The Heart in a Bottle by Oliver Jeffers

In truth, nothing was the same. She forgot about the stars… and taking notice of the sea. She was no longer filled with all the curiosities of the world and didn’t take much notice of anything… other than how heavy… and awkward the bottle had become.

 

Children books are awesome.  Children book writers have peculiar minds.  Respectable, respectful, simplified, complicated.  It takes something special to be able to regurgitate a jaded, cynical thought, which one is bound to have from years of experience, into something beautiful and childlike for children to read and giggle at, and for adults to read into and ponder.  The layers of meaning give adults to think about, to briefly feel the passage of time, and to try to embody the innocence of a child.  Well, that, of course, only occurs to people who take the time to read children books.  That's a whole different discussion.

Brief einer Unbekannten by Stefan Zweig

Letter from an Unknown Woman was written by Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig and published in 1922.  It is of one woman's unrequited love for a man who does not know of her existence despite the fact that she has been in his living quarters on three separate occasions, one of which results in the birth of their child.  After the child's death and before her impending death, she writes him a letter with details of her entire life that revolved around him.  At the end of this novella, he finishes the letter and barely recollects only the faintest memory of this woman.  I read the Korean translation, and mind you, German books translated into Korean consistently suck.  If one attempts to retain all the original meaning by keeping every adjective and adverb, not to mention descriptive figure of speech, it just becomes too syntactically convoluted in Korean.

독일에 한 동안 살게 될 딸아이 위해 아버지께서 책을 여러권 장만해 주셨어요.  특히 한글로 옮겨진 독일어 소설을 많이 두고 가주셨는데요. 그 중 물론 헤르만 헤세도 있었죠.  시키는 일은 절대 바로바로 안하더라도 때가 되면 부모님의 뜻을 이해하고 언젠가는 꼭하는 딸은 그 책들을 한동안 훑어 보지도 않았어요.  그래도 가까이에 있는것 만으로 '언젠가는 읽어야지'라고 생각은 했을까요.  그렇게 거의 한 해가 지나 겨울이 다시 다가오네요.

독일인의 사랑이라는 표지가 깔끔하고 이쁜 책이 눈에 들어오더라고요.  집 밖을 나서는데 책 한권은 밀란에 가져가야겠다 싶어 그 조그마한 책을 가방에 넣었어요.  항상 그러하듯 밀란에 있는 내내 책을 펴보지도 않았죠.  집에 돌아오는 길에 마자막 기차를 놓쳐 역에서 세시간 정도 기다려야 했는데 그래서 책을 읽기 시작했어요.  제 자신이 생각하는 사랑이라는 것과는 너무 다른 사랑을 나누더라고요.

그리고 낯선 여인의 편지를 읽게됬어요.  사랑한다고 생각이 들게하는 친구랑 편안한 주말을 보내는 동안 그 소설을 처음부터 끝까지 읽었어요.  그 아이의 손을 잡으며, 그 아이의 어깨에 기대어, 그 아이가 나의 다리를 어루만지는 동안, 그리고 그 아이의 머리를 쓰다듬으며 그렇게 책을 한 장 한 장 읽었는데요. 친가댁의 전라도 사투리를 빌리자면 정말 답답합디다.  짠하고 짜잔한 것을 지나 짜증스러웠어요.  어떻게 그렇게 못나게 사랑을 할 수 있는지 이해가 않가더라고요.  어떻게 그렇게 자기애가 없고 자기 자신에게 못할 짓을 하는지.  그런데 어떻게 생각해보면 우리 모두 그럴까요.

Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel

Those three words
Are said too much
They're not enough

I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see

Yolky goodness on a skillet

Now that her appetite is annoyingly fickle, her favorite meal of the day is breakfast.  She often feels indifferent towards lunch, especially since her shamtastic lunch buddy is deployed.  By the time she gets back home from work, all she wants to do is take a sip of wine and fall asleep, which has been increasingly difficult to do as well.

What is proving to be really exasperating is that she feels no hunger nor cravings.  She used to draw pleasure from figuring out exactly what she wants to taste, at what temperature, of which texture.  And then she would eat just that.  It used to be all too easy to satisfy her appetite.  Nowadays, if her stomach sends hunger cues on rare occasions, she would want to eat something that is impossible to find nor cook in Germany.

 

Eating breakfast has become the most satisfying activity of the day.  She gets ever so slightly hungry after PT and that is reason enough for her to fix herself a full meal.  It always ends up being something rather unconventional for breakfast, because she would crave a T-bone steak or a bowl of spaghetti.  Whatever.  Girl's gotta eat.  No matter what, she cracks two eggs on the frying pan and fries them over easy.  Because yolky eggs are awesome.

