A Sea of Change

I said farewell to Penny today, over breakfast at the bistro table in my crackerbox apartment. She dove into a bowl of cereal and milk sprinkled with raisins while I nursed an iced coffee, both of us musing at the pace with which life bring change.

It's a strange thing, the transiency that permeates life living abroad. I've always considered myself an adventurer at heart, a free spirit with a soul that longs to experience life firsthand from a wide range of geographical perches. My family and friends who know me well, I hope, appreciate this as one of the qualities that defines me, while others who are perhaps less in tune with my curious yet genuinely humanitarian nature might write me off as some kind of a gypsy.

It's true that my life has been a constant stream of movement. Since my early years as a youngster, following my parents along on cross-town and cross-country moves, I became well practiced in the art of packing my things, settling in to a new home, and finding my place among new friends. And the pace only quickened as I reached my college years. I don't think I can truthfully count the number of places I have lived, or the number of times I have moved. But that's okay with me. It's part of the learning curve that is my life, and I wouldn't change it.

Still, it's a reality I have had to adjust to, that here in Korea, I am rubbing shoulders with so many others for whom life is also a sea of change. Most of the foreigners in Korea have come to work as an English teacher for twelve months. That's the standard contract length. Of course, there are a host of expats, mostly settled in and around the suburbs of Seoul, who have chosen to make themselves more of a permanent fixture in Korea. I'm somewhere balanced between the two, for once -- not particularly eager to sprint out of Korea at the first chance I get, though certainly not ready to put down the kind of roots that would keep me for years on end.

With Penny gone, I'm reminded that life is fleeting, that friendships are to be appreciated and savored, and that I am blessed to have been touched by people who have come into my life, bringing rays of sunshine with them. Penny is off to begin another chapter of her life, in the same way that each foreigner I meet will in turn. And then one day, it will be me again who spreads wide my wings and soars to some new perch from which to take in the world around me.

I am grateful to have learned through my life experiences that hellos and goodbyes, while often tinged with emotion, are never final or absolute -- that the world, despite how tremendously large it is, can still in its own miraculous way bring people full-circle back together again. I am grateful that I have learned how to take that feeling of "home" with me wherever it is that I have chosen to be, and that I can be thousands of miles away from family yet still somehow feel "surrounded" with the love, support, and care of those who matter most to me.

Life is a sea of change. Sometimes we drift, sometimes we swim against the current. But always, in the end, it is the sea that carries us beyond our humble beginnings and into the vast and open space where more than we have ever imagined can become possible.

Smooth Sailing into Seosan

IMG_2906, originally uploaded by mizmoxie.

