seoulstice

The Uses of Sorrow

2011-01-24T08:30:00.002-06:00

Someone I loved gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

Mary Oliver

Morbidity and Doubt

2010-07-19T23:27:00.008-05:00

fragility is

excruciating

into

extinction

reality

checking

broken

til

death

part

The bout of reaching out

requires a reaching in

a wrenching without

an in or an out

inside of endless doubt

My Mother's Body

2010-05-08T10:51:00.002-05:00

The dark socket of the year

the pit, the cave where the sun lies down

and threatens never to rise,

when despair descends softly as the snow

covering all paths and choking roads:

then hawkfaced pain seized you

threw you so you fell with a sharp

cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk.

My father heard the crash but paid

no mind, napping after lunch

yet fifteen hundred miles north

I heard and dropped a dish.

Your pain sunk talons in my skull

and crouched there cawing, heavy

as a great vessel filled with water,

oil or blood, till suddenly next day

the weight lifted and I knew your mind

had guttered out like the Chanukah

candles that burn so fast, weeping

veils of wax down the chanukiya.

Those candles were laid out,

friends invited, ingredients bought

for latkes and apple pancakes,

that holiday for liberation

and the winter solstice

when tops turn like little planets.

Shall you have all or nothing

take half or pass by untouched?

Nothing you got, Nun said the dreydl

as the room stopped spinning.

The angel folded you up like laundry

your body thin as an empty dress.

Your clothes were curtains

hanging on the window of what had

been your flesh and now was glass.

Outside in Florida shopping plazas

loudspeakers blared Christmas carols

and palm trees were decked with blinking

lights. Except by the tourist

hotels, the beaches were empty.

Pelicans with pregnant pouches

flapped overhead like pterodactyls.

In my mind I felt you die.

First the pain lifted and then

you flickered and went out.

I walk through the rooms of memory.

Sometimes everything is shrouded in dropcloths,

every chair ghostly and muted.

Other times memory lights up from within

bustling scenes acted just the other side

of a scrim through which surely I could reach

my fingers tearing at the flimsy curtain

of time which is and isn’t and will be

the stuff of which we’re made and unmade.

In sleep the other night I met you, seventeen

your first nasty marriage just annulled,

thin from your abortion, clutching a book

against your cheek and trying to look

older, trying to look middle class,

trying for a job at Wanamaker’s,

dressing for parties in cast off

stage costumes of your sisters. Your eyes

were hazy with dreams. You did not

notice me waving as you wandered

past and I saw your slip was showing.

You stood still while I fixed your clothes,

as if I were your mother. Remember me

combing your springy black hair, ringlets

that seemed metallic, glittering;

remember me dressing you, my seventy year

old mother who was my last dollbaby,

giving you too late what your youth had wanted.

What is this mask of skin we wear,

what is this dress of flesh,

this coat of few colors and little hair?

This voluptuous seething heap of desires

and fears, squeaking mice turned up

in a steaming haystack with their babies?

This coat has been handed down, an heirloom

this coat of black hair and ample flesh,

this coat of pale slightly ruddy skin.

This set of hips and thighs, these buttocks

they provided cushioning for my grandmother

Hannah, for my mother Bert and for me

and we all sat on them in turn, those major

muscles on which we walk and walk and walk

over the earth in search of peace and plenty.

My mother is my mirror and I am hers.

What do we see? Our face grown young again,

our breasts grown firm, legs lean and elegant.

Our arms quivering with fat, eyes

set in the bark of wrinkles, hands puffy,

our belly seamed with childbearing,

Give me your dress that I might try it on.

Oh it will not fit you mother, you are too fat.

I will not fit you mother.

I will not be the bride you can dress,

the obedient dutiful daughter you would chew,

a dog’s leather bone to sharpen your teeth.

You strike me sometimes just to hear the sound.

Loneliness turns your fingers into hooks

barbed and drawing blood with their caress.

My twin, my sister, my lost love,

I carry you in me like an embryo

as once you carried me.

What is it we turn from, what is it we fear?

Did I truly think you could put me back inside?

Did I think I would fall into you as into a molten

furnace and be recast, that I would become you?

What did you fear in me, the child who wore

your hair, the woman who let that black hair

grow long as a banner of darkness, when you

a proper flapper wore yours cropped?

You pushed and you pulled on my rubbery

flesh, you kneaded me like a ball of dough.

Rise, rise, and then you pounded me flat.

Secretly the bones formed in the bread.

I became willful, private as a cat.

You never knew what alleys I had wandered.

You called me bad and I posed like a gutter

queen in a dress sewn of knives.

All I feared was being stuck in a box

with a lid. A good woman appeared to me

indistinguishable from a dead one

except that she worked all the time.

Your payday never came. Your dreams ran

with bright colors like Mexican cottons

that bled onto the drab sheets of the day

and would not bleach with scrubbing.

My dear, what you said was one thing

but what you sang was another, sweetly

subversive and dark as blackberries

and I became the daughter of your dream.

This body is your body, ashes now

and roses, but alive in my eyes, my breasts,

my throat, my thighs. You run in me

a tang of salt in the creek waters of my blood,

you sing in my mind like wine. What you

did not dare in your life you dare in mine.

