Another Sunday,

An older korean woman came up to me the other sunday. She keeps coming back to me just to say hi. I'm easy to spot obviously in a small place. She has short no nonsense hair, lithe, but hiding in somber business clothing, mirthful but currently sad eyes. She was burdened and said she could use prayer. I said I would pray for her and she gave me her business card. I caught it up like a beverage and took it home with me. And finally emailed her Saturday night. Then she came up to me this Sunday and grabbed my hand and held it and continued to press her hands into mine and thanked me over and over again. She kept saying, something happened to me this week. Your words were a comfort. They were a blessing. I couldn't quite get her to tell me what happened and when she went to explain something I couldn't understand, she dropped my hand and walked off like something she would come back to when she'd sorted herself out again. She prayed for the service and she started to cry, and I prayed with her in quiet and I thought what she said was beautiful, she wants Jeju to be the land of milkandhoney. Then when the service was over she grabbed me again and asked me what I was doing. I didn't have any definitive plans except with the 20somethings but I said, nothing and she said, come with me quickly. We'll go to lunch. She literally dragged me off in a minute flat and her eldest?son begged off and she explained since he didn't speak english he didn't want to come.

She drove me into the city and off a side street into a charming house turned restaurant, where there were private dining rooms seperated by sliding wood doors. We sat on the woodfloor and had warm water. She ordered us steaming pots of chicken stuffed with dates and rice in a broth, and a medium sized abalone. There were seaweed sides, fern, potato, minnows, 2 kinds of kimchi, and a few others. Afterward there were small sweet cakes with a sweet filling and hot tea.

She said she could tell i was spiritual and that's why she chose me and then she began to tell me her story. Her husband,  may or may not have been the governor of a particular place? She uttered the word Kairos which totally thrilled me. She's met mother teresa when she lived in Italy for 4 years. Her first meeting went something like- well you know, they take on names. I said, yes. She said, well when I met her i said, I have no name. She said, Mother Teresa laughed and laughed.  I can see it and it's pretty awesome to picture though I'm sorrily conveying it. Needless to say her western name was thusforward Teresa.

It was hard to figure out how fast to talk and bridging our accents on spiritual topics. To convey spiritual desolation and the consolation of new believers... to say we are a creation subject to frustration, but that we hope in God. She feels a burden for the people here and she showed me how she illustrates hope and despair to students who she shares the gospel with- which was beautiful. I was a bit blown over by her honesty and the depth to which we needed or did travel in scrunched up faces and very carefully listening ears. And talking to a couple people about the experience they all sort of gape open their mouths and say- wow, she opened up to you? You're a foreigner. I was like I don't know. Yes? But then I'm also like, frickin YES! Awesome. God is awesome.
She drove me home and I promised to meet with her again, to hear the history of her people and to pray for her.

I dashed upstairs to my new flatmate M, since i promised to meet her at 2 and was already late. We took a walk to the bustop and we saw a magpie dying on the ground. Something I had just 2months prior imagined happening, but instead of by a bush it was out in the open and staring straight at us in the grounds of a community center, twitching, possibly it's neck broken? She wanted to do something for it and I said, well what can we do but say, Go with God magpie? I said, he has his friends who are with him... and then my head already swimming a bit, we took a long busride and in the accompanying 4 hours M began to tell me her story also...

nexttime.
k.

I keep meaning to,

blog about the struggle and release (the plateau i hit and the new place) and whatever but i suppose you just need to give it up sometimes and blog about otherthings, in the midst of annoying students that make your mind scream "i hate these kids!" and immediately you start wrestling with the Lord in your mind as you say AahApple and ok take out your book! (i have a couple students i'm giving independent help to and ohman! "teacher, game yes, book NO" and "yongaru NO" the other day as i was setting up in my classroom i got a flashofaheadache and i asked, who's there, and i heard 'the destroyer'... i was like anything like that better not be hanging out in my classroom. GET OUT RIGHT NOW. i have a hard enough time with all of these pulsing emotional vessels as it is, but anyway here, take a look at these photos-- ah, lilacs growing on my walk to school. couldn't resist. mmm peaceful. and the bowl i got for $1. i know right. there's a traditional ceramic store on my busroute from church and everyday my eye is pulled thataway and i resist.

and here are my new curtains. these ones were the overthetop purchase as i meant this to be a cheap and economic roomdivider. sure i stitched them myself and they are floor length and i did go into a fabric and hanbuk market place all by myself but... i failed to haggle and was just like ahhh get me out of here. this place is freaking me out.

