Across the Universe

I was sitting in the back of the bus one morning on my way to work, next to the window, just enjoying the early morning scenery of Bogwangdong. After exiting Itaewon, I love how...*BOOM!* Suddenly, I'm back in Korea.  Lining the narrow, but extremely busy road, are little plant shops, Koreanized take-out pizza places, vendors selling fabulously hideous ajuma (Korean older woman) floral stretch pants, small vegetable markets and random hardware stores, seafood for sale on top of ice-filled styrofoam crates sitting directly on the sidewalk, bakeries, a butcher, someone selling cheap plastic toys out of a truck parked inconveniently on the side of the road, whole dried fish hanging from plastic ropes in bundles, and loads of small, black-haired people on their way to work or school.

There's one last bus stop at the end of this neighborhood, right at the corner where we turn to head towards the river...where we'll cross into the fancy, much younger part of the city, home to fancy high rises of offices, and expensive, huge apartment complexes, probably containing luxuries such as gyms, elevators, and building managers.  It's nothing like my neighborhood, which is more of a crazy clusterf*** of unorganized chaos...just how I like it.

At the bust stop, Chad, my best friend from high school and beyond, who was seated on my left, leaned over my lap to get a better look at someone standing outside. "Look at this goddess," he told me.

I looked and noticed an ajuma with huge Jackie-O sunglasses, a crayon-red perm, fancy black blouse and slacks, and sparkly stiletto high heels.  At that same moment, a couple of school girls in their short plaid skirt and collard shirt uniforms were stepping off of our bus.  The fancy ajuma looked down at one of the girls' feet and scowled.

Chad gasped with delight.  "Look!" he exclaimed mischievously into my ear.  "She's judging her!  She's mad she's not wearing socks!"  He clapped the heels of his palms together, fingers curled, and clenched his face into a tight smile of utter excitement.

 ♫Sounds of laughter, shades of life 

Are ringing through my opened ears

Inciting and inviting me.

Together, we laughed in awe over the strange inner-workings of other people's minds.

At the next stop, a skinny Korean businessman sat down next to me, the bus filling up.  Chad's apparition sort of poofed out from under him, spilling upwards like smoke, swirling through the air before dissipating completely.  I imagined that as it curled out, it spelled out the word "sex," just like in that infamous scene in The Lion King you have to watch in slow motion to notice.

 ♫Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box

They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe

My friends are with me quite a lot.  Sometimes I take Megan shopping in the jewelry district, or one of the university areas.  Sometimes, I take my brother and his wife and kids out for a vegan dinner.  "This restaurant is run by Buddhist monks," I explain to them.  "They don't put shrimp sauce in their kimchi."

♫Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns

It calls me on and on across the universe.

Soon, however, I was to see some people for real, though.  I was leaving for Arizona on Friday!  My grandpa had died, and I'd been granted a week off of work to attend his memorial service.

I couldn't wait to meet my new nephew for the first time!  He's only three months old, but still I imagined him as this really huge baby, being my brother's son and all.

On the other hand, I imagined Noodle Pop, my two year old niece, to still be the same size as when I saw her last Christmas.  I couldn't wait to be shocked to discover that she wasn't.

I couldn't wait to be in the desert.  I couldn't wait to eat whatever foods I missed that I didn't even remember anymore.  I couldn't wait to see my cousins and aunts and uncles.  I couldn't wait to go to Target and Whole Foods.

No foreigner in Korea returning to America for a week goes without a shopping list, I suspect.  As someone who was about to inconvenience my coworkers for a week with extra work, I had been diligently noting their requests for small items I could easily return with.  On my list were things like Neosporin, fabric bandaids, Butterfingers, allspice, vitamin B complex, various bras, and melatonin (which for some strange reason has recently become illegal to ship to Korea).

I'd also been ordering like mad off the internet, for myself and my friends who don't like paying over $30 in shipping.  My poor aunt Judi, a retired police officer, suddenly had a strange influx in packages at her front doorstep.  But don't worry, I packed her a present.  Something "hand-uh-made-uh" from Insadong.

There's something extremely unnatural and shocking about stepping on a plane on one side of the Earth, and stepping off all the way onto the other side, with different-looking people, a different language, different buildings, and completely different terrain.

But, it's unnatural and shocking in a cool way--like seeing someone with hot pink hair.

 ♫Images of broken light 

which dance before me like a million eyes,

They call me on and on

Across the universe

My experience of this trip was galaxies away from what I experienced the last time I flew home.  Last time, there was no light at the end of the tunnel.  This time, there is.  I can see it.  