Marge Piercy

Mothers

2010-05-08T10:43:00.001-05:00

the last time i was home

to see my mother we kissed

exchanged pleasantries

and unpleasantries pulled a warm

comforting silence around

us and read separate books

i remember the first time

i consciously saw her

we were living in a three room

apartment on burns avenue

mommy always sat in the dark

i don’t know how i knew that but she did

that night i stumbled into the kitchen

maybe because i’ve always been

a night person or perhaps because i had wet

the bed

she was sitting on a chair

the room was bathed in moonlight diffused through

those thousands of panes landlords who rented

to people with children were prone to put in windows

she may have been smoking but maybe not

her hair was three-quarters her height

which made me a strong believer in the samson myth

and very black

i’m sure i just hung there by the door

i remember thinking: what a beautiful lady

she was very deliberately waiting

perhaps for my father to come home

from his night job or maybe for a dream

that had promised to come by

“come here” she said “i’ll teach you

a poem: i see the moon

the moon sees me
god bless the moon

and god bless me”

i taught it to my son

who recited it for her

just to say we must learn

to bear the pleasures

as we have borne the pains

Nikki Giovanni

To My Mother

2010-05-08T10:39:00.000-05:00

I was your rebellious son,

do you remember? Sometimes

I wonder if you do remember,

so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been

I wonder sometimes if it did not

precede my wrong, and I erred,

safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of me, the way home,

or my bed at night, so that almost

I should forgive you, who perhaps

foresaw the worst that I might do,

and forgave before I could act,

causing me to smile now, looking back,

to see how paltry was my worst,

compared to your forgiveness of it

already given. And this, then,

is the vision of that Heaven of which

we have heard, where those who love

each other have forgiven each other,

where, for that, the leaves are green,

the light a music in the air,

and all is unentangled,

and all is undismayed.

Wendell Berry

The Invitation

2010-04-13T08:37:00.001-05:00

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of furthur pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine and your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine and your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Thoughts from Benjamin Button

2010-04-13T08:07:00.002-05:00

"For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."

(Thank God for good friends.)

The First Cut:Renunciation

2010-02-20T16:08:00.006-06:00

My son renounced me as his mother for the first time in his eleven years of life the day after Valentine’s Day. He also took a slash at my singlemotherhood directly afterwards by telling me it was my fault that I was a single mother. I figured that both of these ouchy experiences were on my horizon, but I wasn't expecting either of them to rear their ugly heads so early in the game and I have to admit, I was utterly heartbroken upon hearing his indictment.

His verdict on my maternal performance made me feel a combination of sharp pain in my chest, shameful feelings of failure, dejection about rejection, and righteous indignation at his sheer lack of gratitude for my many years of effort and sacrifice on his behalf. But I didn't crumble under his verbal assault. What I did was confront the situation by reflecting back my thoughts on his perceptions of my poor performance in something close to a rage. Then, I called in our savior of a surrogate daddy to come to our mutual rescue so Ryan wouldn't have to have to visit his mother in prison for committing her first act of child abuse.

I have to admit in retrospect, the kid has a point on his latter indictment. Single parenting has always been my choice. I was married to Ryan's biological father before Ryan was conceived, but my ex-husband had issues that kept him from properly parenting his two sons from a previous marriage years before he participated in creating Ryan, so I didn't wanna hold my breath about his willingness to contribute to Ryan's care after we split up during my pregnancy. It just didn't seem like a wise course of action for me to depend on him for anything.

That’s why I've never asked for or accepted a dime of child support from my ex-husband. I didn't want him to be forced to be Ryan's father. I wanted him to do it willingly. I never wanted Ryan to grow up feeling like dookie about waiting for his dad to show up for visits and experience disappointment if or when he didn't, or depend on child support checks to pay our rent and other primary needs bc I didn't wanna give my power away.

Please don't misunderstand me, I am in no way knocking the importance of child support. I believe wholeheartedly that parents should contribute to their children's care, but chasing my ex for money was just not the road for me. I realize that father's and mother's suffer financial hardship from time to time that make it hard to keep up child support payments, but in my mind, taking care of a child you took half a part of creating shouldn't be something you are forced to do. It should happen because your child is worth your best efforts.

I grew up in a reality where my mother and step father were more than financially capable of supporting my sister and I during our childhood, but didn't choose to do it for whatever reason, and that messed with my feelings of worth for most of my life. I don't think there's anything quite like having a mother who cares more about buying Chanel handbags than she does about putting food in your mouth or paying for your college tuition to light a fire under your ass about maintaining high standards on matters of your child's worth.

Even though my son took his first cut into my heart with his renunciation, he quickly recovered his sanity and proceeded to apologize repeatedly through tears, text, phone, and any and every way he could find to reassure me that he loves and appreciates me.

I don’t know how it is that my eleven year old boy seems to understand the power of a sincere apology better than most adults, but he really gets it. He also seems to know how to love and care about me better than any man I've ever known. He’s obviously invested in my well being for reasons of survival but the thing that really touches me about Ryan’s heart is that I can feel that he truly cares about how I feel and he shows me as much because he pays attention to my well being. He drew me a few pictures and wrote me something like a poem about his admiration for my creative efforts before he drifted off to sleep that night and I think that says a lot about what he sees in me.

I really appreciate that he recognizes my efforts to become more and when all is said and done, what matters most to me about this experience is that he showed me that despite the anger that drove him to kick my ass with his cutting words, he can see me and recognizes who I am outside of my role as his mother.

Who woulda thought that being renounced by my son would lead me to celebrate my motherhood? But I have to give it up to the little bugger for giving me a reason to feel more connected to my maternal self. Choosing to be Ryan's mom has been the best decision of my life and I am proud to be his singlemother by choice, renounced and all.

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

2010-02-09T18:09:00.000-06:00

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

Diabolical Dialogue

2010-02-09T16:56:00.006-06:00

Sunday morning, my ex sent me a msg at 8am that read:

"U R SO DUMB-FIGURE IT OUT. U WANT SOMETHING BACK U THREW AWAY, U GO CLAIM IT AGAIN AS YOURS"

I did not reply.