I am lying on a cotton-quilted bed in my host family’s guest room, trying to convince my body that it really is 10 AM Friday morning, and no longer 9 PM Thursday night. But I can’t blame myself for being a bit confused. It’s been 2½ days now since my last “real” night’s sleep, and 31 hours since leaving my parents’ house now half a world away… With too much left to finish Tuesday night before my flight the next morning, I opted to pull an all-nighter. Plus, I had reasoned, I’ll crash on the plane and rest on Korea’s clock while being catapulted over the Pacific. It could have been that simple, but naturally, getting myself to this firm-yet-comfy little bed on the other side of the world took more than a little doing.
First, I was held at the check-in counter in Harrisburg for the better part of an hour, while the airline agents confirmed that no, they wouldn’t let me board the plane until I had in my hand an onward or return ticket from Korea. Having an E2 visa (good for 1 year) pasted inside my brand spanking new passport did absolutely nothing to convince them otherwise (forget that plane tickets can’t be bought more than 330 days in advance!!). So $1800 later, I held a one-way ticket returning from Seoul sometime next May. Fortunately, this cloud had a silver lining – the ticket is fully refundable. Somehow I’ve just got to arrange to mail it to my parents, who will have to make a trip back to the airport to get their $1800 back. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for fronting the money for that unexpected little wrinkle 
The flight from Harrisburg to Chicago was uneventful, and 2 hours after arriving, I was again wrestling my carry-on luggage into an overhead bin, this time heading for Tokyo, Japan. 13 hours airborne meant plenty of time to sleep, learn a few words of Korean, and, as it turns out, make friends with the young Korean girl seated to my left. Halfway through the flight, after waking from yet another neck-paralyzing mini-nap and pulling out my Lonely Planet Korea book, Su Min introduced herself to me. As it turns out, she had been living just a few miles from my parents in Harrisburg for the past year, where she had stayed with a host family while attending high school. This seems to be a rite of passage for a large portion of Korean teenagers, an opportunity to further ensure gaining entrance to a good university, and hence, have a successful life. Su Min and I talked about her family back home, her dreams to be a singer. She warned me about the recent protests in Seoul against the government’s agreement with the U.S. to buy American beef. Her eyes sparkled as she told me of the places she longed to travel to, how much she loved to meet people from different places, to learn about the culture. Well, that pretty much sealed the deal – we had officially “bonded...” which turned out to be a blessing in disguise
After landing in Tokyo, we were informed that our flight to Seoul had been delayed by 4 hours. Thanks to Su Min and her Korean calling card, I was able to get that message to Harrison, my new boss, who would otherwise have had a very long evening at the Incheon airport. It was unfortunate to be in Tokyo on a rainy evening, weighed down with heavy baggage and no real chance to venture out from the belly of the airport. So I did the next best thing – I slept. Hard plastic seats were no match for my profound exhaustion, and I somehow managed to surrender to the dream world – that is, until the left side of my body woke me up with a loud protest of discomfort. It was a short time later that Su Min found me, along with another Korean boy, who had also been studying at a high school in Harrisburg… this was turning out to be a ridiculously small world. The three of us walked the length of the terminal, until we managed to find the airport’s food court, and treated ourselves to dinner. I enjoyed a plate of Japanese-style beef curry with rice and earned a compliment for my chopstick performance from my new Korean friends.
Before too long, we were airborne again, and I tried to entertain myself with the in-flight magazine while sandwiched in economy class between two sleeping strangers. It would have been the ideal time to sleep, as we didn’t pull onto the tarmac until minutes before midnight. But of course, that meant 11 AM to my very confused body clock, and I was completely alert (though, unfortunately, no match for the crossword puzzle on page 75). We landed into thick Korean fog, scuttled through the terminal to pass through Immigration, and waited with growing impatience for our luggage to surface in Baggage Claim.
Finally, I walked beyond Customs, my cart loaded down with two packed-to-the-max duffle bags, and gazed out at the gentle swarm of eager faces awaiting our arriving flight. How would I find Harrison?, I began to wonder. Will he recognize me? And then, I saw it – my unmistakable larger-than-life-size head glued to a pole, staring back at me. It was my passport photo, blown up to obscene dimensions… ughh! Attached the other end of the pole was Harrison, smiling, bright-eyed, despite the terribly late hour. He had made a welcome sign to greet me, and held it energetically. As soon as I recognized him and made my way to where he was standing, we exchanged warm handshakes and expressions of “It’s so nice to finally meet you!” I hugged Su Min goodbye and wished her a happy stay with her family. And Harrison and I started on our way.
“You look so different from your picture,” Harrison told me, moments later. Thinking perhaps he was somehow disappointed, and reminding myself how disheveled I must appear to him after so many hours of travel, I shrugged it off with a reference to my recent haircut. “No, it’s not that,” he continued. “You look so much friendlier in person!” And at that, I had to chuckle. He was right, my straight-faced passport photo did absolutely nothing for my personality. I am much more at home with a smile on my face, and a sparkle in my eyes, and it didn’t take Harrison long to see that. For the next three hours as we lugged my baggage across the airport, loaded down his van, then drove south through the wet, cool fog to Seosan, Harrison and I had time to talk. I found myself settling into a happy awareness that I was finally here, in Korea, seated next to the man who had become a friend through months of emails and visa updates. I felt a positive and peaceful wave of energy overtake me as Harrison told me how very glad he was to have me here. I felt the genuineness in his voice as he told me how happy he was with his life – how fortunate he felt to have a family he loved so much, a job he enjoyed so much, and a home in a city he loved so much as well. He exuded such a positive energy, which seemed to coalesce with mine, and it was one of those moments when everything just felt right in the world. The challenge of arriving here, the long process for my visa… all of that was behind me now, and all that mattered was that I was here, that I had come, that Korea had beckoned to me, and I had answered.

