I stare at a bowlful of grape husks and seeds, and think to myself, gently but earnestly, that re-location involves a lot of learning, and one of the most important things to learn is how to eat. The first time you receive a big bunch of these grapes from your co-worker who, in his turn, received them from his brother who received them from the earth after much toil and labor, you just start popping them in your mouth because you LOVE grapes—and this is a point worth emphasizing: YOU LOVE GRAPES! Well, you realize pretty quickly that these are grapes that have an interesting flavor, and you accept it is an inevitability because you are, after all, living in an entirely new country, and their grapes are bound to taste different—otherwise why would we have so many flavors of wine. It’s not a bad flavor, it’s just got this interesting combination of bitter and sweet that you just can’t quite suss. Obviously, this does not stop you from consuming the entire gigantic bunch, even though you also realize they contain seeds—but you’re a plucky chap and grape seeds have never even slowed you down. You don’t even spit ‘em out: “Here they come intestines... have fun!”

That’s one bunch down, but you’ve got another bunch in your refrigerator because Koreans never give anything in singles, always twos or threes: two for reserves and three for love. Well, because they were given to you inside your first week, there certainly isn’t three bunches, but you ponder what to do with this other bunch, knowing you will eat it eventually because it is the only food in your refrigerator at the moment, but at the same time being absolutely certain that you’re missing something. Something just isn’t right here.

When you arrive at your place of employment, a bowl of soup is placed in front of you, and you look down and realize that in the red chili base there are potatoes—which kind of makes your heart flutter—and the only real other “ingredient” is fish… in its entirety. Tools are kind of at a premium (from a westerners standpoint) in Korea. You get chopsticks and a spoon, and you wonder briefly how they expect you to eat a smallish fish that was tossed whole into soup with no real tools to bone it or remove the head that is kind of smirking at you because it seems to know your dilemma. Looking around, nobody else seems to have a problem with it and they just pick the meat off and drop the bones onto a pile of toilet paper—the cure-all paper in Korea, used for drying hands, it’s general purpose, and apparently for the piling up of fish bones. The teacher you gave you the grapes comes in, sits down, and says, “Oh! My favorite. I know how to eat this one.”

The next day, the other bunch of grapes is reduced to the stem and bag it came in. They’re good. They’re very good, but you’re still curious.

Time passes, and after a week, same said teacher invites you to eat duck in his abode two floors above you. Duck is delicious and spicy and perfect with a bowl of rice. Sitting with his family and watching CSI: Miami—which might be an entirely different entry—a bowl of grapes is placed on the table, and an empty bowl. Sweet. Grapes for dessert shall never be sneered at in your world. You go at them, but you haven’t watched TV in two weeks, so even a show with as many obvious shortcomings as CSI: Miami is somewhat interesting—sorry to those who may enjoy that sort of thing. You realize when you look down that there is only one difference between your teacher friends experience with the grapes and your own: his grape husks are in the bowl with his seeds.

Jackpot.

Well, being who they are, Koreans give. You are given another bunch of grapes before you leave—along with an apple because it’s always in twos and very rarely does it matter whether the two things are the same item.

Finding yourself peckish of a morning, your body cries out when you open the admittedly barren refrigerator because you espy a bunch of grapes. “Grab a bowl,” you tell yourself, and have a go.

That slightly bitter taste was because you were ignorant of the process. The meat of these grapes is sweet and fantastic and worth the effort of removing the slightly leathery skin—it would be the skin that needs to be removed wouldn’t it… something meaningful there—and spitting the seeds. You’ve just learned, after only three tries, how to eat.

Funny Thing About Anorexia

Well, today I'm feeling too much. I've been awake for half an hour and I'm afraid I'm bawling. When I woke up with morning, the first thing that hit me was an article from the New Yorker that a dear friend sent me about just home important this election year really is, and then I watched a video of a man who took his quadriplegic son on the Iron Man Triathalon, and finally, there's just so much in the world and so many words and I'm still shaking.

So, in an effort to allay the whatever it is, i think i'll try on some humor.

First of all, let me tell you that the pieces of literature which are chosen to help teach young Korean kids to read are interesting, if only for their subject matter, and it's probably a good thing that full comprehension is not really possible.

The most recent article we're reading is about diets and anorexia. I swear to god, and these Korean kids are barely into middle school. How do you explain anorexia in English to a child that age that actually speaks English, much less a child who only barely has a concept of the English language. (Admittedly, you need a degree in psychology to even come close to understanding it anyway... it's well beyond my ken, at any rate.)

Well, part of the unit is an article about Nicole Richie, one of the Olsen twins and Lindsay Lohan and that they have all admitted to a battle with anorexia (one quick note here: that might be the only time ever that those names appear in this blog--never say never I guess). The article says something to the effect of: Skinny celebrities are setting dangerous trends. The skinny American celebrities have all confessed to having suffered from anorexia.... etc.

Well, one of the Comprehension Questions was:

What do the skinny celebrities suffer from?

One of my kids put this down and goes, "Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!" and I had to work very hard to keep a straight face and tell him that while his answer was not technically correct, it was in a sense... and also very funny.

His answer:

The United States.

Life is an Opportunity

My Korean friend Bon made me think about that. We were talking of things, and he showed me a poem that you can’t even Google by a guy who’s name I can’t even remember. It’s called “Right This Moment,” and the first line is “Do not let this moment escape.” It goes on to say, “Do not spend this moment in vain. These moments pile up and become an entire life… You have to be joyful in the living of life.” How does a moment manage to capture the things I have wanted to tell people for so long? The fleeting arguments about who is right or wrong or stressing out over bullshit is quite simply a waste of time. Let it wash over your skin as the sea when you swim and do not think, only feel. The Korean translation of the English word “nature” is: “It has what it is.”

Ladies and gentlemen, there are things in life that require stability and consistency and constancy and so many other –ys, but unless you are involved in those things specifically, there is absolutely no reason to get caught up in them. Life is volatile no matter what you’re doing. I guess I don’t know where I’m going with this, and perhaps it doesn’t even really matter, because in this moment my fingers feel just so right wandering over their well-warn paths across the keyboard. Writing is a brain-out moment for me. There really is no thinking. It is just feeling and the feeling of the fingers flying and the brain on auto-pilot is like being on a drug. Don’t think, just be. When I am writing, there is nothing but the writing. It’s a little bit like daydreaming, except it’s more like actual dreaming when you’re awake. Something that feels so right is the quintessential sublime, and I’m beginning to think that the reason I so often feel like my religion would best be described as naturism is because there is so much of the sublime in nature, and there is a horrifying preciousness to it. It’s scary to sit and write and be only barely conscious of the fact that the brain is managing to work very hard.

One of the things I think I am most proud of is the ability to say that I do not miss the man or boy I used to be. (BTW: the smiths’ “There is a light that never goes out” just came up on random in iTunes, and I feel like it is so appropriate that it needs to be thrown in here…right this moment.) I appreciate what I used to be. When I was a child, the world I was in just didn’t seem to fit, but if it hadn’t been for that, I would not be what I am, and there’s something slightly unsettling about what I would be, or …

As much as I would like to finish this post, I have to go hiking with teacher Bone right this moment.