Angela E J Koh » On the Plane

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.

There Was No Mountain

angelaejkoh — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:12:00 +0000

I’m on the plane typing on a dying laptop. I made the font big and the screenlight the lowest it can go. It seems I write when I need writing. It’s mostly during troubled moments. Burke would say this isn’t a bad thing. Strong emotions (more associated with negativity) produce works of art. As a greedy student, it has put me in a perpetual state of grief. Because my art outweighs my contentment.

So I’m told I don’t occupy a real study and there’s nothing for me post-grad, but I push back the “loser” sign. I’ve been drafting my second working title since July. Since July, I’ve been walking stiff like I’m not working hard enough if I could afford a smile. The process actually forced me inside a confessional by myself. No hail mary’s to follow, only recitations I must vow with my own mind. I came up with “I’m sorry.” That I act like my life sucks right now. When I let that go, took art down from its Aristotelian pedestal, nothing changed. A lack of discontent never inhibited my creative output. Burke was wrong. And those guys greeting so brightly at the coffee shop—they were onto something.

A Bittersweet End to a Household of Friends

angelaejkoh — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:47:00 +0000

I motion to the flight attendant: I’d like some more Hess, please. As I look towards her kind nod, the slumbering salesman beside me, I think about the year I’m leaving behind me. Like an orphan, I’ve been searching for someone that could see me and know who I am in a way I can’t; some perspective from the outside to reach in and reveal the things worth smiling for, cheering for. And I came across something unexpected and invaluable; real through the experience of feeling (and intangible like faith). But more like, finding good friends.

It’s never been easy to watch the friends I’ve built memories with have to leave. Despite the direction they may go and the ways in which I may change, I owe much to their warm presence and lingering voices. For helping to shape the woman I will become. Even by the loud hum inside the plane, I could hear the things we used to raise our glasses to. Could we have known we raised them for the simple sake that we met and that we got to share our lives with one another. Maybe I’ll have to write two research papers wasted again or I’ll find others that turn Ariel’s song into a vulgar rant of sexual frustration. But there is only one of each person in the world and I’m speechless that I found the one of each of them. With all this useless searching, it makes me feel awfully sentimental to say that I’ve found not what I was looking for, but what I needed right next to me.