The purpose of the trip was to attend my grandfather's memorial.  At age 96, my last living grandparent has died.  There was no denying that it was his time to go, so the family got together to celebrate his wonderful life.  But even as I write this, I am shedding tears over that last little piece of my childhood that is wisping away over a distant cliff.  Now my parents are the grandparents, and as for me?  I'm in my thirties, and have finally realized that I'm not made of cartoon.  But while that makes some things suddenly scarier...I've also discovered that I'm quite the rockstar.  I felt more rested after the twenty hours of travel than I did before.  It's like, no sweat anymore!

The memorial service was the day after I arrived.  Incredibly happy to see everyone, I greeted my family with such liveliness that some of my aunts and cousins could hardly believe I'd only just arrived from Korea.  I've never felt so genuinely and utterly happy to see everyone in my life.  It was also wonderful to hear people speak about Grandpa, his history, and their memories of him.  I shed a lot of tears, and that felt good, too.

 ♫Pools of sorrow, waves of joy

are drifting through my opened mind

possessing and caressing me.

Perhaps the most amazing thing was to have my two year old niece Sage (Noodle Pop) greet me that first morning with a big, "Hi, Auntie Annie!"  Last Christmas she wasn't talking quite so much yet, and she was a lot more shy around me.  We had a lot of fun this time around!

Baby Emerson (Bean) is just the cutest, happiest little guy, full of gummy smiles.  I can't wait until he starts talking and running around, too!

 ♫Words are flowing out like 

endless rain into a paper cup

They slither wildly as they slip away 

across the universe.

Bean :)

Auntie Annie and Sage

"Well, we've spent a damn long time in the car on this trip...a damn long time, haven't we," stated my father as we drove through the arid but lush southern Arizona desert one day.  It wasn't so much a complaint as an observation.  I certainly had nothing to complain about.  Riding in the back seat of the large SUV, I stared out the window at the dry desert terrain, thickly forested with gangly saguaros, spiny green barrels covered in mini pineapples, and hairy palo verdes, all staged for my viewing pleasure in front of a beautifully painted backdrop of brown, rugged mountains, lit up by a blazing sun.  Every time I visit the desert, and especially now, I am reminded of my childhood visits to the "homeland," and I drink up the hot dryness like a chilled bottle of expensive spring water.  

The car rides got especially pleasant with my aunts in the car, like when Aunt Judi would get to talking about her years of police work.  As my dad's youngest sister, she has the thickest Arizona accent in the family, next to their brother Jimmy, as far as I can tell.  I loved to listen to it as I asked her questions about the things she'd experienced as a cop in Tucson.  Discussions of criminal behaviors usually get my mother going on about what she thinks about people who do this or that type of crime, and then my other aunts will state their opinions about folks and their wrongdoings.  I just sit there like a butterfly on their shoulders and listen, comforted by the familiarity of it all, happy to be living, and to be in the presence of my family, who are all alive and jumping.  I never really join in or state my opinions on many matters, because like a butterfly, I am only a visitor here, and will soon be fluttering off into another world, with different people, also familiar, having different conversations and different viewpoints.  I'll just flit my wings and drink them all up in the little shot glasses in which they're served, like those margarita samplers they used to have at Cozymel's back in the day.  Perfect for me, since I never really feel the need to choose one flavor.  

♫ Jai Guru Deva.

 Om.

I happily got stuck in San Francisco on my way back to Seoul.  My flight from Tucson to Phoenix went just fine, but then the flight from Phoenix to San Francisco was delayed over an hour due to fog in the Bay Area.  They told me not to worry, because if we were being delayed, it was likely that my flight out would be delayed, too.  The state of the airport when I arrived suggested that they might have been right.  There were so many people with bags and cell phones blazing sprawled out everywhere, it looked like Chicago O'Hare at Christmastime during a sudden snowstorm.  But soon I found out, my plane to Seoul had left without me, and the next one wasn't until the following morning.  I was lucky to get on it, too, because at first it was booked solid, and then while the agent was looking, someone backed out and a seat opened up, just in time for her to snag it for me.  She gave me a coupon for a discounted hotel rate and a $10 food voucher for the airport.

A couple of years ago, I might have been nervous to be stranded in an unfamiliar city all alone.  

But not anymore.

Now,  I have a new theory--that you can strand me in absolutely any town or city in the US and I'll be able to figure out what to do.  If I can figure stuff out in a country where not even the letters are the same, then an English-speaking city will be noooooooo problem.  "Even without a cell phone," I thought to myself, as I picked up the first pay phone I came across to call the number on the hot pink hotel coupon to make a reservation.

