with uhmmah.  I was made to wait a day or two for the decision, and my father surprisingly granted permission.  Even more shocking, this nine-year-old was spared both a lecture and warning.  My parents knew what I knew, that this was a one-time deal and that I was not foolish enough to ask again.

The second was actually before the first.  My sister and I were sent to church on our own.  I wasn't able to get my mother to explain why she wasn't going; or why, since she was insisting that her daughters attend but wouldn't herself, she couldn't drop us off and pick us up.  Leaves rustling around my dress shoes.  Sunday dresses.  The deacon's coat, a light camel tan.  My mother and the deacon quietly, just barely, bowing to one another before he walked us to his car.  My father missing once again.  Twenty some years later, it's just now dawning on me that there might have been an abortion that day.  I don't know if clinics had Sunday hours in the eighties.

For the past three weeks my body's been waking up between four and five every morning.  Like clockwork.  The cold urges me to stay nestled in bed, so it is there, curled into a ball, that I wait for the light to take over the living room.  Only around seven does sleep finally return.  The daily radio alarm streaming from my sister's bedroom is the only thing that stops the vivid, unsettling dreams.  There have been naked people that I don't care to see naked.  There have been insignificant replays of recent conversations.  There have been snippets of childhood memories that I unquestioningly follow without hate or regret or pain.  It's only when they spur revelations like this one that my indifference momentarily disappears.

Paths

Remember how much I dislike the Facebook (yes, the Facebook)?  Well, there was a flurry of conversation around photos in which I was tagged this week.  I sat and watched my inbox's message count rapidly climb from two, four, seven, to eleven, and then some.  The next morning, more.  I finally clicked to see what was stirring the lively thread.  What was my login again?  Right.

Little squares of little people faces looked out at me.  Yikes.  My first and second grade class pictures.  Who has time to scan and upload these things?!  Mothers of two young children, apparently.  As I took in the photos, names I didn't know I had tucked away suddenly resurfaced, all but two whose first initials were all I could manage.

I thought about what might happen at a potential reunion.  Many years ago, my sister bumped into a former classmate of hers.  George openly shared about what he had been up to.  His line of work was lucrative; all cash, little work, easy money, with a touch of risk.  "Good for him," I remember saying as she told me about her run-in.  "Not really," she had responded.  "He deals crack."  Oh.  We grew up in a working class neighborhood of West Philadelphia.  At school, the bathroom stall doors were missing.  Poor district > poor kids > poor career choices.  Heck, even wealthy district > wealthy kids > poor career choices.  It was more than plausible.

My science teacher opened homeroom one day with the announcement that our classmate Roxanne had perished in a fire the night before along with her five younger siblings whom she had been taking care of.  Her parents, who were not home at the time of the fire, survived.  She missed so much school already that none of us thought twice about her absence that morning.  Roxanne, the one who would never do her homework, the one who was always lost in class, the one who uh, was far more mature than us physically, yeah, that Roxanne.  It wasn't until this turn of events that I realized that this poor chum had been preoccupied running a household.  No time to do schoolwork or even go to school, only time to feed the babies.  We were eleven, twelve, maybe?  Gah.  I think about Roxanne every now and again.  It's hard not to.  What she'd be doing now, had a responsible adult been at home with them that night.

Years later, on my way to my parents' one day, I bumped into a close friend of Roxanne's.  A baby not yet old enough to hold its own head up laid in the stroller Shannon was pushing.  I was so happy to bump into this old school friend.  She was a kind soul.  As I heard myself ask whose baby she was watching, it clicked.  We were so young.  I was in college.  She blushed as she explained that she was looking at community college.

It's amazing how different our futures looked at that very moment.  Shannon may be leading a very fulfilling life right now, but there's a part of me that wonders how much easier it might have been to get there had she waited to have children until after school.  And George, how much more rewarding a career he'd have today had he pursued a different profession at so young an age, one that didn't harm his community or threaten his own safety.

It's hard not to wonder why my path wasn't theirs.  Or theirs mine.

