i'm sitting here...waiting for something inspiring or creative to pop into my head..the very obstacle that has kept me from writing here for so long...
i feel like i shouldn't write the negative, the melancholy, anything except uplifting and wonderful things, and yet, those aren't the things that fill my life these days...
when i was writing prolifically last year, kimberly commented that she loved that my eyes were wide open. since my return, my gaze has narrowed.
winter was very difficult, it was a plunging in to the depths of winter's cold reality, in a huge city, after nourishing my heart and soul in warm, beautiful places. i also returned to find a very different experience awaiting me than i had left behind.
spring is here now, and the dull gray cloud has lifted quite a bit~for me, for my friends, and all over the city. it's been raining, which koreans apparently find very depressing, but for me i find it encouraging as the trees and roadside plants and parks explode with color.
yesterday i was supposed to go to a demo of world-reknowned skateboarders with a korean friend, and meet other friends there~it seems most of my friends here are skaters. but it was raining, and so the demo was cancelled. and so, alone i went into the city and headed for the galleries. i came upon a photo exhibit of postwar cambodia, which of course stirred my emotions and memories and love of that amazing country. then i stepped outside and saw the "around the world in 80 days" photo exhibit, with poster-sized photos displayed down the city street. i meandered slowly through the images, the rain wetting my hair and soaking my clothes, and smiled inwardly at the images of people and places. the rain didn't bother me at all. i had a lovely lunch of baguette and brie at a "gourmet deli", and took a walk through the bookstore. later, moon and hyeon su, who were freaking out that i was out in the rain, picked me up to drive me home. i thought, as i waited, of how different the atmosphere in the car would be, as moon has acquired a great collection of trance and hard house. instead, though, he was playing beautiful piano concertos. it seems the rain had cast a spell on him, too. it slows you down in the throngs of the surging city.
i cook a lot again, one of my favorite past times, and made a tempeh korma for them last night. my little routine is to make a big dish for myself (and whoever else happens to be around) on sunday nght, and nibble at it all week. i eat very little korean food these days, preferring to buy all the imported products from the carrefour market across the street and bathe myself in culinary decadence. i enjoy a salad each day with dried apricots, walnuts, and feta cheese, and my weekly main dish of pad thai, a curry, or whatever strikes me, and my bananas and yogurt.
so, life doesn't suck~it's just a different pace~it's a solitary time, and although i've lived in solitude times before, i've not tried it whilst living in such an urban place. i know the lessons i take from this experience will be magnificent.
so anyway, that's my story. what's yours?
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