The anxiety of the left-hand drive and fleeting mortality
Timeless sea breezes, that for aeons have blown ancient rocks, you are purest space coming from afar… (Rainer Maria Rilke, Song of the Sea)
What's on your bucket list?
While the term "bucket list" brings to mind something super aspirational, or your childhood dreams yet to be fulfilled, I'd say it's remarkable I managed to check off "left-hand drive experience", and learned a lot about myself in the meantime. Very importantly, I survived, and am still rather confused by the flashing amber light that paired with the green in Jeju Island, because the amber lifted, but didn't turn to red. It went back to green.
I spent two weeks in a land where I couldn't speak the language; I was reminded of the joy, ephemerality, and tinged sorrow that accompanied seasonal blossoms. I was humbled by the crashing waves that hit against the volcanic rocks, drawn in by the rhythmic cadence and rushing seafoam, and once again fell in love with the sea. But adventure has a limit, when it comes to paid leave, so I came back home with three bags of chili powder, shredded dried pollack, and fermented shrimp - because that's how we roll these days.
I'm curious: what's on your bucket list?
Kimchi, in its early form as cabbage and brine. Bucket, get it?
Being mortal, and hard truths
I finally completed Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal: Medicine and what matters in the end". I struggled to read it, with every page reminding me of the last few days my mother spent in the hospital. The recollection that we all had hoped against hope following her sudden discovery of Stage 4 colon cancer, the wild look in my mother's eyes, and the "yes!" she uttered, when the doctor on-call asked us, "if (my ma) needed resuscitation, do we do all we can?" because her condition was so bad, and we didn't know she was bleeding out at home prior to rushing her to the hospital. The denial against the truth of what was happening in front of our eyes, that the rock of our lives, my mother was dying.
The hard conversations we put off; we didn't know better. My 8-year-old's memory of her and I on my parents' bed, where I cried knowing as a child, that my parents would leave this world before me. My attendance at wakes of some temple members or their close family, seeing the coffins and the bereaved, feel at times like a rite of passage and a reminder that no one can escape the inevitable. I do wonder, and I really feel it isn't too late at all, if we could consider being frank about the trade-offs we were willing to make or not make, what we want our family members to know about us, to care about, and be able to try to provide meaningful experiences towards the end. Not merely put things off because speaking of death is taboo.
In the past 48 hours, I have been:
Listening to: Jay Park's MOMMAE, EUNHA's Blossom, the rustle of hello panda packets in the office
Reading: Why we lose friends - A long read, but the writer hit the nail on the spot, where we paid so much attention to The Great Resignation (for work) but didn't see the signals for The Great Pandemic Friendship Reckoning.
Watching: Bridgerton, and feeling like this second season fell flat from expectations. Also, watched Dune on the flight to Korea, and who told me this was good?! Loved the whole show but didn't expect to have no conclusion?
Always wondering,
Medhā