Today at 4:51 pm, he sent this:

"I got upgraded to a 52nd floor suite w all floor to ceiling windows at the mandarin sat nite & had 6 orgasms w my hot swede fucking our brains out w all of ny able to watch-Gretta had even more! don't reply-I won't read it-enjoy vegas loser & the other trash in your life-LOL."

I will not reply.

Cycles of Codepenency

2010-02-07T11:38:00.025-06:00

I suspect that some of you are questioning my sanity about putting my personal life on public display and I want to address my reasons for doing what I do. I think my history is a good example of what not to do, and my present reality is an example of what it means to try to live a healthy life. I want to do something that might help others in the struggle to know there are others out there trying to make their lives a better place to live and maybe being a semi 'open book' might contribute to someone's efforts in some way. I haven't worked out the proper formula yet, but I care and I'm trying to getting there.

So today, I received another message from my ex and I'm gonna use it an example of how the cycle of codependency works. If you've read the last two days of belittling banter, you will have some frame of reference as to how it goes.

He wrote, "U R SO DUMB-FIGURE IT OUT. U WANT SOMETHING BACK U THREW AWAY, U GO CLAIM IT AGAIN AS YOURS"

Now, you'd think that a man who formulates the structure of multibillion dollar deals would be smart enough to know that belittling a woman with a MENSA level IQ might not work for him. However, IQ and EQ are different measures, and my dumbass has made the mistake of allowing him to speak to me in such condescending ways in the past because I thought loving him meant that I have to accept all of him, including his abusive tendencies. SO, he's effectively been conditioned to believe that I will continue to accept him, despite his vile behavior bc I created the condition by allowing it to continue on. AND, the reason I get looped into the bullshit cycle is bc in addition to loving and caring about him, I allowed myself to become financially dependent on him in an effort to balance my motherhood with our relationship, bc we were supposed to get married, and didn't need the money to make ends meet. It was too hard to deal with him getting salty at me for not having time to spend with him bc I was bartending to make a few hundred dollars to put into my pocket on my only day off from single motherhood.

Financial dependency is a choice many women make to stand by their man (and family) and it is something I strongly advise against in hindsight. There is so much more to be lost by accepting the life of the desperate housewife bc you essentially transfer your earning potential and power to your man and how he values you becomes your salary of sorts. It's really not a secure position if the Love isn't good in a healthy way. Don't get me wrong, if your man really loves you and will honor and care for you and your child(ren) without holding it over your head all the while, by all means, do what you do booboo, but for those of us who aren't fortunate enough to have such a situation, what happens is that you lose momentum and gain inertia in the real world. Your whole concept of time changes when you don't have to go work and it becomes easy to forget the value of time in relation to money, among other things...and if you were like me and had a very generous partner, it's hard to adjust to the change if things go bad.

I don't know how the dynamic women in my life manage to do what they do day in and day out bc I haven't worked for years and still struggle with my shit with one beautiful boy while they are juggling more children and their successful careers. It kinda makes me feel like a moron for selling out for the illusion of Love bc I gave up pursuing my ambition to attend to the needs of the men in my life. BUT I didn't think about how I was relinquishing an important aspect of my power by allowing him to influence my physical reality bc I was too busy being grateful that anyone would want to take care for me after a lifetime of abandonment by my family.

It makes me so sad to think that I was ever so weak as to think I wasn't worth being taken care of by someone who claims to love me bc my own mother didn't think I was worth it, but people learn their worth through life and claiming one's worth is a slippery slope when your own parent doesn't do their job. Some of us grow up with dissonance about our worth bc the gap between what we think we're worth and how people reinforce that worth is how we learn what it is in reality. My low self worth gave my ex a huge stepping stone to influence my sense of security and wield power over my (and my son's) quality of life.

It's a double whammy to love and care for a man for 20 years and be financially dependent on him bc you get snared into the cycle of trying to make a relationship work for love while revolting against the reality of abuse bc choosing not to accept the shitty situation might mean you may not be able to pay the rent, and how do you do that when there is a child to consider? Some people might answer with the obvious, GO GET A JOB retort...but trust me when I say that it is easier said than done when you've been out of the workforce for seven plus years and have gotten accustomed to living an affluent lifestyle. It's a lot harder than it seems. There is The Princess Factor and The Ego to consider and both are bigger beasts of burden than an abusive partner at times.

So, two days after sending me his malicious messages, my ex is basically telling me he wants me to come back to him regardless of what he says and does because he loves me in his twisted way...and while I know I can, I won't. I would rather go back to bartending than suffer under his sadistic regime bc all the clothes and shoes and jewelry in the world are not worth the tradeoff for my peace of mind. When push comes to shove, I want my baby to know that Money Can't Buy You Love. Love begets Love.

Repulsive Theory

2010-02-07T10:38:00.000-06:00

Little has been made

of the soft, skirting action

of magnets reversed,

while much has been

made of attraction.

But is it not this pillowy

principle of repulsion

that produces the

doily edges of oceans

or the arabesques of thought?

And do these cutout coasts

and incurved rhetorical beaches

not baffle the onslaught

of the sea or objectionable people

and give private life

what small protection it's got?

Praise then the oiled motions

of avoidance, the pearly

convolutions of all that

slides off or takes a

wide berth; praise every

eddying vacancy of Earth,

all the dimpled depths

of pooling space, the whole

swirl set up by fending-off—

extending far beyond the personal,

I'm convinced—

immense and good

in a cosmological sense:

unpressing us against

each other, lending

the necessary never

to never-ending.