The Lovely Pomegranate

Before the time of my brothers, my sister and I would sit next to our mom and patiently watch her crack open one of these guys.  We three would sit on the floor looking down into a big bowl.  On the floor sat a newspaper hoping to catch the inevitable scarlet spatter that escaped the bowl.  Sometimes, a neighbor would be over, one of uhmmah's girlfriends, and the four of us would share.  This is the memory that pops into my head whenever I see a pomegranate.

This, and the story of Persephone.  The goddess of the underworld sounds like a powerful title, but Greek mythology actually holds that Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld.  She was tricked into staying there...because she ate a few pomegranate seeds.  The gods struck a deal: Persephone would split her time between the earth and the underworld.  Her mother Demeter, the goddess of fertility and harvest, objected, but nothing could be done.  And so, when Persephone is with her husband Hades in the underworld, Demeter sees to it that the earth doesn't produce crops, but once Persephone is reunited with her mother on earth, the lands become fertile again.  Hence, the ancient explanation for the cycle of seasons.  Perhaps also, the ancient belief that the pomegranate had contraceptive properties.

If you have the opportunity to get your hands on a whole pomegranate, please do so, if only to learn what it looks like before it's sprinkled on your salad, or reduced into a sauce for your chicken.  Be patient, handle the insides delicately, and maybe you will be rewarded with two bountiful cups of ruby red capsules like this one yielded.

Gentleman

I stepped onto an uncrowded train today.  By uncrowded, I mean that all the seats were filled and only a handful of people needed to stand.  A man jumped up.  "Would you like a seat?" he asked.  "Oh, no, I'm all right, but that's very nice of you, thank you."  He remained standing.  "Please, take my seat," he offered gently again.

What's happening?  Where am I?  Is this Manhattan?

People here aren't typically generous with gestures of this sort.  We are entirely self-absorbed, consumed by our next professional deadline and the consequences of last night's terrible date, rarely about the standing girl on the train.  And even then, it is only because she just stepped on your foot and didn't bother to apologize.

But I had been careful not to step on anyone's feet.  I cautiously glanced at the newly vacated sliver of bench.  The cynic in me half expected to see spilled juice or sticky crumbs.  But no, it was clean.  I preferred to stand, but it would have been in poor taste to refuse at this point.  "Are you sure?" I asked.  He smiled.  "Yes.  Please sit."  So I did.

Even before both cheeks hit the bench, a brassy passenger declared, loudly enough for the entire car to look up and notice, "You are a TRUE, TRUE gentleman."  He screamed TRUE so it seems appropriate to write it out in caps.

As I sat, I remembered a friend from way back when.  For five years, every time we walked into a classroom, left the cafeteria, or got into his car, he always paused and held the door for me.  I was always first.  Always.  I don't have a friend that does that anymore, but gee, would it be nice if I did.  Because when a stranger offers his seat or waits for me to step off an elevator first, I'm reminded how the smallest of gestures can often be the kindest.

Thanks, stranger man, for standing all the way to 59th & Lex.  Your gesture was as warm as the view of yesterday's setting sun was spellbinding.

The view from the Met {+} rooftop.  NYC.
6:04 pm.  Yesterday.

Merry August

Let's talk about Christmas.  Because it's August, if nothing else.  Specifically, let's talk about the expressions of everything good that the holiday season evokes and how their existence is evident in the [almost - read on for my take] everyday, not just the cold days of December.

Christmas is, to be perfectly rosy-cheeked about the situation, pure awesomeness.  There is a mindful re-focus on the celebrated components of what builds and drives fulfilling lives: family, community, love, warmth, grace, kindness, humility, forgiveness, acceptance, and joy, to name a few.  It is an annual tradition where individuals reconvene to showcase these pinnacles of our society's value system.

I'd like to say that these elements are present in each of our daily journeys, pocketfuls of posies anywhere and everywhere just as long as you look for it in every situation, but nay, I can think of several cases where this simply isn't true.  This is probably because I witnessed humanity's worst sorrows as the child of a pastor and his wife.  Churches lend support to congregants in difficult times; if you're spearheading those efforts and thrown deep into the trenches of it, your children can see a lot of the ugly, too.  My parents didn’t buffer any of that.  Part of that is because they are Korean, part of that is because they are who they are, and part of that is because I am their oldest.  From too early an age, I learned that it's tricky to see the good when the bad is all around; sometimes, it's impossible because it's just not there.

