Being suspended in an organism
I woke up this morning and the skies were blue. For the first time in a long time. Spotted here and there with a white puff. I ate KFC for lunch. Sometimes nothing sounds so good as a chicken sandwich. Spent the afternoon reading down by the river. It was cool and there was a gentle breeze blowing. I just sat there reading for five hours.
Today and yesterday were like night and day. Yesterday all my plans caved. I began the day pissy and ended it pissy. I accomplished little and felt in a slump. Today I decided to make no plans, to just relax. And I did. All day long. I worried about nothing. And I feel great now.
I started thinking about my relationship with Korea. Its in a constant flux. Its as if I am a germ in the body of this nation and it can’t quite decide how to deal with me.
The whole nation feels like it is all the same organism. Truly. When I leave my apartment and walk down the street, I feel as if I have merely stepped from one room to the next in a gigantic living mansion. Even when I go downtown or out of town, there retains this pseudo familiarity. This sense of pervading safety. As if I am still at home. I wonder if that makes any sense. It is such a contrast from the US, where everyone is walled up in their castle and the streets are open battlegrounds. Perhaps this has also to do with the fact that I am always on foot here. I am always connected with the area around me, whereas in the US every place is seperated by fifteen or twenty minutes of isolated car travel.
Living in this organism as a foreign entity has, I do not doubt, effected the way my mind functions. It has lulled me into a vague numbness. I have difficulty caring about much of anything. Tonight I watched the movie The Wind that Shakes the Barley and it awoke within me a sorrow for humanity and reminded me of my burden of responsibility to live a worthy life. It shook off, at least momentarily, the mud covering my eyes. When I stepped outside, the air smelled different, the people looked different. My relationship with the organism had changed. I felt again, apart from it, seperate. I’m sure this sounds very odd. Perhaps this explains the intense homesickness Koreans often feel when they travel abroad. In spite of its chaotic urban sprawl, lack of design or beauty, foul pocket stenches, and dirty air, there is something comforting about living here, akin, perhaps, to being suspended in a vat of warm gelatin.