Kay Ryan

Growing Into My Voice

2010-02-07T01:17:00.014-06:00

I was just in the shower scrubbing off the residue from days of brutal attacks from my former fiancé and found clarity on a slew of subjects while watching the soapyscum wash down the drain.

The first matter I want to address is my convoluted writing voice of late. Some of you have been privy to my struggle to recapture my voice over the last year and if you read the venomous msgs from my ex over the last two days, you have a sense of the stress that lead to the stifling of my self expression over the last five years. If you know me, you know that it must have taken A LOT to shut me up for so long bc I generally have a lot of shit to say and suffice it to say, it’s been a really rough road for me. I have faith in my progress, but I eat a lot of humble pie in my effort to find a semblance of an authentic me in my words.

As I stumble along my chosen path between servings of leftover humble pie, I find myself led to incredible resources through successful friends like Hugh MacLeod. Hugh is an extraordinarily talented artist whose claim to fame came from drawing cartoons on the back of business cards, as well as authoring a bestselling book called Ignore Everybody. Fortunately for me, friends like Hugh have other successful friends like John T. Unger, who is quite a multifaceted man of the arts, and happens to host an internet radio show that I tuned into yesterday. Mr. Unger interviewed yet another successful artist/writer named Austin Kleon, who is the author of a book called Newpaper Blackout. These fellows discussed so many issues of relevance to any artist/writer, I am going to post a link to the interview for your consideration, but one of the issues that persisted in my mind was their talk of simple branding for the sake of identity. For example, Hugh is an artist who draws cartoons on the back of business cards and Austin is a writer who draws. So I started thinking about my schtick bc I want a simple sentence to describe what I do too…and then I started wondering why I make reading my words require so much effort.

I realized that I deliberately make it labor intensive for people to read my thoughts, so I started to wonder why I do it the way I do. Why do I use words that a lot of people don’t know, and why do I make it difficult for people to get what I’m trying to say? Well, I didn’t understand why I write the way I do until today and you know what it is?

I may not be an easy read, but I want people in my life who think I’m worth the effort because they want to understand. It’s really that simple. After a lifetime of being treated like I wasn’t worth very much to the most important people in my life, it’s no wonder that I want my words to matter to the people who read them, esp. now, given that it is my first real attempt at sharing my words beyond my inner most circle. My writing voice is the only thing I’ve ever really cared about enough to protect within myself and now that I’m exposing it, it’s daunting to me to be less than I want to be, yet I'm choosing to expose myself to critique and ridicule because I care enough to try to build my courage and cultivate a thicker skin. I want to practice to progress because I wanna grow into my voice and am willing to fall and take the hits to get there.

I've cultivated all manner of forcefields to shield me from mean people bc they have wounded me so much through the years but I didn't even correlate my language or cerebral tendencies as barriers to my accessibility until today...and my hope is that this understanding will free me up and help me get to a simpler method of self-expression because I want to become more accessible. I'm hoping that I am making strides towards this vision because I’ve come up with a simpler sentence that embodies my purpose: “Ariana Kim is in the business of enlightenment.” I think that’s about as good as I’m gonna get for now. :)

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/johntunger/2010/02/05/art-heroes-interviews-austin-kleon-a-writer-who-dr

This is Day Two of the Shitstorm by 9am.

2010-02-06T09:04:00.004-06:00

"Of course none of this wld be happening if yu had been a good & loving person or even if u were capable of a real apology, contrition & honesty. But u prefer a life of sleaze and sluttishness w scum-how sad for ry's future but u can't change: once an immoral untrustworthy tramp, apparently always one"

"U r a liar, thief, & slut-how proud yr family must be. U r just going to get older & more pitiful, still chasing waiters & white trash w/o having done anything w life except be a slut"

"Heading to Wolford to get some items for a hot 32yo model from Stolkholm (5'9", 120 lbs 34d-22-34) I met a few months ago but put on hold for you. A mistake I will erase tonight, many times. & what a turn on that her texts to me describe what she wants to do to me all night-so much better than yr weak texts-but u r turned on by white trash & Gretta like smart sophisticated men-so enjoy yr life w trash & i will return to a better class of woman. Goodbye loser. "

This is what cruelty looks like

2010-02-05T14:44:00.031-06:00

I received the following msgs from my former partner today and I'm posting them to raise your awareness about emotional abuse. I lived with this kind of cruelty for years in an effort to love unconditionally but even after walking away from the relationship, the malicious intention of his words still makes me cry. This is an example of the kind of cruelty that fucks people up in the heart and mind and makes it virtually impossible to believe in love.

"yr father must b so proud to have a lying slut for a daughter" "How sad-yr fathers ghost looking down at all yr lies & sluttiness-how shamed he must b by a coke whore daughter, fatherless kid & her uneducated trash vegas & club fuck buddies-if he were alive he wld throw u out of the house bcs of the shame-u deserve a life of shit" "u & yr so called friends r trash-live w it-poor ry will grow up just like u & them: no good degree, hanging w scum, & thinking the most imp thing in life is to be attractive: w u & ur scum boys as role models he too will end up as an unread, pitiful & superficial loser like u & ur friends-dream big ry and maybe u can b the type of man yr slut mom prefers: a glorified waiter in vegas serving better & more successful people- hoping to meet a worthless tramp like u"

This is what cruelty looks like. I hope you never have to know what it feels like.