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

For all who got to love him saw always only the one side in him. Many loved him as a refined and clever and interesting man, and were horrified and disappointed when they had come upon the wolf in him. And they had to because Harry wished, as every sentient being does, to be loved as a whole and therefore it was just with those whose love he most valued that he could least of all conceal and belie the wolf.

[...] There is God and the devil in them; the mother's blood and the father's; the capacity for happiness and the capacity for suffering; and in just such state of enemity and entanglement were the wolf and man in Harry. And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment's happiness is flung so high and dazzlingly over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment.

[...] Their life consists of a perpetual tide, unhappy and torn in pain, terrible and meaningless, unless one is ready to see its meaning in just those rare experiences, acts, thoughts and works that shine out above the chaos of such a life. To such men the desperate and horrible thought has come that perhaps the whole of human life is but a bad joke, a violent and ill-fated abortion of the primal mother, a savage and dismal catastrophe of nature.

Recipe for happiness

Cha'An in St. Marks

Ingredients:


An appetite
Gratitude
Delicious food
Good company
Delightful conversations
Genuine love for food, not only as sustenance,
but as source of pleasure


Delicious treats from Little Italy

In-N-Out double-doubles



Tapas at Boqueria

Peter Luger's in Brooklyn



















Scandinavian in Financial District

1. Begin by preparing an appetite.  This may be done by having a healthy lifestyle, which includes, but is not limited to regular exercise and enough sleep.
2. Mix appetite with gratitude and delicious food.
3. Carefully fold in good company and delightful conversations into the mix.
4. End with a sprinkle of love for food.
5. Enjoy. 

Petrossian caviar

Pasta in Rome, Italy

Englischer Garten, Munich, Germany

This is happiness, genuine and untainted bliss.  She has been lying under a tree long enough for the sunrays to encroach on her sheets.  The blazing summer sun is tickling her toes.  She sits up, pulls her knees into her chest, and crosses her arms around her folded legs.  Curling up into a ball like this has become a habit.  She brings her overlapped forearms closer to apply more pressure on her chest.

She felt the urge to run away yesterday.  She wanted to be surrounded by people whom she does not know nor care about.  She craved to hear the silence of a bustling city.  These uncontrollable impulses are few and far between, but when one comes to existence, there is no way of getting rid of it without acting upon it.  Like the recurring compulsion to chop her hair off.  Twice has she already gotten a bob cut, because all of a sudden her hair became too cumbersome and she would have pulled out every strand if they did not get cut.  Last year, she donated 13 inches of her hair and got a pixie cut, which lasted only a few weeks, until she shaved it all off.  It is like an itch that one must scratch.

The Englischer Garten is scratching that itch for her.  She thinks back to her college years and remembers how refreshing it was to skip class and read in a park.  Or explore the streets of Manhattan.  The simple act of drinking bubble tea in St. Marks or windowshopping in Soho instead of sitting in a dark lecture hall used to make her so happy.  The rebel inside her thrived off of such occasions.  It made her feel like a free individual.  She feels like a free individual right now, however illusory it may be.

Such Great Heights by The Postal Service

I am thinking it's a sign

that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images

and when we kiss they're perfectly aligned.

I have to speculate

that God himself did make us into corresponding shapes

like puzzle pieces from the clay.

True, it may seem like a stretch

but it's thoughts like this that catch my troubled head when you're away

when I am missing you to death.

 "Our imperfections are so perfect for eachother."

Four day march, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Is that it? Are you fucking serious?  What are you idiots so happy about? Get out of my face. Her face is burning hot from the sun, but more from her fury. She leaves the crowd and walks away far enough to find a spot where she can be alone. She loses control over her emotions as soon as she does. What if life is exactly like this at the end? What if you endure so much pain with hopes that it will all be worth it at the end, but the finish line doesn't mean jack shit?

During this past month, her brain has been slowly but surely depleting all its available serotonin, all the while becoming dysfunctional with replenishing it. Her mind is now at its weakest state, coupled with fatigue, in generating any positive thoughts. She feels no happiness, no intrinsic reward, no camaraderie, only the piercing pain in her hip flexors and lightheadedness from dehydration.  Her eyes are brimming with tears but she can see the captains standing in line to get on the bus to Camp Heumensoord.  She wipes her tears the best she can and joins them.