  At the start of one holiday season, what would turn out to be my last home before I moved to New York.
Rittenhouse Square. Philadelphia.
2004.  12 November.

What I have learned is that in times when there is no joy to be had, it isn't always necessary to break the impossibility of the situation by conjuring something that balances out the darkness.  Sometimes, there is a great deal of merit in staying in that moment and waiting for it to pass.  Why?  Because it always passes.  It does.  And the resilience required to get to that next point is what makes the next happy moment even brighter.

I hope life is good for you all out there.  If it isn't Christmas now, it will be soon.

'88

The exam results for the final level of the CFA program came out today.  And our little brother passed!  To pass all three levels on your first try is no small feat.  I wonder if he and his work peeps ditched out of the office early to celebrate.  There are an awful lot of watering holes in midtown.  I'm just sayin'.

It was 1988 on the day of his first birthday party.  We were forced to wake him in the middle of his nap.  Our grandmother insisted; she was more concerned about appearances in front of guests than, you know, leaving a tired baby who needed his afternoon nap alone.  (Typical.)  Our brother was promptly changed into his adorable silk Korean birthday outfit, hobbled around for a few seconds wondering why everyone kept staring at him, and then smiled for half a nanosecond before the overwhelming exhaustion took over his little body.  And then right there, as all the guests crammed into the living room clapped and waved at the adorable birthday boy, he slowly dropped down on one knee.  A few seconds later, he was down on all fours.  He then gave one final, tired look at the beaming faces watching him, sprawled out on his belly, and gently lay his head down on the soft carpet.  This shot was right before his eyes fluttered close.  I love this memory.

Philadelphia.
1988.

What I Know

///   THERE was that one time when our father magically appeared on the sidewalk.  He slowly made his way up to the front door clutching his arm.  He had lost a lot of weight.  I could see it in his face.  He was never a chubby fellow, not particularly lean either, but generally as trim as a man of his generation would be.  This man, he looked like my father, but he was gaunt, his cheekbones more pronounced, his skin darker and sallower.  It was an odd sight and strangely, not disturbing.  I pitied him.

And yet, I feared him.

I feared the outline of his small, limping body.  I feared the menacing spirit he carried inside that frame.  Its bewitching ability to drive uhmmah into another crashing halt was oppressive.  The inevitability of my mother's downward and upward and back down spiral, even more so.  Who knew what would happen once he entered our lives again.  The only thing for certain?  That yet another cycle of tempestuous events would - no - was brewing.

He had been beaten.  Or something.  Something that left his shoulder out of its socket and bruises on his face.  Weak.  Maybe he hadn't eaten in a few days.  We hadn't seen him in weeks.  He had somehow managed to drive his manual car back to Philadelphia.  It had taken him days what should have taken a few hours.  That's how it is with a broken arm.  Or whatever it was.

The silent streak of resilience that is so ingrained me - there is no doubt that this comes from my father.  The two of us, we will literally fall apart trying to manage on our own, proudly keeping the white flag down.  Hidden.  Away.  Safe from the eyes.  Oh, the eyes.

He claimed he was robbed at a gas station while pumping gas.  My mother laughed.

That's where I get it from - laughing softly when I don't know what to do.  As the girls' athletic director at my high school once scolded when I couldn't maneuver a basketball the way the drill was designed to teach, There's nothing funny about it, Julia.  Touché, Mrs. McConnell.  Touché.

Uhmmah waited until I was at school and dialed the number on the white board next to the phone, the number where she could reach me on most Saturday nights.  The father of the family was a radiologist.  The mother a nurse at the same hospital.  My father didn't have insurance.  Uhmmah wondered if the family might know of any alternative routes to have a doctor assess the damage.  He had been in an accident, she reported.  The next time I babysat, the mother gently - and dutifully - delivered a lecture on how I should never feel ashamed of my family asking for help.  I was mortified.  I hadn't known that uhmmah had contacted them.

I couldn't articulate then what I can now.  It wasn't that we needed help.  It was that an ugly pattern had formed.  What most parents could manage on their own as adults, my parents were incapable of doing without their children.  What parents often shield from their children, I was front and center.  Did uhmmah mention that her husband hadn't been in contact for weeks before this incident?  That the accident was probably not an accident, but more likely the result of loan sharks shaking her husband up for a gambling debt?  No.  Because the outside world, no one could know.