Almost

2010-02-05T11:15:00.001-06:00

Almost
(with another end)

Almost
is a four letter word
like flit or snit or twit but
what it means
(p)lays beside you in bed
and stays the night

Almost
sounds like a
slow and lingering ((fuck))
whose suspended state of longing
has grown arms in anticipation

Almost
-wraps-itself-
around-you-until-
it-binds-you-to-it-
leaving-you-
nowhere-
to-go-
but-
in

Almost
leaves you petrified
inside )out( in
perplexing liquid limbo
leaving four letter words
your only way (out)

Ariana W. Kim

Almost

2010-02-05T11:11:00.000-06:00

Almost
(Part One)

Almost
is a four letter word
like flit or snit or twit but
what it means
(p)lays beside you in bed
and stays the night

Almost
sounds like a
slow and lingering ((fuck))
whose suspended state of longing
has grown arms in anticipation

Almost
leaves you petrified
inside )out( in
perplexing liquid limbo
leaving four letter words
your only way (out)

Almost
-wraps-itself-
around-you-until-
it-binds-you-to-it-
leaving-you-
nowhere-
to-go-
but-
in

Ariana W. Kim

Divorce

2010-02-05T10:01:00.004-06:00

Once, two spoons in bed,
now tined forks

across a granite table
and the knives they have hired.

Billy Collins

The Sound of Wind

2010-01-28T12:44:00.021-06:00

One of the things I love about facebook is when one of my 'friends' inspires the kind of desire that directs me towards the nobility of simple aspects of Nature that I tend to take for granted. I read a motivated thought by a 'friend' I don't really know, but have 'known' for more than 20 years, that made me want to listen to the sound of wind today. The thing is, I don't tend to look for restoration from anxiety from the most obvious source bc I have a urbanite's mentality and seeking Nature doesn't come naturally to me, so when my 'friend' brought the sound of wind to the forefront of my mind, I sought it out in the most obvious places for me, like Shelly's Ode to a West Wind or Mozart's Wind Serenades. However, I couldn't find a satisfying rendition of what I was searching for in my usual spots, so I looked outside my front window, to see the branches of a big tree swaying to the wind. And when I looked closer, I noticed a few remaining leaves still hanging on for dear life in spite of their dried and withered condition.

Can I just say that there is something extraordinarily beautiful about watching what is essentially a dead leaf fluttering to the whims of the winter wind as the sun basks it's warm light into my otherwise chilly apartment? I feel utterly restored by the sight I found in search of a sound. In some ways, I feel like I found much more than the sound of wind, bc watching those remaining leaves dancing to the breeze created a tickling sensation in my spirit that I will carry inside me for the rest of the day and probably, into time. There is something wonderfully sustaining about the sound of a good session of tickle torture courtesy of the wind and a leaf, and I think it's enough to keep me smiling today. I never imagined that my 'friends' search for the sound of wind could lead me to the sound of laughter, but this is a prime example of how one good thing leads to another if you let it. :)

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby...

2010-01-27T08:41:00.039-06:00

So, I'm reading a book called The Museum of Innocence right now and have effectively fallen in love in the last 24 hours. I generally take time to check things out and assess the situation before taking the plunge, but this man has a way with words that few on the planet really do and didn't leave me much choice in the matter.

Anyway, I posted a few excerpts last night from my new love about kisses and pleasure that lead to a tasteful rendition of sexual satisfaction and ultimately, Love, but the material sort of teeters on the cusp of arousal and I have to say, my maternal instincts kicked in the question of appropriation, as in, are these excerpts appropriate reading material for your blog given Ryan's access to it? Is this the kind of reading material that you are comfortable putting out there for your baby to read on a self propelled visit to assess his mother's output?

Well, I thought about the question a lot last night, and my answer is resounding HELLYES. I am more than okay with sharing elevated thoughts about the subject of kisses and pleasure and Love with the entire world, including Ryan, bc Pamuk is exceptionally good at describing feelings that most mature adults have experienced in the realm of true intimacy. I would rather Ryan read an articulate version of how these experiences unfold than look at a smutty alternative in the form of picture or a video. This is not Penthouse Forum; this is Nobel Prize winning shit right here.

The question of how to broach the subject of sex with our children is a dilemma for nearly every parent bc while it's necessary to compartmentalize it to some extent, but it's also important not to tabooify it to the point where our children grow up feeling uncomfortable with what is a foundational part of life. After all, none of us would be here if it wasn't for some form of sex. Even insemination requires the end product of self pleasure.

I didn't have the benefit of a word from anyone parental or otherwise to prepare me for the experience of sex. What I had as my guide were the condemning messages I heard at church about burning in hell for having sex before marriage if I didn't accept Christ as my savior. You know who taught me about sex? Judy Blume! That woman gave me better advice about the perils of adolescence and young adulthood than anyone in my family or life ever did. The thing is, I'm not about relegating my job as Ryan's guide to life to a book, regardless of whether I am in love with one right now or not. There are some jobs that a loving parent is required to take on and sex educator is one of those tasks.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not about an overshare with my son in this capacity. I don't indulge in such activity when he is in close proximity and I don't talk to him about the ins and outs of the subject in detail. But there is no way I am gonna to leave him hanging to suffer the awkwardness and shame that a lot of people, and esp. my Asian American brothers and sisters, experience trying to acclimate themselves to the experience of sex. AND I absolutely refuse to leave my beautiful boy in a state of confusion or discomfort about the subject when I know he's gonna have the option to partake in it a lot sooner than I would prefer it. I've heard too many stories about lil girls and boys, whose parents didn't impart wise advice about matters of sex or self respect , who turn towards hoebag activities much earlier these days, and are apt to want to try to seduce and give it up to him sooner than his mama would like them too!

