the old new year

I return to this space for the first update in over five months, and probably the final of my remaining stay in Korea if we're being realistic.  We sit at just around eight weeks left - eight weeks to decide if essentials are truly such, eight weeks to finally follow through on something I've been putting off for the past 22 months should I even recall such a thing, eight weeks to prepare for a return to life as a repatriate.  It oscillates between ecstatic anticipation, calm confidence, and looming dread.  Eagerness, acceptance, caution, excitement, antipathy, preparing for the best and the worst and very little in between, and an attempt to recall the past two years and what has led me to this moment.  

And, in list form.  

The "Best" of Two Years Spent Living and Un-living in Korea

* A first successful venture to a grocery store, navigation of a metro and bus route, and basic communication with a Korean service worker

* Warranted/unwarranted self-sadness, torturous reflection, lack of self-care, absence of perspective

* Warranted/unwarranted joy, liberated reflection, abundance of self-care, construction of perspective

* The happiness of a body in motion

* Mountains, climbed/gazed upon

* Wonder at the multitude of ways to arrange concrete, metal, water, wood, and flesh

* Very, very loud guitars

* Notions of The Beautiful Body, the importance of contrasting values, the social contract

* Drums

* Community: those with whom you share life, those with whom you have nothing in common and want to avoid, those with whom you share so much but where mutuality is never acknowledged

* Rainy birthdays

* Trains

* Making plans and sticking to them; making plans and breaking them

* Individual organisms breathing and bleeding as a single entity, pushing and pulling and pulsing, conquering and ceding and caring for

* Expressing love through food and history

* Knowing one or two things and mastering them

* Learning a little bit about many different things and mastering nothing

* Shirts and shoes, belts and socks

* The value and benefits of the right kind of smoke

* Sports

* The ability to be outside in the nighttime and how essential it seems

* Walks, long and sometimes very long

* The importance of a good pillow

* Knowing, being acquainted with, bonding with, hurting, and being hurt by every person you meet

* Smells

* Waiting until the groove is just right before dancing

* Resisting/giving in to pressure

* Warmth and frigidity

* Faces

Eight weeks before leaving this place.  Fifteen before returning to where my heart feels Home.  As of this writing, five hours and forty-five minutes before 2014.  

See you all soon.