Today My Mother Asked Me If I'm Gay

She was serious. And squirming. I'm pretty sure that she was embarrassed to even be contemplating such a thing about her own daughter. In hindsight, it makes sense. She doesn't know anything about my personal life, so it's not an unreasonable thought. The whole string of back-to-back questions started in Korean but ended in English, a telltale sign that she was dangerously stepping out of her comfort zone. "So you're not ever going to get married?" which turned into "Even if you have a boyfriend, you're not going to get married?" which led to, "You don't have a boyfriend right now, right?" which then led to "Are you doing the lesbian gay thing?"

Wow. Really? Is this really happening?

It would have been so fun to pull her leg a little, but the woman sitting in front of me had had a rough winter; today was not the time for cruel jokes. She never gets jokes, anyway. After I burst her bubble and acknowledged that I am not, true to form, she still took it upon herself to ramble on about how God did not design humans to live alone, that I need a church-going Christian man and should get married and have children. It's amazing how she circles everything back to the paramount importance of getting hitched and popping out kids; that and how nice it would be if I would bring her on vacation to Europe. So I told her the truth: I would be the worst thing to ever happen to this unknowing Christian schmuck who got suckered into dating me and perhaps more significantly, I let my passport expire. Luckily, I don't need it for New York.

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.

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.

A Good Wife

I sat at this piano for hours at a time as a kid. Every minute was a temporary reprieve from the crazy in our household. I could never quite articulate what drew me to the piano, but now I realize that it was the one noisy activity that did not set my mother off. I craved not the activity itself, but what engaging in the activity offered: a brief moment of solace between the long days in and days out of a childhood that in many ways was not.

As a toddler, I stood on my tippy toes (well, except for those pinky toes - what's going on there?) to reach the keys. Let's skip over the fact that my head's the size of a bowling ball and that the right side of my diaper looks precariously loose. And those hammy pint-sized legs? Good grief. You can't see it, but the front of my t-shirt reads MOMMY AND DADDY DID IT. Apparently my loudness started even before I knew how to talk.

That is some major baby pudge.
One of the last exchanges I ever had with my grandmother took place as I sat on this very piano's bench. Halmoni was visiting my parents from Toronto. Restless, I found myself at the piano. It sounded flat, the keys stuck a little, and there were a lot more knicks on the wood than I remembered. Away from the noise of the family, I stared down at the ivory row before me. My fingers pecked suspiciously while my brain tried to catch up. The circle of fives eluded me. I gave up and turned my back to the keyboard. I sat squarely across the piano bench, cross-legged, before I realized that my grandmother probably wouldn't think that very ladylike were she to see me. I threw one foot down and crossed the other over my knee. That was better.

Unbeknownst to me, halmoni had quietly made her way down the stairs and taken a seat on the couch across from me. She caught my gaze as I looked up from adjusting my sitting form. Her look said that she wanted to talk. The thing is, we had never really done that before. In all my twenty-some odd years, the majority, if not all, of our interactions during her occasional visits consisted of prayers. When our heads were not bowed, she would give gentle reminders. God loves you. You're a good girl, how much you help your parents. Keep studying. Pray. These formed the foundation of our relationship, if you want to call it that. They are what I associate most with my father's mother, these instructional reminders of our family's faith.

She addressed me by my Korean name, the only name by which the elders in my family know me, and when I looked at her with a blank face, she asked me something that she had never asked before. In fact, no one had. Maybe she was too afraid of the answer. Now that her husband had passed, maybe it was time.

"It was hard, wasn't it?"

She caught me off guard. I knew exactly what she was referring to. But was this really happening? I didn't know what to say.

What could I say? That your son is terrible? That he is a lousy excuse for a human? That I was constantly thrown into the middle of my parents' issues? That I was cooking on the stove by first grade, laundry soon after, and bottle-feeding infant brothers at night? That I struggled to keep my eyes open in the classroom after a night taking care of a newborn? That I'm sitting here wondering why I feel the obligation to come spend time with a grandmother whom I maybe saw once a year until I was twelve around which time you and his father, your husband, disowned your miserable son through a posted letter makes my brain rattle. You're asking me how life's been now? Really? We're going to do this now?