So what I do is let him ask questions and answer him honestly. What I do is leave condoms in an accessible place around the house so he knows what they look like and feel like. He opens them up and laughs with his friends about them bc being a little curious and nervous and giggly about the subject is a normal part of growing up. And while he often icks and nays and shudders appropriately about talking to his mother about sex cuz he's a normal boy and doesn't really want to discuss sex with his mama, he listens to me when I tell him that sex as a pleasurable part of life's experience, but something sacred, that is best shared with special people who are worth his time and energy. I talk to him about shielding himself from the dangers of sex in the form of debilitating diseases that can lead to discomfort, and the worst case scenario, death. I tell him pleasure is an important pursuit to be sure, but not worth trading your life for it. I talk to him about trust and respect for one's partner, and how important it is to honor himself, and his partner, by being discreet and having enough dignity and integrity not to talk about his exploits bc it's disrespectful to violate another person's privacy without some level of tact, or what people call class, about the matter. I tell him that his sexual experiences are a private matter and worth discussing openly with people he genuinely trusts. I tell him that his life is valuable and try to reiterate his worth by showing him how much he matters to me, with hope that he matters enough to himself to hold high standards for himself, and his sexual partners. I talk about sex with my baby bc I lived most of my life feeling disconnected to my worth and looked for love in all the wrong places, and never want him to feel lost in the sexual wilderness and give himself away like I did. I want him to feel perfectly comfortable in his sexual skin so that when he embarks upon that path, he can experience the wonder of it without ever feeling he was ill prepared for it...and I never, ever, want him to feel like he didn't or doesn't have anyone to talk to about it.

Banksy's Ladder

2010-01-27T08:34:00.002-06:00

My Body Is A Bruise

2010-01-24T13:44:00.054-06:00

My threshold for pain has become exceedingly high over the years. It's gotten to the point where I bang to bruise and don't even flinch. The thing about bruising is that the evidence of internal rupture manifests on our bodies for a bit, but we eventually heal...or so it seems. Some painful experiences don't show up on the surface as easily as a bruise, and I have to wonder where we store the pain bc it's not like it dissolves into thin air. My theory is that it vaporizes into the atmosphere of our bodies and stays. This may explain why people who have had hard luck tend to slouch. I think it's pretty easy to understand how the burden of carrying pain can become too much to bear for those who have experienced a lot of it and affect the way a person stands. Having been through much in the way of physical and emotional suffering, it's no wonder to me why people seek reprieve from their pain through opiates. I know all too well how temporary relief can become a necessary evil when one's threshold has been exceeded and then some. It's a matter of survival.

So I've decided that I want to study alchemy. I wanna know how to turn the burn of pain into something that doesn't feel black and blue. I need to learn how to make my heart feel like more than a motherfucking bruise. My body was not meant to be a temple for a bruised heart.

I am nothing more than a four letter word today.

2010-01-24T09:19:00.003-06:00

Fuck.

Be Like Art

2010-01-23T10:50:00.022-06:00

I didn't watch Conan O'Brien's last episode of The Tonight Show, but my friend Art did. Art is a friend of 20 something years from my high school days, and he, like me, carries the battlewounds of struggle and watches the world through the lens of someone who has seen more than his share of ugliness in the world. I think he holds a jaded perspective that people in the know in Chicago tend to do for the sake of a practical protection....but frankly, I think it's sort of an act because I know he's a die hard romantic like me. He just has to deal with different realities being a Latin American father in today's cynical world.

So...last night, I logged into facebook and saw a status update that Art wrote about Conan's last show that read, "God bless Conan !!!! Very touching words brother! Keep that shit REAL!" Naturally, his post sparked my curiosity bc he mostly shares music, so I asked him what he said, and a few hours later, he posted Conan's words on my wall.

I don't know about the rest of you, but Art's kind of kindness makes me believe what Conan said about it. Simple acts like sharing a post on a facebook wall define what kindness is in action. It's a "friendly, generous, and warm hearted" gesture that can make another person feel really, really good. Everyone has the capacity to be kind, but a lot of people don't choose to be kindness incarnate, despite the joy it has the potential of bringing to a person's life. I think kindness comes from having heart, and thankfully, Art has enough to spare for the likes of me and I am a very grateful recipient of his overflow. I think it takes a person like him, who cares enough about people to share something uplifting, to do it well...and he does it really, really well.

I started writing this with the intention of advocating a Be Like Conan mantra, but it's turned into what it should have been from the start. I think we should Be Like Art. :)

Please send me a linchpin in the form of a partner?

2010-01-23T00:50:00.004-06:00

This morning, I read a facebook post by my friend, Hugh MacLeod, about Seth Godin's new book, Linchpin. Mr. Godin defines a linchpin as "the person who is indispensable, because they refuse to become an interchangeable part, someone who merely follows the manual." Well, Mr. Godin, I've never followed a manual, refuse to be an interchangeable anything, AND enjoy the heck out of marketing. Does that mean I have a shot at making myself indispensable to the world with my ideas one day? I wanna be able to apply my abilities towards a profitable and fulfilling venture, but I don't know exactly how I wanna do it. I wonder when I will stop struggling with the question of how to make the right choices about what to commit myself to doing. I just want to find something that I really love to do and do it really fucking well.

This is sorta tangental, but last year, I came very close to buying a cafe a few blocks from my house but opted out of it bc I didn't have a reliable partner. I don't have a lot of faith in restaurant ventures that are not built upon a strong foundation of partnership bc there are too many jobs within a restaurant for one person to handle effectively. There was no way I was gonna commit my energy or my parents resources to doing something I knew would be too much to handle on my own at a level of profitability that would justify my time or my commitment.

