Angela E J Koh » Distanced Relationships

It’s not considered “exchanging” unless you break your heart for it

angelaejkoh — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 08:33:26 +0000

ph. by me

I don’t think I’ve asked for much in exchange for my shot at writing. When I came to terms with this ability, I found how to translate the world around me in a way I could understand and love. Cold as it may sound, I’d readily sacrifice the means to indulge myself or to dine on weekends for the time to jot down a piece. I’d give up a number of acquaintances and the carefree lifestyle with night plans. In return, I’d adopt decades of senseless, wage-less work and faltering support. In this quaint city, I thought I could give up about anything because nothing was held too dear in the first place.

My mother and father, both from Seoul will return to California this year, 2011. If you’ve glanced through my blog, it’s been seven years since I’ve been waiting to reunite with them. This distance between us has been the source of much of my writing/poetry. All of a sudden, it came to me while applying to graduate programs in the east coast: I’d be asked to willingly choose between my craft and my family. I’d have to decide between further researching poetry or being with my family after 7 years of separation. This was the very thing I’d feared the most. I don’t have to go, I tell myself frequently between post-office visits, or better yet, I won’t get accepted anywhere. I asked for very little in exchange for writing, but I’d forgotten something so important. It’s not considered exchanging unless you break your heart for it.

A Letter that Begs

angelaejkoh — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:34:58 +0000

Dear ______,

There needs to be a way to shut it off—the madness, the psycho, (all the words for thinking). Sometimes, a lover, a friend can do the job. And when I’m around this person, I remember how to stop thinking. I react naturally to the things around me, like a child. Yes, I even snicker and whine at the smallest things. But what if these juvenile moments are a way to claim my cradle? Don’t dismiss it just yet. In your absence, I have tried to piece together a child in me, one that has been hesitant to surface. I wouldn’t dare say that you’ve robbed me of a sort of innocence. Just that it may have been postponed. I’d have it postponed even further if you asked me to.

But the childhood having been put off, I see frivolous pieces surface now. Almost all at once, I buy baskets only useful for picnics and then go up the stairs two by two. In my weeping, “I want to, I want to because I wanted to, I wanted to for so long.” I wonder if I have made you proud somewhat, that I might have earned a favor. Could you lift this burden from me—and say that I am not “disgracing you,” that I can rest from the madness time to time. It takes a human hand to flip a switch and I might have found such a person who knows how to (tell the latent adult to fuck off). Though you’ve always had the voice of reason…that my relationships “cannot possibly last,” I say now, without thought, maybe it doesn’t matter (as much as you think) whether we persist or not.

If Dad Could Speak

angelaejkoh — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:10:50 +0000

Two days ago, I finished my first novel. It took seven months to write, two years to draft. I’ll soon be launched into a bout of editors continuing the story of a mother-daughter relationship. But I remember the last page was the hardest. At the end, there was nothing I thought of more than my father. I missed thinking about him.

In one business meeting, he filled his notebook with Batman drawings. He inserted that Robin is for girls, not for men. When he dropped me off at the airport, he pointed towards the Incheon bridge, said it’s the top five longest in the world and if I could believe Koreans built that. I left him and every day that passes here, he gets older in his Pundang corner couch. His peaking temper lows into a subdued guilt. Now, he’d rather smile into the phone than yell. Like the story’s over. He’s already proud and has done what he’s supposed to, thinking he knows this life fits. I want to cover his gum and hide his teeth. There’s no proof that veins sparked with his blood could lift insignificance off his own time line. I remember why I couldn’t think of him. Someone hasten his speech, open his eyes. Keep him frenzied, alive.

Knew This Would Happen

angelaejkoh — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:28:00 +0000

Just got back from visiting Mom and Dad in Korea. We drove to Busan where an octopus fell onto the snowy gravel in the fish market. Even stopped by Dae-jeon’s pig-blood restaurants with stew on sale for two. I was ready to come home. But my mom does this thing. On the flight back, I found napkins and breath mints in both of my jacket pockets. When I unpacked, there were vitamin bottles tucked between socks. I unwrapped my boots and they were stuffed with ginseng drinks. Like I need to be reminded of our distance as it grows.

In the empty apartment, everything I touch aches with me. The shivering cup or the cold counter. I wake when it’s dark outside–my clock still 15-hours fast from jet lag. It reminds me of the winter night in Seoul. Dad peaks in the snack cabinet and Mom closes it after him. Their life continues. But mine seems at a stand-still (least for the next few days). I can’t seem to get going. I keep waking up when the day’s over. Keep waking up in Korea.

Revisiting Old Wounds

angelaejkoh — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:18:00 +0000

In the Seoul morning, when I look out the balcony, I see the clouds getting caught in the dense mountainside. If you blink, it almost looks like smoke escaping the treetops. Like the whole city’s on fire. About two years ago, I fell asleep in my parents’living room in Korea, on the hard floor with a pink quilt over my face. I had been visiting my distanced parents over the winter. When I awoke, the quilt looked so much like the one in my apartment. For agonizing minutes, I thought I was alone on my spring-less, flat bed in California. To the lone child still selfishly waiting, it felt worse than sitting backstage, watching parents hand their kids plastic roses and head home to real dinners. Worse than when I told a brown coffin why I couldn’t take my grandma to Ueno anymore. I felt the things I’d carefully buried.

I was so accustomed to this ‘alone’that I became good at it. When I’m surrounded by nothing but four plaster walls, everything’s the way it’s supposed to be and my life is continuing in a way I’d imagined. This was comfortable and all I knew how to handle. So when I wake to an Apple-Vinegar-Onion sandwich (the way I like) with mom’s real hand laying down a cup of warm milk next to me, I can’t breathe. Would I wake up in a meager room back in California. Could I then crawl into the garage as I did when I was too young, thinking about letters that should have read, “Eunji, we’re coming back to get you.” I don’t want to blink. I owe it to myself to try and enjoy being by my family’s side for the summer, however uncomfortable and nerve-wracking it makes me (however instinctively, I want to drive them away from me). Would I survive if I were to see my clouds turn into fire one more time.

She Doesn’t Need to Know

angelaejkoh — Sat, 30 May 2009 04:12:00 +0000

May 2009

It’s strange that distance can make such a difference. When I miss my mom, I kind of close myself off. If I had to say, it feels like heavy leeches hanging off the back of my neck. They hinder the blood flow, making my cognizance go blank—a trickle here and there to strictly allow body movement. I guess it’s a great way to shut off for a little bit without actually slowing down. I like to think that even if she lived in the same country as me, I would still see her as infrequently as I do now.

It’s wrong. I know because she has a life, not here. I could physically nudge and poke the space of separation, it’s felt and endured (as I’m sure it is for any long-distance relationship). The stretch of distance carries islands, the ocean, the zones that keep us apart, and mostly the lost time we can’t make up for. It almost feels like she’s in another dimension. She’s living, but I have no proof except for my memories–of the way she picks out linens and takes her coffee. When I sit down to eat my dinner, she’s not somewhere else doing the same. She’s too far to feel that it’s night and too far to know that she should be hungry now. She’s not where she’s supposed to be, and I’ve been no less selfish thinking this way since I was fifteen. If she was at least in the same state, I wouldn’t have to think of when to call her for Mother’s Day, imagine the cake that I would’ve made for her, the color flowers she might have smelled, and the embrace I know she deserves.