The next day, she uncomfortably waddles into McDonald's with a huge appetite.  At first, she gets excited about ordering a Happy Meal.  The Dutch fast food, however, is no fast food at all.  Her already short temper has absolutely zero tolerance with inefficiency at the moment.  The server is completely oblivious to this fact as she clumsily paces about, assembling the meal one piece at a time.  By the time she gets what she has ordered, she has lost all her appetite.  She throws her tray onto the table where three captains are already eating, and slumps into her chair.

"I am not even hungry."

The three captains glance at each other.  She admits she has been temperamental throughout this whole trip.  She is grateful that the captains have tolerated her rudeness thus far, and knows that she should not be pushing it any further.  What healthy Liz would do, she does not seem to have the energy to do though.  All she wants to do is sulk.  After an awkward moment of silence, one of the captains pick up the minion toy that came with the meal.

"This will take drastic measures," he sighs.

Just as she is about to ask him what he means, he shakes the minion in front of her face and squeaks in minion voice,"Please eat your food."

She bursts out laughing and feels a surge of happiness.  Despite her claim that she is most content and comfortable alone, moments like this really make her appreciate having good people in her life.

Old man, Vienna, Austria

It is an absolutely gorgeous day in Vienna, warm and breezy enough to walk through alleys and get lost.  She sees the ferris wheel in the distance and walks towards it.  Prater is partially an amusement park, a thriving and lively spot to check out.  As she passes by couples and families walking hand in hand, she suddenly realizes how alone she is.  It sure is lame to be at an amusement park all by oneself.  She notices the exterior of Pratersauna, which looks colorless and boring during the daytime.  It is supposed to be an up-and-coming club with quite a selection of Techno and Electro music.  She was on the fence about going out tonight, but her mother asked her to return to the hotel before sundown and she happily decides to comply.  Plus, if being at a club alone is anything like being alone at an amusement park, it will probably be awkward for her.

On her way back to the hotel, she takes a detour to find the stables where the Lipizzaner stallions are resting. Earlier today, she was spellbound by these beautiful white horses of the Spanish Riding School.  They have been trained to lift their front hooves into the air, standing nearly verticle on two legs, unveiling their true height and elegance.  At this very moment of vulnerability, these majestic creatures would kick off their back hooves to seemingly levitate for a split second.  Her tattoo artist could not have chosen a more extraordinary animal to draw on her back. 

"Dear, are you lost?"

She turns around and sees a grandfatherly man in his fifties or sixties smiling at her.  For some reason, she does not perceive any threat.  Oh, there is a reason, her whimsical naivety.  She explains that she is looking for the stables and he takes her there.  He tells her that he used to live in California and work for government agencies as a translator.  Basically, he used to be all that.  Because she misses her chance to politey part ways with him, she continues to walk with him through the city center.  Because she has no excuse not to and she is hungry, she accepts his request to have dinner with him.

They step inside the St. Stephen's Cathedral.  The interior is plastered with projections called Chromotopias designed by Victoria Coeln.  Strange, her furrowed eyebrows read.  He urges her towards the rows of lit candles and asks her to light one for their "enduring friendship."  The slight smile that has been on her lips immediately vanishes as she firmly declines.  It is getting a bit weird.

On the way to the restaurant, he makes a lighthearted comment that she is awfully sweet.  Perhaps he was simply trying to woo her.  Little did he know that this is one of her worst pet peeves.  When somebody tells her that she is nice, extroverted, bubbly, sweet, or anything along those lines, unless she feels that this person knows her through and through, she gets extremely defensive.  Yes, it is a compliment, but she is against misleading people and setting unreasonable expectations.  She drops her pleasant attitude, glares straight into his eyes, and says in a humorless tone, "Don't tell me I'm sweet.  You don't know me."

The rest of the night goes rather unpleasantly for him.  Once she began noticing deceit, she stops being agreeable.  He attempts to earn back her sympathy by telling his life story, of being manipulated by his mother, being married to a woman he did not love, and ending up all alone.  Instead of indulging him, she takes every opportunity to make uncomfortably poignant remarks.  She walks away from him, without knowledge of his original or truest intent of approaching her.  All she can think about is her broken promise to get back to the hotel before sundown.

Chagall, Zurich, Switzerland

It is another weekend of the bitter German winter.  For the past two weeks, she has only been at work, in her house, and on the roads inbetween.  She has rarely seen the the sun, given that she is indoors during most of the ten hours between sunrise and  sunset.  With a bag of apples, her DSLR, and a bottle of water in hand, she drives south to Zurich, Switzerland.  Driving on the autobahn is therapeutic for her.