I also know myself and I'm not exactly what you would call a people person. I tend to bring out strong to extreme reactions and responses in people and I don't like having to cater to people's comfort if I'm not in the mood. It's not because I don't care about how people feel because I do. In fact, I care a lot. I just know I'm not good at masking my emotions and don't have the kind of skin it takes to be good at front of the house duties ALL the time. It's taken me a long time to accept this reality but now that I do, I can confidently disassociate myself from front of the house duties when my money is on the line. There are better people for that job than me.

This is one of the reasons why I am in the market for a good business partner. I need someone in my life who is good at following through with my ideas and capable of putting on a smiling face when I am feeling antisocial. Perhaps this is why writing appeals to me. Two of my favorite pastimes, reading and writing, involve solitude, and I need to be able to do both of them to be able to put on a smiling face. However, that being said, I also need strong partnerships in my life.

After all, one of the most pleasurable and fundamental experiences in life requires the presence of another human being. :)

the origin of seoulstice

2010-01-22T10:09:00.060-06:00

For those of you who don't know much about me, you should know I am something of a chef. I've been cooking since I was 4 years old and have gradually built my culinary repertoire to encompass a broad range of flavors through residential and professional kitchens across the country. My culinary curiosity fuels my day to day reality in practically every realm of my life bc if I'm not eating delicious food, I'm most certainly thinking about my next meal. One of the ways I enjoy engagng my mind is through a quasi puzzle I like to solve where I evaluate a restaurant market, find gaps in supply, and conceptualize food and menu ideas to fill the void. I have been doing this since I was 17 years old and I will probably do it for the rest of my days bc it's one of the quirky ways I like to keep myself entertained. Some people watch tv for entertainment, and I write menus and think of ways to build successful ventures in food for fun bc I'm freaky like that.

seoulstice started as the title of a korean cookbook and restaurant concept that I developed from one of my, 'Let me fill the lack of' quality contemporary Korean dining options in Chicago moments. I still intend to follow through with seoulstice as a cookbook and restaurant bc have mad ambition about my vision for the culinary potential of Korean cuisine and believe it would do really well presented in a fashionably authentic, yet reasonable manner. There is a lot more to Korean food than traditional Korean BBQ and people could stand to be introduced to more of the regional and elegant aspects of the cuisine. However, seoulstice the cookbook and restaurant will have to sit on my shelf of brilliant ideas for the meantime and wait to be born bc seoulstice the website is coming to term. seoulstice as it stands today has morphed into the title of my working website for my writing and creative endeavors. Obviously, the name seoulstice was intended to embody multiple meanings, but the derivative word 'solstice' is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as "a highest point, a culmination", which ties in nicely with what it is I aspire to do with my life.
I want to be in the business of empowering people. I want to try to help them to be whatever is best by their standard. I want to be able to help people understand what happiness and fulfillment means to them and figure out a way to get there. I don't think it's a wonder that this is what I want to do after so many years of being a melancholic and miserable mess. I don't know exactly how I will go about the business of empowerment but I think it's time to squeeze out another baby. Ryan has always wanted a sibling, and I think he'd appreciate one, even if it's in the form of a business.

Coincidentally, I saw Ryan reading my blog tonight, and I have to say, it was the sweetest sight my sore eyes have seen in a long time. I think he's proud of me for making the effort to build my vision and I'm happy to feel his esteem for me growing, even if it's one word at a time. I know it seems minor in the general scheme of things but giving Ryan reasons to believe in me makes me feel like I'm doing something right for a change. These are the moments of progress that this mama lives for. :)

Love After Love

2010-01-22T09:53:00.004-06:00

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

facebook withdrawal

2010-01-21T20:59:00.006-06:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I have invested an incredible amount of time, energy, and effort into my facebooking endeavors over the last however many months and I have to admit, I've grown rather attached to facebook as a source of creative expression and social connectivity. I live a very solitary existence outside of my interaction with my son and his dad and there are many days that I don't talk to anyone outside of my family, so facebook is my only link to the outside world.

A lot of people might laugh at me for admitting this, but I am going through major facebook withdrawal right now! I effectively banned myself from facebooking in order to concentrate my efforts to the business of writing, and I have to say, I really miss it, and it's day one! Urg.

I find comfort in my routine of waking up in the morning, grinding my favorite Guatemalan, and sipping a delicious cup of coffee while excavating my poetic inspiration/affirmation of the day. I like the process of posting my discoveries on facebook bc I get to share beauty with my family and friends as one of my first acts of the day. I think giving with good intention is a wonderful way to begin any day and I highly advocate it. I've found sharing to be a very fulfilling process on facebook because my giving isn't attached to the expectation of receiving anything in return, and that has been very liberating for me. I won't say that getting a high five in the form of an approving 'like' isn't reassuring from time to time bc it is, but I don't need to know whether anyone has read or listened to my giving to enjoy doing it. I just like putting it out there in the event that someone's day might be uplifted as much my own.

Is it crazy to say that I really enjoy composing status updates? I find writing them perfectly suited to my sensibilities bc I can tackle the task without fear of commitment, especially after five years of writers block. There is something incredibly sweet and sassy about having a short space to express oneself. Status updates transmit information, emotion, and an overall vibration that has the potential to stay in the minds of multiple people, and amuse, uplift, challenge, irritate, inspire, entertain, and expand them as far as they want and sometime don't want to go. I don't know if this makes me a bit deranged but I happen to derive a lot of pleasure from being able to facilitate any or all of these sensations.