"Things were hard for you, weren't they?" She repeated herself and patiently waited for my response. I could feel my brows furrowing as I returned her gaze.

"Yes. It was." I had nothing more to say.

"I know. I know how hard it was for you. Doing what you did. Your mother..."

And then she caught herself and stopped. More silence.

"I'm sorry I didn't help."

Now that last verb, I don't quite remember if she said didn't help or couldn't help. Ahn doh wah joh suh or mot doh wah joh suh. Ahn or Mot? Funny how one syllable can alter the meaning so. But it doesn't matter because even if she could have helped, it was probably her husband who forbade it. Halmoni took her duties as a wife seriously. She was loyal. She followed her husband's lead. She was what they called a good wife.

I can still hear it, her voice. I can still see them, her soft eyes set against the lines of her aging face, peering at me. I tried to make sense of what was happening. Was I hearing her correctly?

"I'm sorry I didn't help. I know how hard it was for you."

There it was again. So halmoni knew. All this time, she knew? I felt like someone had taken the chair out from under me. I was speechless. And then, before the tears could fall, I dabbed the corners of my eyes, stood up, and walked away quickly. I heard myself say, "It's ok, halmoni." The timbre and volume of my voice remained unaltered. "It's ok," I repeated.

My grandmother is gone {+}. She prayed endlessly for her babies and her babies' babies. I know because she told me every time I saw her. But prayers aren't always answered, not even halmoni's. Sometimes, you pray and pray and pray and live with the faith that something will finally change. Later on, when that's no longer enough, and the strength and clarity of hindsight settles, you might even apologize to the little girl who isn't a little girl anymore.

It Is This Way

Among the triad of siblings that are here in New York, there is an unspoken rule that at any given time, only one of us are on speaking terms with our mother.  We routinely ignore uhmmah's calls and e-mails, sometimes taking weeks to respond, if at all.  Until, that is, one of us begrudgingly takes pity and makes contact again.  When we finally do, she is usually not very pleasant.  Sometimes, she belligerently attacks with yelling and spitting words.  To drive her point home, click, she dramatically hangs up before the martyr sibling can get a word in.  And then, within a few hours, she will call that child back and pretend like that conversation never happened and carry on with her ridiculous demands.

Take on my mortgage, take me on vacation, buy me a house, pay my dental bill.  The car needs new brakes. 

Listening to her string of requests is the hapless form of conversation that we have sloppily carved out over the years.  I sit silently on the line.  There have been times when I've placed my phone on the counter and poured myself a drink.  I miss nothing during those sixty seconds because she's like a tape on repeat.

But things have changed.

I think Soeur realized that she didn't have any pictures of herself and uhmmah.  Philadelphia.
2012.  June.

As my sister astutely pointed out, we children will never tap into the full potential of having fulfilling, rewarding, and healthy intimate relationships until we come to peace with our parents.  How very true.  (Insight like that?  She must be seeing a therapist.)

You see, both my siblings here are in partnerships that require attention to this sort of thing.  Their other halves value the family connection.  And so, because they both make for excellent significant others (seriously, if you are ever so lucky to date them), they honor their partners' wishes to do right by those who brought us into this world.  They bite their tongues, try with great effort to look past the damaged, and search for some way, any way, to form some semblance of a working relationship with our mother.

I do not know how they do it.

I severed all contact with my mother in November.  I lack the strength and fearlessness that my brother and sister have.  The only explanation I have is that I am not under the spell of love.  That they are in relationships so compelling that they choose to swim in deep, dirty waters that have been unkind to them in the past is a powerful testament.  This is a big undertaking, to answer her calls, to quietly listen to her demands, to tolerate and endure the only way we know our mother.  It is admirable.