She arrives at the Kunsthaus, a modern art museum.  She finds Lichtenstein's dotted paintings, Warhol's soup cans, Picasso's curvy lady, and Mondrian's canvas of lines and primary colors.  The blue eeriness of The Wedding Candles by Marc Chagall especially draws her in.  This reminds her that the stained glass windows of Fraumünster are by Chagall as well.  Everything seems to be at her fingertips.

She catches her eyes surveying the room for a spot to loop a belt around. She catches her mind wondering the extent of the ripple effects if such action is seen through completion. At a minimum, everybody in the unit would hear the news however distant and irrelevant she may be to each individual. There will probably be a stand down, this thought especially makes her chuckle a little bit. Then there will be some people who will really take it to heart. Perhaps they will feel responsible and live with unreasonable guilt for a period of time. This halts her thought process. It is not something she wishes to happen. The real motivation to discard the idea altogether is, let's see, she counts with her fingers, the well being of four people in Germany, and of course friends and family stateside and back home.

He will probably turn his phone on as soon as the airplane lands in Frankfurt next week. He will be both amused and perhaps annoyed at the amount of Facebook messages she has been sending him during his absence. And then, in this hypothetical situation, he would somehow hear the news or notice the flood of posts on his newsfeed and pursue an answer to his nervous inquiry. She does not and will not speculate how much she means to him, but without a doubt, he will be heavily affected. His potential misery is reason enough for her to stop entertaining the idea.

Of course, the whole thing is never a real option. She knows all to well.

Film roll no. 1, 2, 3

Up until her recent experimentation with film photography, in her mind, taking pictures was all about control. She really likes control. Although she had to surrender her control over most things in her life, she will not let go of her grip on her expectations and emotions.  At least not willingly nor easily. For that reason, candid photography is not her cup of tea. Unless it is absolutely certain that the spontaneous and unannounced snap would lead to the desired result, she almost always spends a minimum of two minutes to set up her frame. Accordingly, her favorite subjects of photography are inanimate objects, which give her all the freedom to reposition, adjust angles, and layer to create a full frame of deliberate composition. This also allows her to capture images with meaningful symbols quietly imbedded everywhere.

This past summer, she ordered a plastic film camera well known for lomography. The package arrived shortly after, but she did not dare open the box for couple of months. She finally took it apart and examined each of the twenty something pieces that came in the deluxe set.

Baby steps. The 20mm fisheye, 38mm super wide, 110mm telephoto, 55mm wide angel are left unchallenged, as she only takes the basic lens to Amsterdam with her. He takes interest in her camera as well and together, they spend the weekend taking pictures of memories they want to keep. Their weekend gets stored in a total of three film rolls, or so they thought.

When she hears back from the studio, she learns that the films are mostly underexposed, lending only six developed photographs. It is unfortunate that there will be no tangible record of the moments they wished to capture, but this makes her cherish the six photographs even more.  She picks three that came out best and gives it for him to keep.

Photography will always bring a certain amount of comfort. What she sees through the viewfinder, she will always control. Now she will have learn to accept what gets imprinted on the film.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Her mother and brother have flown in from Korea and California respectively to help her lease and settle into an apartment in Manhattan. Her previous semester abroad in Shanghai had seriously upset her psyche. She is back with an inability to articulate herself and a tendency to avoid social interactions.

Yesterday, the three of them have finally found a suitable place. Today, she signs what seems like a stack of documents. She is paranoid that she might be signing her soul away by absentmindedly writing her initials on one of the documents. The landlady is talking too much too quickly and it is making her even more nervous.

On the cab ride back to their hotel in Battery Park, she nearly panics. She has been barely keeping it together, mostly because her mother and brother were absorbing the impact of the outer world for her. The fact that they are leaving soon and that she will be alone to endure the next couple of years in college is too daunting.

As soon as she escapes the public space, as soon as she enters the privacy of their hotel room, she breaks down. She is down on her knees, pounding her fists into the ground, wailing and hiccuping, all the while trying to communicate with her patient mother and brother.

"I am scared of being a failure. I am afraid that I won't be self sufficient and will have to depend on mom and dad and Joe. I am terrified of being a life long burden to you guys." She manages to say while sucking in deep breaths.

