Last Day

I remember the rain on my first day of work here. It was a chilly day, that second day of February, and I wore my black slacks, ivory turtleneck and a black coat. The rain started coming in the afternoon. By the end of the work day, it started to pour, and the short but uncovered walk to the parking lot seemed impossible. I hesitated by the back door uncertain of what to do. A coworker, virtually a stranger I had just met that day, was kind enough to run through the rain and open the door to the back stairs of the parking structure in the alley.

Now on my last day, it is raining again. How appropriate...rain marking the beginning and the end of my chapter here.

071129

I came home after a small good-bye soiree with my co-workers at a wine bar next to the office. My mom came a few hours ahead of me to help out with the packing. I walked in, and the first thing she noticed is that I had a drink. Only a glass of wine, I uttered, barely. Then I turned around and broke down in tears. After a moment or two, she said, "it is your choice," in a matter-of-fact tone and resumed packing.

She had also come by two days before. Again, she came before I got home. I realized short time later that she had seen a keepsake of mine. She came across it not through snooping (that is just not what she does) but because of my carelessness. And being a brilliantly smart woman that she is, I instinctively knew that she figured out from the little that she saw what has been ailing me lately. She said nothing about what she saw. Absolutely nothing.

Will I ever achieve the strength and wisdom that she has? I may imitate, but such magnanimous integrity, I fear, is beyond my reach. But I do feel blessed that a woman of such character is my mother, that I am undeniably her flesh and blood, no matter how lacking I am.
The kitchen cabinets are empty. So are all three storage closets. Boxes after boxes are packed, stacked, and waiting in a zen-like posture within the surrounding chaos for the movers to show up Saturday morning. Only I am restless within the confines of a home that I am soon to abandon.

071127

Four days until my move to OC. I am not ready--and I don't mean that in terms of packing.

Lily Allen, Littlest Things

A Letter of Joy

즐거운 편지 - 황동규

내 그대를 생각함은
항상 그대가 앉아있는
배경에서
해가 지고 바람이 부는 일처럼
사소한 일일 것이나
언젠가 그대가 한없이 괴로움속을
헤매일때에 오랫동안 전해오던
그 사소함으로 그대를 불러 보리라

진실로 진실로
내가 그대를 사랑하는 까닭은
내 나의 사랑을 한없이 잇닿은
그 기다림으로 바꾸어 버린데 있었다.
밤이 들면서 골짜기엔 눈이 퍼붓기 시작했다
내 사랑도 언제쯤에선 반드시 그칠 것을 믿는다
다만 그때 내 기다림의 자세를 생각하는 것 뿐이다
그 동안에 눈이 그치고
꽃이 피어나고
낙옆이 떨어지고
또 눈이 퍼붓고 할 것을 믿는다.


A Letter of Joy - Dong-kyu Hwang

That I think of you
may be as insignificant as
the sun setting and the wind blowing
against the background of
where you are always seated,
but if and when you are lost
in the seemingly relentless misery
I shall call upon you
with that lingering triviality.

Truly, truly,
the reason I love you so
lies in having transformed my love
into an eternal wait.
The snow began to cover the valley by the night fall
My love will also find its end some day,
only I am thinking of how I will perceive my longing then
In the meantime I know
snow will melt
flowers will blossom
leaves will fall
and the snow will cover the valley yet again.

p.s. This is an entirely unauthorized translation, but it is how I interpret this poem, one of my favorites since junior high. I have long wondered about the meaning of the title, but it is yet to be understood.

071125

The apartment debacle of the weekend is finally over. I now have a home in Mission Viejo, the third safest city in the nation.

071124

I spent much time putting on my make up and fixing my hair in an up-do with pearl and crystal studded hair clips. Then I slipped into a formal strapless ball gown with elbow length satin gloves and wrapped my shoulders in a delicate organza.

When I was finished getting ready, I stood in front of the mirror and stared at myself. I could see flaws but I still looked pretty. I desperately wanted him to see me this way.

At two in the morning, I decided that he shall indeed and uncovered my tripod.

John Sargent, Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau), 1883-1884

071120

How fragile, this nameless flower. It withers away only hours after leaving its stem, its petals drooping more and more each minute. This flower is small and insignificant, unsubstantial, trivial.

Yet it is this nameless fragile flower that I love--it holds more significance for me than a hundred dozen roses ever could.

071116 - PTO Day 7

I stay all day in my robe. I make a couple of phone calls to set more appointments to see apartments on Saturday, but that is about the extent of my activity. Another movie matinee comes across my mind, but there isn't a movie that I care to go see. Instead, I watch Limelight, one of Charlie Chaplin's later films, on DVD.

Later in the afternoon, I suddenly feel my heart palpitate with strange sense of anticipation. There is no obvious reason for this, none that I can think of logically. A thought occurs to check on my tree...and there I find a little note pinned up. It is simple note of only three words. They are the words that I long to hear each and every night before I sleep.