Tied into uhmmah's needy behavior is the outstanding issue of my youngest brother's care.  When the Empire shootings happened last week, I thought I was doing the right thing by picking up the phone when she called that morning.  I assured her that all three of us were safe.  As I feared would happen, answering that call opened that metaphorical door again; that very night, she called and left a message on my silenced phone: Can you call and try to calm down your brother?  He has been screaming and yelling non-stop for hours and hours.  After retrieving the message the next morning, I did not return the call - selfishly, for my own sanity.  The guilt of not lending help is there, but I choose to respond in a different way this time because I simply will not survive another round on my own.  This distance that I've created is the one thing, the only thing, that keeps my own head out of the water.

'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.

The Youngest

As are all the relationships that crisscross the ridges of the brokenness that is our family, theirs as brothers is a fumbling exercise of patience.  Or so I observe, without the Korean privilege of being either of the two sons in our fateful pool of four.

I've been racking my brains trying to remember the last time I had seen my youngest brother.  I come up blank over and over again.  He came up once with uhmmah, I think, but no one else seems to be able to confirm this and my memory's too hazy to pinpoint even the year.  The last time I can recall with confidence was his hyung's graduation.  In 2009 {+}.  That was Three.  Years.  Ago.  Could that be right?  That can't possibly be because that would mean three Thanksgivings.

       Three Christmases.
       Three birthdays of mine.
       Three of his.
       Three of my sister's.
       Three of my other brother's.

Because that makes for a lot of birthdays we didn't celebrate in each other's company.

That time three years ago, he was not well.  I hadn't seen him since he had moved back in with my parents.  When he wasn't stone silent on the couch with terse lips, he was screaming.  His anger put us all on edge.  He refused to eat the first day.  He said he didn't deserve to.  Eventually, he finally had some cheesecake.  Uhmmah smugly looked at me and said, "See what I have to put up with?"  She forcefully scolded him for ruining his hyung's college graduation.  This is how we do it, our family.  In useless circles.  The same ones.  

He's had his ups and downs since then, at least from what I heard through the grapevine.  But after seeing him this past weekend, I can say that he is still not well.  Able-bodied, he most certainly is.  Able-minded, not a hundred percent.  His world is filled with paranoid absolutes, with no room for logic or reason or perspective.  His persistence is unmatched by anyone I know.  Trying to hold a conversation with him is like a never-ending marathon of intersecting streams of consciousness.  It is alarming.  It is exhausting.  It is distressing.

This is the last post I wrote about this brother back in 2010, {+}.  Very little's changed.  I admit it: I've made little progress on managing this part of my life.  Somehow, this shameful lack of movement makes my love and concern for this sibling grow even deeper.  At the same time, with every brief family interaction like this past weekend's, my faith that he will be all right weakens just a tad more.

And so I guess this is where I start praying.  Not because prayer should be a last resort, but because there is no one I can comfortably talk to about this, at least not in a way where I don't feel like running off to some remote hill in the Alps.  And if there is comfort in whispering thoughts to God, whom I have not met, I suppose it's the very same reason why I feel safe sharing private thoughts here in this public space.  Writing openly about this sort of thing sure beats cautiously talking with someone peering into my eyes, someone whose thigh might be wedged next to mine or whose arm is just across the table.  I'll feel safe enough one day.  With the right person.  I hope.

At our childhood home.  Philadelphia.

8:01 pm.  Saturday.  2012.  23 June.

I Don't Think I Want Children

This post is all over the place, but that's ok, because when it comes to this topic, I'm sort of all over the place.

Father with daughter.  Cutest thing ever.

Madison Square Park.  May 2012.

Seriously.  I've thought about it for almost five years.  I go back and forth on the subject but almost always, I talk myself out of it.  It's that I'm too emotionally unprepared, that I'm too stubborn, that I'm too immature, that I can't even figure out how to have a relationship with my mother, how will I ever manage the humility and grace required of allowing a grandchild to grow a relationship with her grandparents?  Ironically, I know that I am maternal enough; it's the other things that have me wringing my hands (internally, of course, because, um, have we met?).  Admittedly, while I typed the words of this post's title, and now that I see the words on the screen, things are still a little hazy.

