SEOUL

Photo diary August 14 - Sept 2

It was only a few years ago that my parents threw down a fiasco with my decision to live in Seoul. And this fact, along with other muddy complications stripped me down to the bare bones of vulnerability. Korea consisted of enlightening conversations, connection, and compounded full-circle moments as I walked the streets of eedae (이대) hand-in-hand with my mom. It was that much more heartwarming that I could peruse old grounds with her.

Fully aware that life is only perfect in moments of time, I enjoyed them all. Pain, joy, apologies, forgiveness where I felt like I was wronged, choosing love and disallowing hate — these were all valuables I plundered. I remember entering a room where I thought I would fume with anger upon locking eyes with somebody, yet within moments, a supernatural release, and my heart melted with compassion towards them. At the end of it all, I conclude that Love is a powerful thing. 

And if healing and love was at the forefront of it all, I messed up 100 times in my own vices. Fear is the crisp representation of pain that has not been properly addressed. Fear multiplies pain over and over again until halted with a remedy. And there are always remedies. I learned that if people hurt you, people also heal you. That is, if people have it in them to incite pain (we all do), then the opposite must be true and it is people who are agents of healing. Since Korea, I've taken some hard looks inside and I found myself returning to the only reservoir that has consistently embraced me with all my mess, a reservoir that has allowed me to trust people, to love people, and to try again — a reservoir of grace. I am drinking from that fountain incessantly these days, and it is by grace that I can come around to look upon myself and others more compassionately. 

All that aside, my time there was one for the books. I loved eating spontaneous meals with my mom, my childhood friend and her mom. Getting beauty treatments, and glasses, and everything else one must checklist in Korea. Reconnecting. Watching the movie "Taxi Driver." Sleeping in mosquito nets. Looking at people in the eye and expressing my love and gratitude to them directly. Blasting 90's and 00's tunes in the car and belting out Keyshia Cole and Mariah Carey. Leather sandals fully soaked by the rain, umbrellas near flipping, side-by-side with my loved ones...I definitely expected to be miserable in sweltering heat, only to realise that fall was just around the corner. It was a beautiful surprise. After all, it is chaos and left-field turn of events that often make trips so rare and meaningful. Korea is never what I expect it to be, but there's always a divine weightiness to which I can look back some time later and see the significance of it all. I can't wait to go back some day, and someday soon I hope.