[dream] 071116

He asked me a question.
I did not have an answer.
The look of disbelief in his eyes silenced my dream.

071115 - PTO Day 6

Driving around OC all afternoon, I listen to five out of six CD's in my CD player.

• Olivier Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fin du temps
• Beethoven, Missa Solemnis
• Mozart, The Coronation Mass
• Verdi, La Traviata in entirety

I spend all that time driving around, only to look at two apartments. One, in South Coast Metro area, is a loft style townhouse. It is rather small, but very nice and bright as it faces south. The other, in Mission Viejo area, is an older condo in an amazing location. It is much more spacious, but it has an electric stove--a deal breaker. I decide on the first apartment and put in a holding deposit.

I have dinner with my sister and her coworker before I head back. The fog has rolled in along the 405. It syncs my mood to the last moments of poor Violetta in her tragic death.

071114 - PTO Day 5

I hate apartment hunting.

071113 - PTO Day 4

A single strand of hair announces the official end of my youth. For the first time in over thirty-one years, a gray--or, against my jet black hair, white--hair is found. I save it to commemorate.

Late afternoon, I visit my mother at her work and when she gets off, we have dinner together. I had not seen her in quite some time, or so it seemed, and fill her in on my recent events. She shows a little resentment in that I, again, made decisions without consulting the family. That the decision is something she would have approved of to begin with does not get factored in somehow. This is a trait that surfaced only recently in her, and seems to become more and more pronounced as she ages. I do eventually convince her that I am doing the right thing.

I attend the Camerata Pacifica event at the Huntington Library in the evening. After a violin sonata by Schubert, comes Beethoven's Trio in B flat major followed by Ravel. Wilson and another Ravel are lined up after the intermission. I leave before the latter half of the program starts.

071112 - PTO Day 3

At night I dream that I am at an airport. I go up and down many flights of stairs and run into a number of dead ends, looking for Terminal 'B'. I see big bold signs everywhere telling me where to go, yet I am lost. I wake up before finding the terminal.

In the morning, my landlord comes by with a potential tenant, an older woman, probably in her fifties. She wears heavy make up, and she speaks loudly. She counts the number of closets and complains that the space is very small, then starts to babble on about accumulation of stuff (or junk) over the years. I immediately find her not to my liking. The thought of her occupying the space I still call home is somewhat unsettling. But why should it matter who occupies this apartment, when it was never mine to begin with?

Late afternoon, I receive an email from the people down in Irvine. To my amazement, they are making an offer even bigger than the asking salary which I already adjusted up at their suggestion. I think about the reason why I sent my resume there in the first place, so far away from all things familiar. It is the same reason why I now must go. And it is also the same reason why I would have stayed here if things panned out differently, if only to delay the inevitable. All signs lead to Terminal 'B' and I still got lost....
Soon all traces of my existence will be erased from my current life. My apartment will be occupied by someone who will never know the laughters and cries I experienced within these walls, and others will take over my workload like grass filling in the void patches of the earth. Where I am right now, I will no longer be. I should not care, I know, and simply walk ahead. But something in me wants to shout out the words of the ghost of old Danish king, "Adieu, adieu, remember me."

[diary] 071011

My dreams have disappeared. In my last dream, I was left terribly heart broken at a train station. I haven't dreamt since.

Se jie

The time is 1938, in occupied China. For the sake of "greater good", Wong Chia Chi, an ordinary, innocent young college girl, assumes the role of Mrs. Mak to seduce Mr. Yee, who is a high ranking official in Japanese-controlled government. She sacrifices her innocence and virginity to play the role of a seductress, but the war takes Mr. Yee to Shanghai before a rendezvous. For thee years afterwards she lives a life of self-enclosed hell, with no goal, ambition, or a plausible future. It is by chance that she again joins the resistance movement and resumes the role of Mrs. Mak. Only this time, the betrayal runs deeper and to everyone around her, including herself.
"When their sex drifts steadily into S&M, the nature of their relationship shifts. It is impossible to say that Wong Chia Chi/Mrs. Mak likes his tastes in pain and bondage, but they create a fearful intimacy that, for both of them, transcends their lives apart. And it is that tension, between private fascination and public danger, that gives the movie its purpose." - Roger Ebert

* * * * *

There was something in the heroine's looks that reminded me of myself. No, I am nowhere near her beauty, nor do I possess the delicate frame of a body like hers. But there was something within her, something in her eyes, that I could identify with. That something was defiance.
Lust, caution.

071109 - PTO Day 2

Finally it feels like a day off as I sleep through the early morning hours. Both my alarm clocks stay silent. I wake up around 9am but stay in bed until noon or so, checking and returning emails and researching apartment rentals in Orange County.