There was a turning point for me this past fall.  I was at a work function chatting with someone when, as an aside, she said, "I'm not having children" and then continued on her merry way with the rest of her story.  I looked at her as my brain processed her words.  Her statement was so resolute.  She didn't even flinch.  So finite.  So matter-of-fact.

It was refreshing.

I thought, what personal narrative could this woman, someone my age, someone far more successful and caring, someone whom I thought would make for the perfect mother candidate, have that would bring her to decide so progressively on motherhood?  I had heard of the notion before, but hadn't met anyone who was so comfortable and self-assured with her decision that she openly carried it into and out of conversation.  Part of me was sad, thinking that a mini version of this woman would actually be a gift to the world.  She was completely ok with it.  Just like that, a little magic wand appeared and twirled atop my head.  Was I in the same boat?

The reasons I left Philadelphia were many, but none of them were as compelling as the fact that our baby brother had finally graduated high school.  It was the summer of 2007 and he had been living with me since his junior year.  Ever heard of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?  It was a little bit like that, only the bad influences were our parents, not his neighborhood peers.  And instead of moving into a mansion with his rich aunt and uncle, he downsized into a small apartment with his modest income twenty-something sister.  Things had spun out of control by the time he arrived at my place.  When it was all over and he had his diploma in his hands, I submitted my resignation to the greatest boss I ever had, sold all my furniture, and moved here.

I learned so much about myself during that time: what true friends did; what loving people did for one another; how good, compassionate people handled trying situations.  It really lit up humanity for me.  Humans are amazing.  Really.  One of my greatest lessons was that I don't have the spine to be a lifelong single caretaker.  It is, to put simply, not for the weak.  And I am exceptionally weak in more ways than one.  I can hold myself up, but only by a thread.  And so I decided, if I can help it, I will never choose the path of single parenthood.

Since then, this line of thinking has morphed into, well, maybe I'm not cut out to be a mother at all.  Coming from the girl who had planned on seven children (four biological and three adopted!) this is a complete one-eighty.  I'm still shocked.  Ultimately, because I don't want to go at it alone, my choice will be navigated by my partner.  I'm not blind to that.  I trust that he'll steer me in the right direction, whether that's with child or without.  Poor guy.  Taking me on sounds like a lot of work.

En Route to Philadelphia

I've never made a batch of cookies and not tasted one.  (Or two.  Or half a dozen because who's counting?)  Not even a small dab of this marvelous, grittily sugary dough was I allowed to lick if I wanted to stick to the $1.50 challenge.  Harumph.

This dough from last night, in baked form, is now on its merry way to Philadelphia, destined to arrive by Mother's Day.  As I was putting together the care package, I'm ashamed to admit that I tried to calculate how much one cookie cost.  Luckily, the math skills were too lacking by ten in the evening so I wisely chose not to potentially blow an entire meal's budget on a single cookie.  If the butter, semi-sweet chocolate chips, or white chocolate chips didn't, then surely the dried organic cherries would have tipped the per cookie cost well past my daily allowance.

A cookie that costs more than a single meal for some?  That's some food for thought.  Literally.

Verbatim

Where: Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall
When: Sunday, November 27, 2011 (Thanksgiving weekend)
What: Handel's Messiah

Before the performance, after being seated...

Soeur: What exactly is this music?
Me: You know...Handel's "Messiah."
Soeur: [blank face]
Me: Haaaaaal-lelujah, hallelujah...?
Soeur: Uh-oh.  I'm definitely gonna fall asleep.

At the beginning of intermission...

Soeur: Is it intermission now?
Me: Yep.
Soeur: What does that mean?  Another hour?  Wait.  What are you doing?
Me: I have GOT to start recording what you say at these things because it's just too good to forget.

I sort of love live classical music.  Orchestras, choirs, symphonies - love, love, and love.  I don't know why.  I just do.  Get me to a performance hall.  Let me dress casually.  Turn the lights down.  Leave me be.  I'm going to revel in the sounds.

My sister, on the other hand, as you can see, is not much of a fan.  And yet, she will sit semi-patiently next to me through a performance.  I think she takes pity on me and does what she can.