I also get a huge kick out of speaking in double, triple, quadruple talk bc a lot of my posts require investigation and feel a bit like an adventure...although that being said, I've also lost friends on facebook bc my posts upset them. There is nothing like an impersonal status update to light a fire under an insecure person's ass. A few didn't even have the care or commitment to call me to tell me they were upset. I would just find them gone without a word of explanation and in one case, it was one of my dearest friends of over 20 years! I think the impersonal nature of updates tend to bring our fears to the surface, but the good news is, this can serve to acquaint us with issues that need to be addressed and resolved within. I have learned so much about human nature through facebook and am grateful for all the lessons. I am currently in the process of writing an ode to facebook in the form of a top ten list and this is one of my brainstorming exercises to get juiced up for the task at hand.

When all is said and done though, my favorite part of facebooking was, is, and will continue to be leaving love notes. I'm a die hard romantic and I absolutely refuse to give that part of it up. After all, seoulstice is about empowering myself and there is nothing more powerful than Love, is there?

Random Thoughts on Inglorious Basterds

2010-01-21T17:19:00.001-06:00

I just watched Inglorious Basterds and it made me squirm in the most riveting way.

I thought the languages transitions were very entertaining. What a clever way to showcase an actor's range in the realm of dialogue. I think Quentin is smart enough to know that there was no way a skilled actor wouldn't secure an Oscar nomination with that material.

The film also depicted realistic historical events like scalping in a such a close up manner that forced the raw violence of skinning right up in your face. Watching those scenes made me turn my head away and shriek in terror!

singlemotherhood's striving towards solutions

2010-01-21T12:48:00.003-06:00

There are a lot of supposed to's imposed upon parents in general, but as a single parent, what one has to do is step up to double the duty. This usually translates into a sacrifice in one's pursuit of a personal life in order to make life work for the greater good. The problem with this scenario is that this semiselfless act breeds an understandable amount of frustration and resentment at one's lot in life, and while this bilious energy can be justifiably directed towards the missing parent, it will often extend itself to one's family, who aren't actively involved in one's day to day reality, friends, who have more optimal circumstances, God, and other innocent bystanders like the cashier at the grocery store, dumb drivers, virtual to actual strangers, and life in general. The most unfortunate recipients are usually our children, who are forced to bite the brunt of our suffering bc they don't have any choice in the matter.

The worst part about this cycle of resentment is that it manifests in guilt and self loathing bc any parent worth their weight in love doesn't intend to inflict their anger about their personal disappointments upon their children. (I will surely revisit this subject soon bc I have a lot to say about it.)

I am fortunate enough to have a saint of a surrogate father in the form of a gorgeous hunk of modelmanflesh named Michael Ramion, who lovingly and willingly supplements my ex-husband's absence from our equation. But even with the additional support, I still suffer the turmoil involved in living with the burden of a single mother's lack of freedom.

Some years ago, I had an idea to start a non-profit organization called Single Mother's Alliance. The purpose of this project would be to create a network of single mother's dedicated to creating a community based on reciprocity, particularly in the form of child care exchanges, parenting seminars, esp. for those of us who did not have the benefit of good parenting models, educational resources, career counseling, mentoring , and other supportive measures to help empower each other to our highest good. I genuinely feel that this type of organization would help alleviate the burden of limitation on time, energy, and resources often associated with singlemotherhood. If single mothers have the time and opportunity to pursue their own happiness, they will likely be less conflicted, more fulfilled, and better able to effectively balance their personal needs and hopes with their familial responsibilities. I think there are a lot of wonderful things that could come out of this venture, but the one thing I hope for most is that it would help singlemother's to free up and be present and available to spend quality time with their children.

I started writing this blog to talk about my plans to see a very silly, semi twisted, quasidirty film at doc tonight (the link is under my to do today box), but it seems I was meant to reconnect to my vision for Single Mother's Alliance. It is one of the projects I intend to create on my journey, and I guess I am putting it out into the Universe so that my vision can stake it's territory in reality.

I am not a model minority

2010-01-21T09:48:00.001-06:00

January 21, 2010

I am not a model minority. What I am is a Korean American Single Mother in my thirty seventh year of life who didn't do anything 'right' by conventional standards. What I am is a product of tragedy who has lived most of my life as an archetype of affliction and self-destruction: a walking, talking, death wish that God decided to spare to make an example of how Love can fuel the damaged and downtrodden to triumph over adversity. So here I am in my first official year of healthy living and what I endeavor to do is chronicle my journey to create my own version of successful living as a black sheep minority and overall outcast. My hope is that my story will make you believe that people are capable of deviating from the expected path and developing their own way to happiness. My goal is to create a new 'model' of motivated minority living in the form of redemption.

My salvation and motivation is my beautiful son, Ryan.

He is the reason I am here.

seoulstice

The Uses of Sorrow

Someone I loved gave mea box full of darkness.It took me years to understandthat this, too, was a gift.Mary Oliver

Morbidity and Doubt

My Mother's Body

Mothers

To My Mother

The Invitation

Thoughts from Benjamin Button

The First Cut:Renunciation

JK Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure | Video on TED.com

Diabolical Dialogue

Cycles of Codepenency

Repulsive Theory

Growing Into My Voice

This is Day Two of the Shitstorm by 9am.

This is what cruelty looks like

Almost

Almost

Divorce

The Sound of Wind

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby...

Banksy's Ladder

My Body Is A Bruise

I am nothing more than a four letter word today.

Be Like Art

Please send me a linchpin in the form of a partner?

the origin of seoulstice

Love After Love

facebook withdrawal

Random Thoughts on Inglorious Basterds

singlemotherhood's striving towards solutions

I am not a model minority

Someone I loved gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

Mary Oliver