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

Saying goodbye… to my family, my friends, my home, my community, my state, my whole freaking country… and even to some cherished sentimental touchstones, which have been stuffed in drawers and closets and boxes for years and have managed to pass through my hands at some point during this hectic week as I sorted out what to take, what to leave behind, and what to let go… These past twelve days have been one goodbye after another, growing steadily in intensity, like the climbing decibels of a quickening drumbeat as it rises with crescendo against the lilting melody of life.

Yet here it is. This is my life. These are my dreams. My ambitions are coming into focus, in vivid, brilliant Technicolor, blinding neon lights flashing inexcusably right before my eyes. My foresight, desire, and gut-level decisions have brought me to this fork in the road. It is here, on the edge of morning, June 11, 2008, that I sit in my corner bedroom on the top floor in my parents’ home for the last time, my back sunk against the pillows three rows deep between me and the periwinkle-painted walls behind me, pondering where the road will carry me next.

The concrete facts I know: five hours from now, a plane will whisk me from Harrisburg to Chicago to Japan to Korea. 23 hours after touching off from Pennsylvania, I’ll be collecting my bags and looking out into a sea of Asian faces to find one that hopefully I’ll recognize from the handful of photos I’ve exchanged with my now-employer, Harrison. A few hours later, we will have arrived in Seosan, my home for the next twelve months, my eyes fighting to stay awake long enough to meet the family gracious enough to be my hosts during the week ahead, and to try out, for the first time, the cursory and obligatory Korean phrases I’ve practiced during the long trans-Pacific flight that has brought me here.

I’m feeling oh-so melancholy as memories rack up on top of one another in a paralyzing jumble, and I remind myself again how much I hate goodbyes. We’ll meet again, I’ve told many a friend in the last several days, because after all, I say, the world’s just not that big. Today we can crisscross continents in high-speed planes, bridges thousands of miles in milliseconds with emails and webcams and VOIP calls. We’re not so disconnected as we used to be, which is a comfort as I consider the fact that my favorite Italian meal is going to be one hell of a long haul away for the next calendar year.

Still, I gaze out the window, past the weeping willow with boughs sweeping the ground where I took “glamour shot” photos of Natalie, past the white picket fence and the spot where Emily and I played Boggle on that faded yellow blanket two summers ago. I look out over the magnolia tree where Mom and I found the panicked bird whose nest was endangered after an overambitious gardener cut back its branches a bit too sparsely. I pause on the flowerboxes that have always been overflowing with the bright colors of springtime, thanks to Mom’s green thumb, and the patio table where we’ve eaten many a breakfast during the warmer months. I walk my eyes down the steps to the pool and dip my gaze into the cool, crystal blue water, envisioning Michael and Daniel catapulting themselves off the diving board into jumps that earned top marks by our panel of family judges. I hear Lorelie’s laughter as she surfaces from her snorkel trip across the length of the pool in the aqua boots and fins I brought back from Florida. I smell the succulence of charcoal and marinade as Dad tends to the barbecue, cooking up a mouthwatering plate of pork steaks for dinner. And this is just one little portion of the memories I have wrapped up in this place that my family has called home for the past seven years.

It’s time to say goodbye, time to move forward with courage and hopefulness, time to keep believing in all the great and amazing reasons I chose this road less traveled in the first place. I’m a Robert Frost kind of girl at heart. I want the world to be my oyster, and I want to make my own path across it, one uniquely mine. I want to believe that the world will be different because of the journey I’ve taken to leave my mark. And it doesn’t start here anymore than it ends here, because there isn’t any end to this journey, this passage, this trailblazing, which is so essentially me. But I do know this: somewhere south of Seoul I continue my discovery. And somewhere between this place and wherever the roads next leads me, I’ll find part of myself and leave part of myself, adding another equation to the complex formula that is the universe. I suppose it’s time to dust off my compass and start moving my feet… Hello Korea, here I come.