You should have seen her at Carnegie Hall when she sat through a tenor singing romantic German songs all by his lonesome self (well, and a piano accompaniment).  Neither she nor I knew what to expect.  I had gotten the tickets from my company so we agreed that at intermission we could leave if we didn't like it.   When the lights came on, she declared, "Thank God it's intermission."  I'm pretty sure I killed her a little bit when I told her that it turned out that I kind of liked the music and would stay for the second half.  She was dumbfounded that I could stay awake through the performance, no less enjoy it.  She stayed, but I think she took a nap.  And if I remember the night correctly, I think we took the subway home (totally something I would do) instead of a taxi (totally something she would do).  Suffice it to say, that night probably wasn't her favorite.  But my evening was just swell, thank you very much.

The 13th

I like things simple.
I took a day.
For myself.
Slept in.
Spent time with Photoshop.
Ran errands in Flatiron.
Munched solo on cupcakes.
(Yes, plural.)
Arrived three minutes late for dinner with the sibs.
By virtue of the day, couldn't be mad at me.
Win.

These siblings of mine, they keep me well.

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.

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Before 24

10:51 p.m., Thursday, September 15, 2011

New York City

His first word was eeh-guh.  This or this one in Korean.  Whenever a plane flew overhead, he'd nearly fall over tilting his head back as far as it would go to follow the little speck in the sky and announce "Bee-heng-gee!"  Actually, it probably came out more like "Beeeeeeee-gee!"  But we all understood.  "Yes, bee-heng-gee nal-la-gahn-dah," we'd all concur as we watched the plane fly across the sky.  Every time, he'd stare in awe and stare some more until d'oh, the bee-heng-gee disappeared.  And then he'd straighten his neck and immediately take a loud single deep breath, his body responding to the dissipating adrenaline rush that only a plane spotting could have the power to induce in a toddler boy.

I snapped this tonight.  It's the last picture I'll ever take of my little brother before he turns twenty-four.

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.

I Think She Finally Met The Big Guy This Morning

Our grandmammy died this morning.  It was 4:45 a.m. local time in Vancouver.  We didn't call her grandmammy.  Not even  close.  I just said that because that's what popped up in my head.

Halmuni had waited on her husband hand and foot (literally), her entire adult life.  She bore six children, five of whom survived their childhoods.  When she and gramps would visit Philadelphia every year or so, she'd sleep on the floor while halabuhji would take the bed (there was enough room for both of them on the bed).  She'd never lift her chopsticks before he did.  She'd lay out his clothes.  She'd polish his shoes.  She'd scrub his back in the tub.  She was, in a word, devout.  When halabuhji passed, I had hoped that she would live a little.  One of our cousins would inform us years later that she watched the VHS video of her husband's funeral on repeat so many times that the tape wore thin and snapped.  Foolish me to think that her newfound freedom would make up for a lifetime of loyalty.

My mother's voice announced the news of her death as I sat at my desk and retrieved her message.  I was in a meeting when she had called.

There was a story my grandmother told me when I was very little.  She was a devout Christian, wife of a poor Presbyterian minister, and her faith was solid as a rock.  She wanted to teach me the power of prayer and faith.  She had been separated from my grandfather and captured at the beginning of the Korean war.  She spent her days reading her Bible and praying.  Eventually, she was presented with her last meal.  Her belly swollen with my father, she prayed that she and her baby would somehow make it through this ordeal unharmed.  She ate the meal before her.  Then the kind soldier guarding the pregnant woman took pity and let my halmuni go when nobody was looking.  It was the kindness of a stranger - some would say, a miracle - that saved my halmuni and her unborn child who would, thirty years later, father one bratty little Korean babe named Julia.

I don't have a relationship with my father.  This is a very deliberate choice.  But today, as I impatiently raised my voice to remind my mother to stay focused and put aside her deep resentment against my father and his family out of respect for halmuni, I wondered how difficult it must be for my father to just be.  He is the eldest son in his family and has not provided anything of benefit to anyone in his immediate familial circle.  His own children have no respect for him.  His wife has no respect for him.  His siblings have no respect for him.  In turn, he has no respect for his children, his wife, or siblings.  His father had even disowned him at one point.  How frail, how miserable, and how damaged one's ego and spirit must be that he conducts himself the way he does.  My greatest fear is that I am the fruit that does not fall far from the proverbial tree.