My sister has a framed print with a message that stays with me.  You might remember it {+}.  Some may find it trite, but to this little girl, it's so profound that I think I'll share it here again.

Hindsight is always twenty/twenty.

What I Know

///   MY father would show up just long enough to sell the impression that this time, he was here to stay.  Just long enough to lead weekly church choir practice.  Just long enough to take my small hands and flip me over somersault style.  Just long enough to act as a translator for someone in our church who didn't speak enough English to file a police report on the armed men who had emptied his grocery's register that morning.

And yet, he also came back just long enough to leave stacks of lottery tickets piled high among dry cleaning tickets in my parents' biggest dry cleaning plant, the same one where I would spend my summers stuffing sleeves with tissue paper, running to the corner market to get him cigarettes and frozen fruit bars.  Always strawberry for me, usually coconut for him.

You'd think with the long hours and the handful of modest dry cleaners in our parents' names, there'd be enough to cover the basics.  But when you throw your money straight to the house night after night, that formula doesn't do much before your wife finally tracks you down parked next to your buddies at the blackjack table.  And oh, hey, yeah, your daughters and your baby son are waiting outside on the other side of the red velvet ropes because children aren't allowed on the floor.

Once, I thought I was going to die standing there carrying my baby brother for as long as I did.  I was certain that my arms were going to fall off.  When uhmmah finally emerged from the gambling floor, she was happy.  She had located his coat in the coat racks.  It was army green.  She was sure he was in this casino and that the search would be over soon.  We were close.  The next time she surfaced, she reported that she had found him, but that he wouldn't leave.

That little effer.

I probably didn't have the vocabulary for that at such a young age, but the sentiment, I assure you, was the same.

Having the children there was strategic on uhmmah's part.  If we weren't present, he'd be more likely to stay with his friends.  Only once did he try to stay behind.  Uhmmah fretted for a while, unsure of what to do because the children bait, well, we had never failed her before.  Sure enough, within the hour, he surfaced and joined us on the boardwalk.

We had McDonald's on the way back.

...

What I Know

I am the child of a manic depressive and a compulsive gambler.  My mother is the manic depressive, my father the compulsive gambler; both are slaves to their own chemical imbalances.  You can only imagine the stormy world in which these two live.  It's messy.  It's absurd.  It's pitiful.  It's tragic.  It's heartbreaking.

Neither have been formally diagnosed, as far as I know.  

I am in my thirties and just this week shared this information with my oldest friend.  At her prompting.  I've known her since I was fourteen.  

And so I'm putting it all down here.  Little by little.  Whenever I feel compelled.  It might be in a moment of anger, or momentary lapse in judgment, or superficial clarity, or intense sadness.  It won't matter, the conditions.  Because maybe if I put it all down, every time I look back, maybe it won't be so hard to turn back around and keep moving.

///   THERE were endless bouts when uhmmah would hole herself up in a dark room and sleep.  She would wake only to toss food on the table, complaining the entire time that if it weren't for her children, she wouldn't be tied to this lifestyle.  We were forbidden from making any noise.  We children took shifts massaging her aching legs and arms.  She moaned and sighed out loud.  She talked to me like I was her grown girlfriend.  TV was our only solace, on the lowest volume possible, to minimize the chances of stirring the chance that uhmmah might grab a stick on her way out of the bedroom.

...

Giulio

In grade school, I found myself assigned to the same classroom year after year with a boy named Giulio.  A very kind and rather effeminate boy born to an Italian-American family, he lived on the same street as one of my friendliest childhood girlfriends.  When we'd head to her house after school when uhmmah was in a good mood and granted me permission, Giulio would often tag along and walk with us.

He and I looked nothing alike.  We both had straight jet black hair.  We also had two eyes and two arms, but that's just about where the similarities ended.  He was so tiny and pale and stickly.  If we were to have planted a long-haired wig on his head, he could have passed for a little girl.  I imagine he'll age into one of those adorable tiny wrinkly Italian grandfathers.  You know the kind with a little fedora, a sprite shuffle in their step, and a would-be-creepy-on-any-other-old-man-except-for-Italian-ones partiality for young women?  That's Giulio in about forty years.