She eventually calms down and rests her head on the fluffy hotel pillow. Her blackberry buzzes to notify that she has received an email. It is from her high school mentor who has become a good friend. He has sent the college recommendation letter he wrote for her, dated November 10, 2007. She skims through the lengthy letter and rereads a few sentences that catch her attention:

A new sense of confidence had replaced the insecurity and timidity that had characterized her performance at the beginning of the year.

Elizabeth is somewhat unique among other college applicants because she will be coming to you with a sincere sense of self discovery and inquiry.

I am very proud of Elizabeth’s personal growth in the last two years and her ability to define her goals for herself rather than from a sense of competing with others.

Elizabeth is an amazing person who is just starting to experience her independence and personal strength.

The hope and ambition that have become dormant inside her twitch a little bit.

Friday, July 5, 2013

He has been grumpy and distant, which in turn made her overcompensate by telling him she is glad he didn't come to the Fourth of July barbecue she hosted yesterday. When she pulls up in the parking lot of his apartment, she finds him sitting outside on his balcony. She looks up without showing her excitement to see him.

"Come down. I don't feel like going upstairs." They are headed to the Kiliani Volksfest, supposedly one of the largest fests in Bavaria. She is reluctant to go upstairs because she doesn't want to get disappointed. Last time they hung out, she asked him to greet her at the door instead of having her awkwardly wander in and find him on his couch. His answer to this was, "Maybe."

"Come upstairs, I'm not dressed."

She tries to be stubborn and mumbles that she's okay with waiting outside, but he insists. She rings the bell to his apartment and waits. To her surprise, he opens the door instead of buzzing her in. All she asked was for him to meet her in the doorway at the top of the stairs. She isn't sure how he understood that as a request to come all the way downstairs to open the door for her himself. Or perhaps he is trying to impress her. The thought makes her happy.

After he gets dressed, they head out and walk along the river to the fest. They walk silently, side by side but not touching. She glances up at him and asks the question that has been burning in her mind.

"You miss her?"

He takes a moment. "Yeah."

"That sucks," she says, feigning apathy.

They arrive at the beer tent, find a place to sit down, and order a couple of liters. It's too loud to have any meaningful conversation, but they start to get more comfortable with each other. She thanks him for opening the door today and he smiles.

They are indeed good friends. She enjoys his company better than most people's. For some reason, however, this process of building a rapport must start anew every time they hang out. It's especially awkward today because she feels insecure about him thinking about somebody else.

Both of them enjoy peoplewatching. She tries to make a comment on one of the drunk people having the time of their lives. He leans in to hear her better and she repeats herself into his ear. Without warning, he turns his cheek closer to her lips, and they almost come in contact. She nervously pulls away, refusing to cross over to that gray area just yet.

On their walk back home, she hears fireworks from the direction of the fest. It must be the fireworks promised on opening days of volksfests. He notices that she is excited and eager to see the show. He takes her up to a higher road and suggests a spot on the ledge. By now she is mesmerized by the shower of lights. Her eyes do not leave the brightly lit night sky as she saddles the ledge. He sits behind her, saddling the ledge as well, pulling her closer to him. She leans back into his chest as he wraps his arms around her and kisses her cheek.

When the fireworks are finally over, she looks back at him, pecks him in the lips, and smiles. He hugs her tighter and says, "You know I hate fireworks, right?"

Pork belly

The boiled spaghetti is thrown into a pan of onion, bell pepper, mushroom, and garlic.   She then dumps what is left of the pollack egg flavored Furikake.  This is what she has learnt from her mother, who had to cook for a family of four while pursuing her PhD: toss in whatever readily available ingredients that will go well together.  Voila, unexpected delicacy.  She pokes a fork into the middle of the frying pan, twirls it to catch some noodles, fishes for pieces of mushroom and bell pepper, and tastes the concoction.  "Perfect," she thinks, "just what I was craving for."

The next day, she opens the refrigerator and presses her fingers against the thawed package of pork belly.  She wants to boil it as her grandmother would, but doesn't quite know how to.  She texts her parents for instructions.

Her father promptly calls, but it isn't his voice.

"Hi it's me," says a familiar female voice.

"Mom! I had the weirdest dream last night," she immediately starts to chatter away about what may be considered the most mundane thing to tell another person.

"No, it's me, your aunt!"   This is the aunt who raised her while her parents had to return to Korea without her.  Thinking about her brings a feeling of warmth and softness.  Maybe because that's how her hugs feel.  She gives detailed instructions on how to cook the pork belly.

