Angela E J Koh » Socioemotional Distractions

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.

Throwing Hobbies Away

angelaejkoh — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:50:00 +0000

I’ve been isolated for a few weeks now, apart from social distraction (lucky to do it for writing as I don’t have a job). Only briefly, I get to explain my absence to passing acquaintances. There seems to be little credit for my craft as requiring much effort. So I shorten my explanations accordingly. Because in social conversation driven by complaint, I have no right to offer anything. Still, my rank pride wonders if my writing is regarded as “playing,” that my days pass without adversity.

But I remember when I used to jot down poems in private. Embarrassment kept them hidden behind folders in desks. It was agonizing that I found a hobby I enjoyed

at the price of sparse talent. Since then, I’ve tried to make up for it through absolute labor. Yet I could show someone and it’d still be the most uninteresting thing–because it’s still a creative job. I can’t decide whether it’s my selfish need for encouragement or a lack of support from my peers, but sometimes it’s enough to trash my work altogether (as I’ve seen it happen for those who pick up designing, sketching, composing). They can’t see their growth since no one else tries to. They throw their hobbies away–what could’ve been an occupation, even small moments of sanctuary and peace.

Didn’t have time to try flower-arranging until my roses died. It actually added some callous color and shape.

Superhuman

angelaejkoh — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:53:00 +0000

It’s an eight hour drive to Mokpo, the southern coast of Korea. The forest starts right at the yellow line at the edge of the paved road. The canopies make mountains that slope up and down–like giant, mossed elephants lying next to the freeway. It feels like I can run down their green trunks, jumping atop one head to the next. The crisp air pierced my pores and I could breathe again. But I didn’t know that I’d been suffocating. And these psycho-social images: money, career, family, time, an inability to provide. Unnatural fear and concern left me, carving off the inhibiting excess that held me back from being human. Not human to err, but to be surpassing with inexhaustible room for growth. And human capacity–innate consciousness over rocks, body over plants, mind and reason over animals.

I wanted the lush sight to sink into my bones, the feeling that I could bound over the mountain edge into the black space. I must have been in a snow globe when the top cracked open, a whole set of capabilities and vigor widening my mind. Like I hit “empty bin” to the trash I didn’t know that held me back physically, mentally, psychologically, socially from fitting dreams/goals into a worth life. Sometimes, there are grave mounds on the mountainside, the old generations that sleep with one eye open. I smiled out of ego. The past and their spirits, the precursor staring wearily at the future generation that drives by on bald tires. The feared world they must have left. I wanted to make them proud.

Does It Pay To Be Strong

angelaejkoh — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:05:00 +0000

I see hope as a rare plane of sheen that wears over time from mistrust and abandonment. Maybe each layer becomes roughed up with pride and strength to withstand socioemotional distractions. It’s a disenchanting process to withdraw yourself from reach this way. I think it makes you readied to sever a bond, a laugh in the backseat of a car, a pinky-promise behind a dumpster wall when necessary. This kind of strong becomes a new solution to resist the possibility of failure (insert your fears here). And failure is always a good enough reason to make the people and experiences around you dispensable.

It’s true, the resilient and brutal scarcely have the strength to hope. It’s brought me to a secure and busy place in my life at the price of bitter detachment. Should my expectations rise so that no person could fill them, not even myself, I would become distant and elusive from everything. Maybe even ephemeral and disconnected to this world and I would find some peace in it. It was two years ago in some run-down bar, three hours south of Seoul. The old man said, It’s just too difficult to love a strong woman, and even more difficult to see if it’s worth it. And if you could see his eyes wringing with loss and his age creasing dark brackets around his mouth. You would believe him too.