His high-pitched voice complemented his uptight nature.  But he was harmless and his gentle sensitive soul was evident.  Words nervously tumbled out of his mouth, but they were formidable, resolute, and remarkably articulate for a boy of his age.  His doting mother dressed him in the same suit and red vest every year on picture day.  Each year, the pants got a little shorter, but the jacket and sweater, oddly enough, they hugged his petite frame perfectly.

Here we were, two kids with near identical names, from two cultures that ironically couldn't be more different, landing in the same Philadelphia public school classrooms every September.  He went home to the sounds of his mother's strong Italian inflections and I to uhmmah's Korean ones.  It was comical how different we were and yet, year after year, one teacher would have the pleasure of having both of us, a Giulio and a Julia, in her classroom.  When the teacher would call on me, Giulio would respond.  When the teacher would call on Giulio, I would answer.  Many a time, both he and I would answer simultaneously.  We all found it marvelously funny when that happened.  And of course there were times when there'd be dead silence because we both sat there thinking the teacher had called on the other.  That was less funny because then we we ran the risk of involuntarily ticking off a Philadelphia public school teacher (some of them sure were meanies).

I don't remember what happened to Giulio.  Maybe his parents moved him to another school because ours was getting a little too shady for their taste.  Or perhaps they had saved up and managed to move into a better neighborhood.  That's probably more likely.  I really haven't the slightest idea.  All I know is that Manhattan somehow figured out that yesterday was Labor Day and therefore, it would be perfectly acceptable to tolerate shivering cold rain all day today.  This kind of chilly and wet city day always gets me thinking about the past and today, for whatever reason, Giulio popped up.  I wonder what he's up to.  I wonder if he's still the gentle soul that I remember.  He was one of the good ones.  I hope he turned out swell.

Story Gold

I've been busy wanting. Something gold, to be exact. Something simple. Something small and delicate. Something light and loose to limply lace around my neck. Yes. That would be lovely.

Soeur's gold rings in a bowl Monday

My mother has the only gold necklace I've ever owned, an unexpected gesture of gratitude from the young bride to whom my parents had lent their oldest daughter to serve as her bridal party's flower girl. The dangling gold charm was beautifully slight, flat and paper thin with "Flowergirl" inscribed in cursive across the front plate. When a pretty bridesmaid leaned down to lock the delicate chain around my neck, I didn't realize the necklace was to be mine. I remember taking in her face so that I could direct uhmmah to which lady she should return the necklace at the end of the evening. In our house, we rarely received trinkets of commemoration like this. If you can imagine it, I had just been introduced to the graces of gift-receiving. It was so new. I must have been six.

I remember feeling surprised and puzzled when the to-be bride's sister asked for me and not my sister. As is common in Korean families, Soeur's and my Korean names are similar in that only the second syllables of our two-syllable Korean names differed. There was a little confusion as uhmmah stressed the second half of my name. Julia? You mean the older one?  The woman looked at me and then looked at Soeur and then turned back to me.  Yes, her.  Look at her face.

Of the two daughters, I was not the smiley one or the dainty delightful one. The innate charms bred in little girls were not fated to me. In the photos bound in old albums at my parents', every picture of me after my toddler years shows expressions far more serious and weepy than any little girl's I've met. Nary an inkling of carefree wit or little girl spirit is evident. I slouched terribly. My gaze, while pensive, was lost. My eyes looked tired. As an adult now, I look back and see how my small body and psyche had been absorbing the heaviness that swallowed our home. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the very reason why every Korean guest that passed through our home would bluntly observe out loud, Julia is so mature.

And this is why I thought it was a mistake, that someone had misinterpreted which daughter they wanted to walk down the aisle. Maybe they had mixed up our names by accident. Soeur wasn't a particularly bubbly or extroverted child, but she was much more likely to show her vibrancy and smiles in true kid form. I, on the other hand, was more reserved and stingy with my delightfulness. But no, they insisted they had the right daughter.