Ingredients:

Pork belly
(this one is 1.3lb, or "the size of two of your fists put together," her aunt confirms)
A can of beer
(more the better? Anyway, she uses two cans)
One whole bulb of garlic
Ginger
("the size of your pinky," as her aunt describes)
Tablespoon of salt
Ground pepper
One onion
Jalapeno
(may be replaced by a couple of unidentified chilies available at the commissary)

In a medium sized pot, pour two cans of beer, and drop in all the prepared ingredients.  Make sure that the piece of pork belly is fully submerged.  Bring the pot to a boil at high temperature, then allow it to simmer for at least an hour.

You may stand by the stove and stare at the pot, but this will not make the meat cook faster.  If you are confident that the pot will not overflow, you may leave the kitchen for a while and read a book or otherwise be productive.  However, it is completely okay to stay and stare, as she always does, whether a pan of muffins needs to be baked for fifteen minutes or the turkey needs to be cooked for a couple of hours.

After poking around and slicing enough to verify that the meat is thoroughly cooked, she tries a piece of the pork belly.  It is perfect.  She eats another piece with some kimchi and remembers that there is one thing missing: a piece of fermented stinger.  That would complete the trio of a delightful Korean dish.

Salzburg, Austria.  Pumpkin festival in Stuttgart.  Nancy, France.  Czech Republic.  Poland.  As she lies in bed a bit past three in the morning, she lists the name of places she would consider driving to this this morning.  She really just wants to be able to sleep some more.  Her insomnia has a rude habit of waking her up around this time.

A thoughtful friend offered to hang out this rather depressing weekend, but she politely declined.  She did not have the energy to be pleasant, so she chose to be alone, although isolation isn't exactly what she wants either.  On weekends during which she doesn't want to be around people, but doesn't want to trap herself in her house either, she always picks up and leaves.  Thank goodness she is living in Europe.  She would be far more depressed if her duty station is, say, Fort Sill.

It takes her a lot of self talk and courage to decide to endure the isolation at home, vice run away to be distracted.  Fortunately, she is able to cut a few hours of her heightened awareness by being able to fall asleep again.

She wakes up from an unsettling dream, in which she receives an assignment paper back with a subpar grade.  To her horror, she realizes that she submitted her first draft, full of syntactical and otherwise careless mistakes.   Ever since she made up her mind to pursue a Masters degree, she has been having dreams of being an academic failure.

Shibumi by Trevanian

Young Nicholai asks his mentor, whom he later kills, what he means by the word shibumi.  She, as well, has been patiently waiting for the author to explain this concept, the Japanese word he titled his book with.

Oh, vaguely.  And incorrectly, I suspect.  A blundering attempt to describe an ineffable quality.  As you know, shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances.  It is a statement so correct it does not have to be bold, so poignant it does not have to be pretty, so true it does not have to be real.  Shibumi is understanding, rather than knowledge.  Eloquent silence.  In demeanor, it is modesty without pudency.  In art, [...] it is elegant simplicity, articulate brevity.  In philosophy, [...] it is spiritual tranquility that is not passive; it is being without the angst of becoming.  And in the personality of a man, it is... how does one say it? Authority without domination?  Something like that.

She finally exhales the breath she has been holding while reading the paragraph, and bites into the sour patch kid that has been hovering mid air by her lips.   Her mind is granted her permission to wander off.

Very few things are subtle these days.  Loud, bright, enticing, and catchy things hog the center of attention.  Perhaps being understated no longer gets noticed, let alone appreciated.

Instead of clean and simple lines with careful details, modern architecture is more of curves and large reflective window panes.  Take the Dancing House in Prague for example.  The lopsided structure cannot be conducive to maximizing the space available.  On the other hand, the Guggenheim, though unique in shape, still maintains poise.  The shape is actually thoughtfully calculated to guide the spiral movement of museum visitors.

This thought reminds her to read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.  He said that it would answer some of her questions about modern architecture.

Overnight train, Stuttgart hbf, Germany

Destination, Würzburg hbf.  Departure, immediately.  Next train, 0135.  Huh?  Price, 70 euros with reservation fees.  Excuse me?!  She almost exclaims out loud, but instinctively covers her mouth.  There is a man in lederhosen hugging the wall not so far away.  She gracefully allows him keep the title of being the loudest person in the nearly deserted train station.