I didn't spend a lot of time with halmuni.  When she did visit every now and again, she'd always have toast with jam and peanut butter as part of her breakfast.  She stood a mere 4'10", if that.  She couldn't carry much of a tune, but that didn't stop her from loving her Korean hymns.  Prayer was her passport to happiness.  She'd remind me to always be thankful to God, do well in school, and pay heed to my parents.  And then, poof, she'd be off again, heading home to Toronto or visiting her other grandchildren.  But not without a group prayer first.  Prayer was serious in our household.

There was a brief time when halmuni and halabuhji had their own unit in the same apartment complex as us.  They had come to America to live with their eldest son, my father.  Halmuni worked at a sewing factory.  My grandfather would watch me.  At the end of her shift, when it was dark outside, he and I would pick her up.  Occasionally, he'd suggest that I stay put in the apartment while he fetched her.  It wasn't far, but I'd usually want to go with him.  He'd oblige with a sigh and a smile.  Some days, I'd walk to the supermarket with halmuni.  Often, she'd buy me bubble gum.  Grape Bubble Yum, to be exact.  Great big rectangular prisms of purple sugary goodness.

Halmuni must be drunk on joy right now.  How happy she must feel to see her husband again. How beside herself she must be to finally meet our father, the one who art in heaven and gives us our daily bread.  She is, quite literally, in heaven.

Look At Those Beautiful Mugs

On the occasion of her 29th, Soeur and some of her friends obediently stood hip-to-hip and delightfully hammed it up for the camera.  Had I been friendly with the self-timer feature, Tom would have made it in the shot, too.

Winter Solstice 2010, New York City

That night was a blur but I do know one thing for sure: I like to assemble hors d'oeuvres.  I could spend all night in a kitchen hovering with chopsticks mid-air over miniature bites of one thing or another.  I hadn't done it since my catering days, one of my bajillion jobs in college, and had forgotten how much I enjoy seeing dainty colorful bits of food sitting pretty on clean white plates.  I know it's a little weird, but just know that it speaks kindly to the inner anal within.

For the sake of not forgetting, let's go over the spread, a whole lot of little noshes along with the usual suspects like cheese and fruit et al.  There were bacon-wrapped dates, spanikopita, pesto cannellini bean crostini, red pepper and eggplant spread crostini, and smoked salmon on black pepper chips.  And a whole lot of wine.  Thank goodness Nancy brought Magnolia cupcakes because I didn't prepare cake.  I made pumpkin mousse instead.  Note to self: birthday celebrations require cake in one form or another even if the birthday girl expresses no interest.  Otherwise, it's LAME.  A candle makes it nicer, too.

Gracing The Fridge

There was a little debacle at the Met Museum's main store last week wherein three Korean girls wildly snatched things from bags that were not their own and then smacked things out from each other's hands all while hissing at one another in Korean.  I'm sure it was a pleasant experience for all the visitors around us.  Those three girls were my cousin, her friend, and yours truly.  You see, my cousin insisted on getting a set of magnets for me but I was fine without because seriously, what do I need extra magnets for?

All that embarrassing commotion we caused at the store was for nothing because I noticed these hanging on our fridge after she split town.  They're magnets that look like the Met's little metal admission pins.  They're pretty, no {+}?  The museum issues a different color pin every day, last Thursday's being lilac.  Yes, lilac!  I've always found the assortment of colors quite charming so when I see them on our fridge, I can't help but smile.  It's also pretty funny that they're positioned next to cows.  Moo.

If you're wondering about those kids in the picture, that's one of Soeur's high school friends and her then fiance on the night of their engagement.  They tied the knot in January but I'm pretty sure they're just as, if not more, ga-ga goo-goo in love with one another.  Love makes you goofy.

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.

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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.