I hadn't used a pay phone since I lived in Germany, I think!  "Do I have to put money in to call a toll free number, or can I just dial it?" I wondered to myself.  I figured that was why it was called toll-free, but then again, you might have to put money in just to get a dial tone, for all I knew.  The fact the first phone I picked up had no dial tone really had me wondering.  But the second one did, and I learned that that wasn't the case.  I called the number, made a reservation for a hotel five minutes away by free shuttle, and went downstairs to baggage claim to see about my luggage.  There, I was given a choice--to wait two hours and pick up my two extremely heavy pieces of luggage, which I wasn't exactly sure if I'd be able to carry, or to simply have them rerouted to follow me on the plane the next day.  I chose the second one.

I smiled hugely as I opened the door to my hotel room and saw a huge king-sized bed, and palm trees out the window.  It was sunny outside with a cool breeze.  I used the internet to figure out how to get to Haight-Ashbury.  I needed a vegetarian dinner, a clean pair of underwear, and I wanted to see some hippies.  

The route went like this:  First, a ten minute walk to the subway station (a subway whose map, again, looked miniscule compared to Seoul's, like someone had simply chopped off one of its fingers and said, "Here!  This little piece can be for San Francisco!").  Then I could choose from any one of four buses from Market Street to take me up to where I wanted to go.  I took a picture of the directions with my somewhat-useless-in-the-States cell phone's camera for future reference, and took off.  It didn't matter if I got lost...I could ask anyone along the way for directions.  What an incredible luxury to have!  And I used it, about five times to be exact.  Especially when a wreck on Market Street caused my street car to have to be evacuated, and everyone rerouted onto any number of buses passing by.  I wasn't sure which way to go, so I decided to follow the awesomely O.G.-looking black gentleman with a cane and a small black feather in his hat, who had been riding on the same street car as me.  

Although I did see a few hippies, Haight Street, I decided, definitely did not have nearly the same vibe as it must have back in the late 60's.  It's definitely a great place to buy a new glass bong, or Tibetan jewelry, but I couldn't for the life of me picture where Janice Joplin could have OD'd, or even where Cookie Mueller had attended those acid-capping parties she so dearly wrote about.  One thing was obvious, however...and that was that I was not the only vegetarian on Haight Street.  To no surprise whatsoever, I found that there were literally no restaurants without a vegetarian section on their menu...even the ones that looked like they really wouldn't have one.  And that was exactly the type of restaurant I chose to eat at, although I couldn't really explain to myself why.  I guess I just liked the idea of  being able to eat at a greasy burger joint on my day being stuck on the edge of America.

After my crepe-poisoning incident in Thailand, I decided I didn't need to worry too much about reactions to food.  The incident taught me that if something is poison enough, I will know right away, and will know to stop after just one or two bites.  Usually I can eat something a little harmful every once and a while and be just fine.  It's only after a week or so of doing this repeatedly that I will start to really feel bad.  So, I ordered the homemade veggie burger, and even put ketchup on it, which I know for a fact I'm not supposed to have.  However, I have eaten a bit of it in Korea and been just fine, so I squirted a little on my burger.

After eating it, however, I felt a bit woozy, and the skin inside my mouth felt acidified off, like I had eaten too many sweet tarts in a row.  Damn Americans and their use of sulfuric acid in corn syrup! I asked for a box to put my sweet potato fries in and left, feeling full and still happy.  "Not a big deal," I thought to myself.  "Not a major reaction."

"But Annie...that is a bad reaction," I heard my therapist back in Knoxville say, her apparition suddenly condensing out of thin air.  I always appreciated how she called me out for my tendency to underwhelm certain things, allowing me the ability to ponder and marvel at the strange inner-workings of my own mind.

Then I saw a tie-dye shop.  They had everything tie-dyed you could imagine, including underwear--just what a girl with no luggage needed!

And that is the story of how I ended up in a king-sized bed in San Francisco in nothing but a pair of tie-dyed underwear.  

Then I quickly fluttered back off to Seoul.  On the plane, with (as always) a song in my head, I realized that the trip had taught me something very important:

Nothing's gonna change my world.  ( ♫ ♫ ♫)

Where's Danny Tanner?  Uncle Jesse?

Yay!!!  An old hippie!

Hmmm...perhaps this could have been a good spot for an acid-capping party...

My new underwear!!!