She is returning home from her spontaneous weekend trip to Milan, Italy.  Her flight landed half past nine and now she is at the Stuttgart hauptbahnhof a couple minutes shy of ten in the evening.  The night trains, which have a discounted ticket price of 19 euros, was what she was planning on riding.  Obviously she missed the last train of the day.  She brainstorms a couple of options: extend her pass into a leave?  What a waste.  Ask somebody to come pick her up?  What an inconvenience.  Walk all the way back to schweinfurt?  Seriously Liz?  Buy the 70 euro train ticket?  That's more than I spent on the flight tickets to and from Milan!  Whatever, fine.

She taps the screen to select the exorbitantly expensive express train ticket.  As the machine prompts her to make another decision, she realizes that she will be on an overnight train with bunk beds.  This aspect, the bunk bed, certainly makes up for all the inconvenience of waiting more than three hours.  The fact that she has to get off at three and get on another train at four in the morning seems to be an irrelevant detail at the moment.  She makes up her mind to be happy about this mishap.

The overnight train is everything she hoped it to be and more.  Her bunk bed is the top one of three beds.  She likes climbing to high places.  As soon as she gets under the covers, she curls up against herself into a fetal position.  It takes a good half hour to get comfortable.  The sheets, which she tucked underneath her in attempt to trap any and all heat, tug on her as the train comes to a halt at the next station.  She smiles as she drifts away.

Château de Versailles, Paris, France

The royal palace was the home of Louis XIV and his French Court.  A must-see when one is visiting Paris.  Quite frankly, she just wants to see all the grandeur that it is known for.  The tour groups begrudgingly let her get ahead of them as she slinkies through the dense herd.  Dense, closely compacted in substance.  Or stupid.  Her impatience with slow-paced, in-the-way people has gotten a lot better since she left Manhattan, though.

She turns a corner.  Her eyes follow the long stretch of snow covered road and finally fall on the beautiful golden gate.  It takes her breath away.  She can't help but smile a little bit.  It appears even more yellow and sterling against the gray sky and dirty snow.  The sheer size of it all is beyond anything she imagined.

The majority of the Royal Courtyard doesn't excite her as much.  She initially finds the Hall of Mirrors rather fascinating, but quickly gets turned off by a lady who is crudely taking pictures of herself in the middle of the room.  She cringes at the vanity, which of course is only unacceptable when it is displayed by another person.  She navigates through the rest of the building in a nonchalant manner, thinking that it would make her look refined and cultured.

Salon de Thé Angelina is a restaurant nestled in a corner of the palace.  Enjoying a meal here is definitely an indulgence, fueled by one's vanity and extravagance.  She enters the foyer with an air of confidence and raises her index finger.  Table for one.  She feels self-conscious about eating alone, but hides it by burying her face in the pages of Demian.  After her meal, she orders a dessert called Paris-NY.

She picks up her fork, stabs it through the four tiered dessert, then carefully moves it towards the edge of the plate.  The first bite is always the best.  She is impressed by this bigger and better version of ferrero rocher.  It is both crunchy and creamy, sweet and earthy, warm and cool.  Above all, it makes her pensive.  She wonders what gives her the right to enjoy herself this much, when there are others ridden with misfortune.

Demian by Hermann Hesse

There I saw my friend sitting upright, his shoulders braced back as usual.  Nonetheless, he looked completely different and something emanated from him, something surrounded him that was unknown to me.  I first thought he had his eyes closed but then saw they were open.  Yet they were not focused on anything, it was an unseeing gaze—they seemed transfixed with looking inward or into a great distance.  [...]  I trembled at the sight.  Dead, I thought, almost saying it aloud.

My spellbound eyes were fixed on his face, on this pale stone mask, and I felt: this is the real Demian.  When he walked beside me or talked to me—that was only half of him, someone who periodically plays a role, adapts himself, who out of sheer complaisance does as the others do.  The real Demian, however, looked like this, as primeval, animal, marble, beautiful and cold, dead yet secretly filled with fabulous life.  And around him this quiet emptiness, this ether, interstellar space, this lonely death!  Now he has gone completely into himself, I felt, and I trembled.  Never had I been so alone.  I had no part in him; he was inaccessible; he was more remote from me than if he had been on the most distant island in the world.

I could hardly grasp it that no one beside me noticed him!  [...]  Where was he now?  What was he thinking?  What did he feel?  Was he in heaven or was he in hell?  I was unable to put a question to him.  At the end of the period, when I saw him alive and breathing again, as his glance met mine, he was the same as he had been before.  Where did he come from?  Where had he been?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

She returns to her apartment on the corner of Broadway and 21st street.  It's been a long day, as Tuesdays always are.  The phone conversation she had with her brother over the weekend is still keeping her happy.  Her brother reminded her that both of them should continue to strive for their ideals, regardless of some idiots whom they have no choice but to share their lives with.  She feels secure about herself.