I wore that necklace more off than on again throughout middle school. I lost the original charm somewhere between college and now but had kept the chain hoping that I'd wear it again some day. I forgot all about it until I saw it on my mother during one of her rare visits last year. It took a while to register: first, the history and the existence of this necklace that I had saved for so long and yet managed to forget about; and second, that my mom had it.

Is that mine? No eye contact. How did you get my necklace? Still no eye contact but, yes, there it was, a small awkward smile. I do that too when I'm uncomfortable.  I thought, Did I give it to her?  I must have given it to her.  But why wouldn't I remember that?  So I asked.  Did I give that to you? Silence followed by a change in topic.

And so it was.  This.  From the most honest woman I know.  My mother.

By virtue of her entering her early sixties, she has made it her hobby to test the limits of her belief that everything her kids own is also hers. A collective bucket, if you will. It's a little bit remarkable, these polarities that govern her interactions with her children and the outside world.  One side is exactly why anybody in my life who has ever met my mother thinks she is the sweetest lady alive.  And she absolutely is.  She treats them kindly with respect, patience, and concern. But there is this other side that is shocking and exasperating.  Appalling, almost.  Witnessing and tolerating this strangeness, this ugly in her conduct around her children, it's so hard.  It's really really hard.  It's probably the single biggest challenge that shapes the unconditional love this daughter has for her mother.  Time and time again, her behavior leaves me not just irked, but exhausted.  That exhaustion in turn reminds me of all the resentments that I so desperately want to ignore.

Now I feel spent, just writing this down.  But this kind of mindful effort, this deliberate exercise of getting it out in words, it is necessary for me.  You understand.  How remarkably simple it could be, to wear new gold to leave this gold behind.

On Math, Melville, and Moby

Density is a good thing, no?  Solid, substantial, packed full, intense, more per square unit: these are the descriptors that come to mind when I think of dense.

And then there is the state of being dense.  Thick.  Stubborn.  So compacted and extreme that nothing gets through.

Oft, I am of the latter sensibility.

It was the day of my freshman year Geometry final.  Summer would officially start in just a few days.  We were seated in our regular math classroom in the Red Building.  I guess you could say that we kept things simple at a Quaker school.  Our math teacher, the one who mockingly selected many a student's raised hand that year with a, "Yes, Wonder Child," (which I can assure you, none of us were) generously and unexpectedly tossed us a bone. There was extra credit to be had.

Against the white of his classroom's board, he wrote with a cool blue marker:

Who was the author of Herman Melville's Moby Dick?

Call me crazy, but shouldn't the extra credit question on a Geometry final be, um, I don't know, about math?  I saw "author" and I saw "Moby Dick."  All hopes for an extra point or two shattered, I sighed and returned to my test.  Classic literature was not my forte.

Lizzie smiled sweetly.  Of course she would know.  Adam stirred uncomfortably to my right and, as usual, started to open his big mouth.  But not before Mr. Darling instructed him not to ruin it for everybody.

Mr. Darling was just that, one darling mister.  A teddy bear of a man with a pale beard and rosy cheeks, he stood tall with broad shoulders and a belly to match.  His lilting nasally voice made him sound like a teenager when you'd least expect it, but that was part of his charm.  When he laughed, his whole body shook.  I liked him.  He was kind.  He was serious.  He brewed coffee that made his classroom smell wonderful.  Except for those days when he flushed vinegar through the machine.  That was not so wonderful.

I'm pretty sure I was the only one who didn't get extra credit on that final.  Mr. Darling laughed at me.  Adam did, too.  I guess you always lose when you give up before even trying.

It's appalling that I still have not, since that ego-bruising incident, read Mr. Melville's classic tale.  I have, however, managed to acquire just enough literary hodge podge knowledge to recognize that the clue from this weekend's Times Magazine acrostic, "Island from which Captain Ahab sailed" alludes to the same novel that did not get me extra points on my high school Geometry final.  But this is nothing to brag about, for that knowledge still falls short of providing the answer.  So thank you, internet, for NANTUCKET.

Next time I'm at the library, I should pick up a copy to end this embarrassment once and for all.

Stormy Days

The dark evening clouds and the warm swirling city air signaled that Manhattan was on the verge of hosting one powerful thunderstorm.  As I looked outside my living room window with a bird's eye view of our neighbor's outdoor patio furniture below, I felt my heart.  It beat evenly, calmly, and peacefully.