and here are the curtains i love, enough to say the photos dont do them justice. these i will be taking back with me. they ground the wall and make a good contrast to the detail of the wallpaper... i think my whole subconscious mission i realized was to counter the ocean with as many earthy and warm elements as possible. it started with the red fans but then it kept going.

keep reading if you'd like to hear about my frivolous thoughts on the weekend, also i'm cooking chicken and i was delighted to find pesto sauce so there's that. ok so the weekend was great. the weather was warm. outings abounded. which made the week coming up glaring in all its laborness... everyone seems to be feeling a little aggressive and grumpy. j and i mused that because we are always suppressing our emotions for the kids or lets be honest we'd be yelling at them and slapping their difficult faces, we become vulnerable and angry that we're not getting our own ways. and our egos as much as we like to be selfless and sacrificial for the children (ahem)... are freaking out. i don't want to be here either kid! teaching, hard. being a student, hard. grrrrr! and then the week seems forever. the hours incalculably long. wednesday. what it's only wednesday! ugh! slump! and then you think just saturday i was on a bus to a mongolian horseriding show... getting agitated about the realities of circus life and hoping the horses and children were treated well. and eating grilled fish and drinking cider while looking out into the wonderous night. followed by the next day of church and fellowship, and more flowers and ocean walks and meandering and cute oldmen at folklore museums wondering why such beautiful women aren't out with men and posing us in front of the rather handsome male manniquins- making us wonder equally why as well- but the ratio here if we were even to discuss practically 60% to 40%... and then couple that with the island fever of drinking, partying and reverting back to adolescene and it drops even lower. but anyway then the beach and more food and more wandering and no wonder that monday becomes vile. but then it's also hard to be continually and daily present wherever you are. so many things are pulling you backward and forward in time. it's better just to not think and just be... but then that's another blog and i must get out of here after a lovely video chat to the ocean and just be at the ocean and not at school. at least for 40minutes. and live there in that space until the next one.

xo,k.

Brief,

Had a moment in church, which God doesn't often speak to me in this way- I heard this guy (it was his birthday that very day) sitting next to me say "I'm not a good christian"... it was something in reference to communion and church and i don't know. He said it seriously as if he was falling short or with a i mean to say this casually but- . It had broad implications and it crawled right into my skin and i couldn't focus for the entire service. All i could do was stare at his pamphlet and imagine what I thought God was telling me to tell him "he doesn't want you to be a 'good christian'. He wants you to know him." over and over and over as i reasoned with God that He might not really want me to say what i thought i had to say... but by the end of the service where the pastor was dismally bringing up hell and eternal apartness after a dry and bulletpoint laden sermon, I got more and more agitated until finally during communion (which he didn't take) I reached over and asked if i could borrow his bulletin and wrote "I know this is weird but i had to tell you, he doesn't want you to be a good christian, He just wants you to know Him. [smiley face :)]" He read it and just sort of good naturedly shrugged. Like hmm, ok. Not weird but you know ok, i'll take it kind of thing. And i just contemplated crawling into a hole. Cringe.

I hope it struck you know? The target. The lie that was, i thought, setting into his heart- But anyway I had to look away as i didn't want to know what he would do with the bulletin by the end of the service since he turned it over after standing up for a song- look away! Anyway, then to remind each other of the exchange for the next almost 5 hours-- I through no fault of my own, sat across from him through lunch talking about idle things- south africa, renewing contracts... and then near each other at a coffee house and by the park... it was one of those sucked into the orbit kind of days and i kept bringing up the fact i had to get back to the beach like an idiot with a tick or just flaunting the awesome but far away location in which i lived until i finally tore myself away and said, ok i have to GO. bye BYE BYE. (severing threads and magnetic pulls as i went). He JUST WANTS YOU TO KNOW HIM. over and over and over.

Anyway, i didn't mean for that to be so long as i was just going to post pictures... I was reminded to tell you about the old woman who came up to me on the tree lined walkway by the dry riverbed- how she stopped me and started talking to me, gesturing at my height, touching my sides and stomach and my arms- she seemed to be bathing me in this goodnatured concern and commentary. I hope i wasn't deceived but i felt such a pulse of love and knowing that i got all emotional. I would've hugged her as my arms touched hers if it would've been right. But as it was I bowed and smiled and tried to tell her where i lived and they always ignore the one phrase i know which is "i dont understand korean"... it's an experience i suppose in which how far can my physical presence communicate the heart of what i have to say? Besides kids and boundaries which is a wholenother story of needing to do. dammit cat is eating my curtain. bad kitten! nevermind.

k.

ps. im eating this soup thing with reduced pork and seaweed with redbeans/rice... and yes, its frickin' delicious. i can't explain it.