Her blackberry rings and the screen shows the name of her brother's housemate.  She is a bit surprised, but happy to hear from him.

"Hi! How are you?," she sings pleasantly.

He seems to be having some difficulty. "Hey, Liz.  Your brother ........."

She only hears what she wants to hear.  "Oh wow.  How did he attempt it?  Is he okay?  Where is he now?  At the hospital?"

Clearly, her response distresses him even further. "No. He's ........."

She gets confused.  After a quick process of elimination, which ends with her crossing out the option of "is he joking?," she realizes there is only one thing that this could mean.  The finality of the situation buckles her down to her knees.  "I need to hang up, I'll call you back later," she says apologetically.

She stays kneeled on the bedroom floor for a while.  She doesn't know what she's supposed to be doing.  Her mind is racing, but by now, it has already shut down on her.  Autopilot mode, conditioned by her habits, instincts, and sense of responsibility, is dictating her thoughts.  Maybe tell somebody else?  Maybe her parents?  But they are in Korea.

She remembers that the the battalion commander is required to send up reports to her ROTC cadre on these news.  She turns on her computer, opens up her gmail, and begins to compose an email titled, "Report on death in cadet's family."  She addresses it to the PMS, cc's the master sergeant, and bcc's her battalion XO.  Oddly enough, the detachment gives her comfort.  It's as though this is all happening to somebody else.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.  The air is fresh and crisp.  It's autumn, finally.   She withdraws into the depth of her mind, trying to analyze her thought processes of the past couple of the days, and the consequential decisions she made, which could have potentially been detrimental to her well being.  She feels his eyes on her but this doesn't bother her.  This withdrawal, which has become an essential part of her life, is something she avoids doing with people around because she has yet to master what she calls the Demian face.  But this friend, he's different.  She is safe around him.  He may not necessarily know that she is thinking, let alone what she is thinking about, but he knows that it's okay to let her be.

When her flight or fight instinct kicked in a couple of days ago, she chose flight as she so often does.  It would have been an easy fight if she decided to take that course of action.  All she had to do was demand a yes or no answer from him in response to her request for them to "hang out" this weekend.  But she didn't want to do that.  His noncommittal answer irked her, and she chose flight.  She took off to Liege, Belgium yesterday morning with her sweet tooth as an excuse and went to eat some gaufre de Liege.

She returned to him in the early afternoon, and now they are having dinner together.  Her flight did not harm their friendship, although he did hint that she should have asked him to join her.

"I like to know things.  In advance preferably," she declares, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Me too," he replies, then pauses.  "But I don't like sharing."

She doesn't miss a beat.  It is exactly what she wanted to hear.  "It's fucking annoying," she retorts, putting a bit too much emphasis on the syllable where her upper teeth pushes off her lower lip.  She tries not to flinch nor break eye contact with him.

He gazes back into her eyes.  It is a look without scorn nor amusement.  His blue eyes, which she loves so much, are seeing past her anger that she is putting up as a front.  He reaches across the table with his palm up and rests his hand in front on her.  She slowly uncrosses her arms and puts her hand in his.  He squeezes her hand and holds the grasp, while directing his attention back to the food that he was shoveling into his mouth just a moment ago.

And just like that, all her agitation and doubts from the past few days melt away.  She looks at him and feels glad that she decided to come back to him, instead of flying away forever.

She sits in her office, unsure about her next move.  An onlooker would see her and assume she is daydreaming.  Her eyes are glossed over, absentmindedly staring into the computer screen.  Really, she is petrified.  The fact that 'the thought' crossed her mind makes her frantic with anxiety.  She gets angry at herself for letting her mind wander off that far.  "I'm just really tired, don't read into it too much."  The self talk barely pulls her out of this intense moment of uncertainty.

The real confusion here is rooted in her illusion of emotional independence.  Perhaps she finally recognizes her dependence on certain individuals in her life.  But in all honesty, this makes her feel even smaller.  A friend told her a while ago that she is like a robot, analyzing and executing without emotion.  She clings to this identity.  Things were so much easier when she was able to be a robot.  Now she has to endure these waves of emotions that she has absolutely no control over.  It makes her feel helpless.  She can feel the pitying eyes of those who are slowly noticing changes in her behavior.  It is infuriating to know that her actions and inactions influenced by her emotions are inconveniencing those who care about her the most.  "I hate being a burden."