There was a time when this scene would have had me roaring in a magnificent tizzy.  I didn't know it then and I most certainly would not have been able to articulate it as such, but I had panic attacks as a kid.  Terrifying.  Dooming.  Suffocating.  Life-threatening.  How would I describe what it feels like being left home in charge of your two siblings, one of which wasn't even crawling yet, and another girl my sister's age, Hannah, when all of a sudden there's this deafeningly loud thunder, flashes of lighting, pelting rain, gusty wind, and live images of tree branches being hurled around the streets of Philadelphia interrupting that evening's episode of Full House?  Every single noise from the dark chaos outside dangerously snapped every nerve of my body.  I found the emergency weather alerts spanning across the bottom of the television screen less informative than threatening.  The usually friendly faces of the local news anchors were suddenly sharp, frantic, and unwelcoming.  Their voices were rattled.  Tones had shifted.  Something was very wrong.

Uhmmah and the pastor's wife, Hannah's mom, had gone out, maybe to a Bible study group or maybe to do 신방 (I have no idea what the English equivalent for that might be and I might even have my Korean mixed up, but that's what I remember it being called, when church leaders visited the homes of their congregants).

I freaked.  Quietly.  More precisely, I made everyone sit in the living room, turn off the television, and pray.  Unfortunately for me, no one else was bothered by the threatening rage outside.  They thought it was funny how scared I was.

I was about to lose my shit and the world was coming to an end and MY FUCKING MOTHER WAS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN.  The storm had knocked down phone lines throughout the city and I couldn't get through to familiar numbers with adults on the other line.  I was 7.  And having a panic attack.  I finally called my Sunday School teacher who prayed with me.  The sound of his adult voice was the only way I could calm myself.

Since that incident, I nervously clung to my mom.  Where are you going?  How long will you be?  Can I go with you?  I was naturally an obedient child.  Too obedient for my own good.  I told my mom exactly once that I didn't want to stay home alone because a storm might come again.  She laughed.  It's just a little rain.  Rain always stops and I'll be back as soon as I'm finished.  And so I learned to deal.

Having been left home alone frequently from very early on (not uncommon for our generation and especially with parents who were raised in Korea), this sudden and crippling fear was terribly new and daunting.  It had never bothered me before.  Why did it now?  My heart dropped to my stomach at the mere thought of being left home alone.  I'd loathe the end of the school day when I'd have to go to an empty house with no parent until dusk fell.  I'd frantically look out the window at the skies to see whether there was any chance of rain because if there was rain, there could be thunder and thunder could mean a storm and storm could mean terror terror terror.  Doom doom doom.  It was exhausting.

Now, when wicked night thunderstorms visit, I look straight into the splintering flashing lights and feel nothing but the calm and coolness the rain will bring. Maybe it's the comfort in knowing that my childhood is behind me.

Jonathan

Here's a story.  Some parts are fuzzy, others less so, but the details, the ones that strangely cling to the edges of the grey matter I call my brain, remain alarmingly crisp and as such, are worthy of sharing.

I remember her raised voice, the severity of her glare at the tall pudgy boy, and her knee-jerk reaction as she recoiled from his desk.  Jonathan had reported to school late.  Really late.  He had missed days, even weeks of school, but this was the first time he showed up so late into the school day.  He was flustered red, in hindsight more from the cold outside than running.  Bare chunky white ankles showed beneath the elastic bands of his grey sweatpants.  The worn cotton polyester hugged his thighs tightly.  He tugged his t-shirt nervously downwards with a chubby hand, as though doing so would magically make it grow two sizes to actually accommodate the length of his torso.  It, the tee, was stained heavily.  Tattered with holes, it looked painfully thin.  In the crook of his arm was a tattered copy of that year's city-issued math textbook.

As per usual, our teacher failed to extract an explanation for his tardiness.  He remained silent on his absent backpack and his lack of a coat in the middle of winter.  Even with his head drooped forward and his arms stretched straight against his stomach, as he endured his teacher's tyrannical lashing, the pathetic irony of our pear-shaped middle-aged teacher's head angled upwards forty-five degrees to scream at a mere child was not lost on me.  She clucked her tongue.