With a bowl of cereal for lunch, I turn on the television. To my amazement, Jerry Springer still has his talk show. I soon lose interest in television and start leafing through the past week's TIME magazine before I start to get ready. I take some serious time in the shower, just standing in that rain of hot water with a million thoughts running through my head.

By the time I'm done primping myself, I had already missed the show time for "Lust, Caution". Instead, I go and watch "Wristcutters: A Love Story". I walk into an already darkened theater and soon realize that I am the only person there. I take my usual spot in the theater--the middle left, second seat from the end--to watch the unfolding story of Zia, the protagonist who "offs" himself by slitting his wrists and lands in a purgatory. To summarize, the subject of life-after-death was dealt with much more creativity, pleasantry and sophistication in "After Life", a movie I highly recommend. The only thing I got out of "Wristcutters" is a reminder that I do still love the arid desert landscape of California, a reminder I needed since my trip to Michigan.

After the movie, I head out to the valley for a friend's housewarming. It is a small gathering, and I am late as usual. A glass and a half of cabernet almost knocks me out, and as we gather around to watch two episodes of "Nip/tuck", I take a short nap. I leave shortly after midnight. With winter drawing near, the air feels cold and piercing.

When I get home, I pause in front of my gate and look up at the sky. Even in the middle of the city notorious for light pollution, the winter stars shine through. First I spot Orion and his belt. Just below him is Canis Major with the sparkling eye of Sirius. Then I find the twins, Castor and Pollux, before my eyes stop on the Taurus. The bull has a bright red star Aldebaran for an eye in the heart of its distinctive "V" formation. The seven Pleiades sisters are still weepy, but somehow, they appear cheerful, as if hope is on the horizon.
Another day ends. Tomorrow is a sleep away.

071108 - Personal Time Off (PTO) Day 1

It is my first day of PTO, yet I get up even earlier than I normally do for work. I leave the house about an hour and forty minutes ahead of my appointment to make sure I'm not late. Fighting the rush hour traffic and the morning drowsiness, I drive fifty miles south, to the city of Irvine.

My appointment lasts three hours. Before I leave, I am told that I will be made an offer shortly. And they suggest that I should reconsider my asking salary--to be higher. Where did I find an "EASY" button to press?

Driving back, I take the 405 freeway instead of the 5. I call my sister to see if I can get free lunch out of her, but she doesn't answer. So I keep on driving, and a while later, I find myself in the office with McDonald's lunch. I figure I will stay 2-3 hours just to tighten up loose ends. By the time I take off, however, the janitor has arrived and I am once again the last person leaving the office. On my day off.

At this moment I am home, lying down on my couch with my laptop sitting on my stomach. In the background, Angela Gheorghiu's Violetta is nearing her inevitable end. And I am thinking about ways to treat myself. Perhaps a weekday matinee is in order. Hmm...I'm thinking either "Lust, Caution", or "Wristcutters: The Love Story".

071107

I am sitting here in the crow's nest. I should take off, things will somehow find a way of being taken care of, I'm sure. Yet, I am still sitting here in Dave Brubeck's company, contemplating a certain Biblical death.

Herod is no less guilty than Salome for the beheading of John the Baptist. Only, in this situation, Herod and Salome acted their written part in the farce but John decided that he will keep his head attached to his body and refused Salome her satisfaction. Does that mean Herod and Salome are free of guilt, or are they still guilty for their intentions?

Caravaggio, Salome with Head of St. John the Baptist, 1606

071106

그녀는 대범하거나 영리한 여자가 아니며, 내 상상같이 악한 여자도 아니다.

다만 그녀는 지금의 상황과 그녀의 결혼생활, 더 나아가서 그녀 자신의 존재성에 대한 불안정함을 고스란히 내게 드러내 보이는 실수를 했을 뿐이다.

나를 찾아옴으로서 그녀는 우습지도 않게 마지막 카드를 던져버렸다.

그가 선택한 여자가 좀 더 현명한 여인이길 바랬건만....

071105

"I would love you more for your strength," he once said, and immediately I felt ashamed of my weakness that had me driving in the middle of the night. If I show any trace of strength right now, it is only because he wishes it for me. I am merely a weak and helpless woman, lamenting the idle distance that I must keep from my love's suffering.

[dream] October 31, 2007

A man was selling watches. The small store with dim lighting had rows after rows of them displayed, each box stacked on top of the other like the blocks of Ennis-Brown House. It felt eerily silent and static. Only upon examining all the watches did I realize that every one of them had stopped, each one displaying a different time. I had to pick one of these dead watches, dead like the old lady who made them, whether I wanted to or not.

* * * * *

After weeks of silent sleep, dreams finally returned. This first dream proved to be prophetic, not unlike the Asian superstition about shooting stars. A little death occurred that day. It was an ugly death for something so sweet and beautiful....