We're celebrating the departure of, well that already sounds funny. But i think with contracts the way they are we all sort of view it as a sentence of some sort- so she 'escaped' and 'got out' and happens to be thinking about moving to iceland to open a korean restaurant with her husband so ... we're excited even though walking in monday and her being gone just blows obviously- yet another change in the notes of a far away workplace. We went out and had bbq pork and soju and a strange yogurt thing with shaved ice. J did her monologue since the k teachers didn't make it out to see and scandalized at least one of the teachers there who is pretty conservative. J and J both went to see fortune tellers before they set out on their journeys oddly enough, and we talked a little bit about church and k said she was only a sunday church goer. I heard her, and there was some sort of pain there i couldn't reach. It was frustrating because it was the sort of thing I wanted to hear more about- it was such a plain admission of ambivalence, that i wonder why she goes at all... searching i know, for something or the routine's a comfort? But still. And then we called it a night.

So k dropped us off at the top of the hill because for some reason that 5minutes down the hill and back up just does her in so we walked and the night was warm. J said that p and c were meeting on the beach and that i should come. I said ok. This happens to me, to all of us perhaps? Where we just get sucked into someones orbit and we can't leave. It's not even tormenting though bothersome maybe, but suddenly we find ourselves just going along, which is how last week i found myself at the bar and dance club. But anyway, we head down and the wine flowing. I have a sip. We get on the subject of cartwheels and i do one. Which was a good feeling to overcome that initial how do i defy gravity. I put my feet in the water. I look out at the calm sea. You know, we're having moments. Because it's that sort of night. C, he leaves. The girls start saying things like this is the best night of my life, and let's go swimming, and on and on into some sort of ecstacy of being to which when they say, isn't this excellent, i cheekily say, eh, so so. We laugh. I crack them up. I remain sarcastic as they exhalt in their new found loose carefreeness. We walk along the beach and out to the lighthouse that marks the jetty. They remind me of temple women talking sex, talking objects of fertility, of men and women, more wine, and dancing out at the sea.

I wonder at them quietly, contemplating, taking the dark in. I am silent. They goad me and pass the wine to me, thinking that if i have more, if i just... i will be like them, dance like them, come into some sort of way of being with them. It's always been this way with me and people like this, a tension, a love but a gulf, I never cross. Whatever it is, I remain on the edge. I think, is this really the best night? Have they never had nights like this before? Is it really their first? Am i witnessing not just drunken revels but something more they've never had. After all we're on an island. We've come here, wanderers, each of us in moments of discovery. Is this theirs?

And then I walk along the wall, and they above me. I absentmindedly put up the hood of my long black sweater. It draws their attention. Suddenly I'm legolas from lordoftherings. No, J, says, she's jesus. It makes Pocket uncomfortable. But J isn't swayed. Surely i am. She says, she's a wise woman. They both agree. They climb down the wall ahead of me and i see a narrow bamboo pole. I pick it up and then decide they'll get a kick out of it, to go with my sage like ways. They laugh. They see it immediately. J says, the Lord is my shepard. She doesn't know the rest, but that it was something dear to her when she was young. Something she walked away from to the universal embrace of 'divine' and 'source'. Pocket doesn't have a faith. She resists. I said, do you want me to recite it for you? J says, yes! I do. I can feel the charge of emotion as I speak it. I feel it resonate and floor them quiet. J says, I'm going to cry. I love it. Pocket says I love the part about the oil on the head. I say, it's a blessing. It's the oil of joy. We walk on. I break the mood with hamlet. We talk idle things. They love me. They pour their love on me. They want me to go to Seoul with them. I literally say, it's not my path. J smiles knowing. But still. But still. They say. Come.

And then Pocket asks if I go to church. If I'm religous. Not one of those judmental places? Something different? I say I pray for people. J says, she does. She has healing hands. Do you want her to bless you says J? Pocket says yes, that she could do with a blessing. I say ok. I put my hand over her head and i feel the warmth come into my palm. I sit in silence and see her in a vast field of flowers. I say, you don't know Him but He knows you and cares for you. He knows your worth and your value... something else, and then a simple end. Not too much. Just a sip. J says, Pocket, you'll accept the divine into your heart when you're ready, the truth of what k said. Pocket nods. She feels bare I can sense. We talk a little bit more, but the mood has shifted to something heavy and thoughtful, and then we break apart quiet and somber and go our seperate ways.