"You're a mess!  Always a mess."  After a brief pause, I hear, "Get out of my sight and go to your seat."

The loose rubber sole of his sneaker unwittingly flapped against the linoleum floor as he made his way to his seat in the far back corner of our humble classroom.  There Jonathan sat without either pencil or pen for his single marble composition book, one that he had somehow finally managed to get after an endless stream of letters home.

He had missed such long stretches of school that it was near impossible to follow lessons with the rest of the class.  He struggled when it was his turn to read an excerpt of an essay out loud.  The teacher walked by his desk.

"Ha.  You can't even read."

A dark stain on his shirt caught her eye.  It was three-dimensional.  A small round mass of something.  Pasty.  Dark brown.

She pointed, "What is...?"  She jumped back in alarm.  "You.  Are.  Absolutely.  Filthy.  Disgusting."

Jonathan swiped at his chest desperately.

"What?  That's a chocolate chip.  A chocolate chip!" he insisted.

His pale face turned beet red.  Some kids snickered.  Others stifled groans.  Most laughed aloud.  A low chorus of "Eeeeeew" harmonized around me.  His mouth mumbled the words "chocolate chip" over and over again as the teacher continued her tirade until finally, he gave up.

When Jonathan finally procured a winter coat, the scandal was not that it was two sizes too small; it was that it was a coat made for a girl.  How our classmates teased.  Because children?  They are mean.  They do not know.  No matter how kind, disciplined, or well-intentioned they might be, they cannot fully comprehend the absurdity of a home situation where parents do not, and sometimes simply cannot, provide.  How shameful of our teacher to have treated Jonathan like anything less than a fellow human being.  And how shameful of our class to not have a single peer step up and offer his friendship.  Including me.

I don't remember his last name.  He disappeared from our class roster and became nothing more than a distant memory until earlier this year.  I don't know why Jonathan reappeared, but he did.  His pink lips, his tattered sneakers, his nervous laughter - they'd flutter in at the most random moments.  As randomly as our paths had crossed so terribly long ago, when we were nothing but children at the mercy of parents and communities, so was I the lucky one with the winter coat, school supplies, and mother who was around.

Now it's nearly sunrise on the last day of 2010 and I'm puffy-eyed and stuffy from all the crying I've done while jotting down this childhood memory.  I cried because the world is sometimes impossibly cruel, even to a helpless kid.  But there, I've done it.  Jonathan's no longer just a memory: he's chronicled in the written word, too.  Perhaps now my brain can make room for other memories while my heart hopes that wherever Jonathan is today, he's happy, safe, and well.

One in Fifteen

My maternal grandmother has nineteen grandchildren.  I counted for the first time this week.  Don't let it ever be said that we're not a fertile family.

My siblings and I don't really know our fifteen cousins in Korea.  An ocean does that.  Every once in a while, though, we'll have an opportunity to share a meal or even half a day when one of them makes an appearance in the U.S.  This week, our overachieving unnie cousin visited.  One of her two older brothers visited last summer {+}.

This was the closest thing to a group family pic we took when we all hung out together on Wednesday night.  The photo turned out fuzzy but I think applying a charcoal sketch filter salvaged it a bit.  As you can see from my brother's and sister's exhausted eyes, it was late, almost midnight on hump day.  I felt lucky that our cousin and I were able to sleep in the next morning when my siblings had to report bright and early to their offices.

**************************

See that beer bottle that's pretty much front and center?  I'm pretty sure it was our cousin's, but still, and I don't know why, it reminds me of my brother's baby bottles.  I was six when he joined our family and sometimes I took over the night shift to give uhmmah a break.  Still a baby, he'd sleep next to me on top of a warm electric blanket.  When it was time for his feeding, he'd wake me with his fussing, I'd feed him his bottle with one eye half open and a night light.  He was a remarkably easy baby falling asleep right after he was burped.  I'd then go off duty and switch beds with my mom.  Taking over a night feeding shift would give her a longer stint of uninterrupted sleep, you see.  My brother's come a long way since.  Not only can he hold his own bottle now, but he can open it, too.  Most importantly, he burps all on his own.