Summer

Strawberry Farm Outside of Seoul

Avocado, coconut oil by the spoonful, the sound of James Vincent Mcmorrow. Chia seeds, cocoa powder, Angus and Julia Stone. This is what summer is.




You say you want it, but how will words alone fill your story books?

Perhaps you don't know me, and I don't know you--or maybe--you do know me and I do know you, but we've never taken the time to learn each other intimately--or maybe neither of these apply and we know each other more profoundly than we know ourselves. But nonetheless, I imagine we are the same. We have the same fears, insecurities, pleasures. Avoiding thoughts of our own mortality--instead vivaciously looking ahead at the probable future bound ahead. A fear of being vulnerability, a fear of being loved, or of loving, a fear of living day to day. A love of beauty, of simplicity, of illy defined merit.









Thus, if we are at all alike, you must have equal fervor for, if not fear, for the first moment the sun peaks through and curls your toes before you have even awakened. But then your eyes open and you suffocate: a moment like this is so rare, what if you squader the moment and waste the opportunity to seize such a rare day? Such risk of failure.
And after you eat, shower, and write 1000 words, give or take, you feel ready to face the day. But what can you do that would not be a waste. Do you peddle down the streams, a cyclic cadence of nearing an unguided destination, or do you climb the mountains which loam all around your apartment? And in your reluctance to decide, time sneaks past you, escaping through the cracks in the ground, someplace thought not to exist.
And as the apotheosis is paramount, the sun is on the precipice of breaking through it's apex, and you're beginning to worry another day will slip by. The breeze wafts the smell of cherry blossoms through your window and you are encouraged to sneak to the botanical garden you discovered last week on your way to work.
Do you share this common fear? Is at as ubiquitous as it intuitively seems?

But what of the summer you knew before? Is the true fear of letting the day past by, or realizing that the day--in reality a series of days--has already passed and now you can't rely on the same life purposes to keep your identity grounded. And you still try to hold onto the former self but your goals and motivations are archaic and you realize the whole thing is really just a thinly veiled fear of retrospective.









Maybe we are the same. Maybe we understand each other. 이것에 함께 있을 것 같습니다.

Our changing ideologies.
Our changing physiologies.

Forgetful

I forgot how, so I tried again--adverbially, apprehensive. I couldn't remember how--I never knew--so I broke down, became again. One more time, of wishing when. These are just words, and I don't know how to write a poem--so I'll give it a go, seeing the moment within, forgetting the wordslips, and ignoring the inability to conquer a logical thought.

The Worst of It-Daniel Yetman

Winter, the deathly touch on flesh,

Is flirting with memories—recalling

Desolation, Canadian December—

Trudging home, through crunching snow,

Remaining human in the night—

Under streetlights—dim and flickering.

Mysteries fade with warm breath—

And misspeech burns like logs in fire... 

Norepinephrine, and brain chemicals

Are released by the touch of an unloved hand,

Beneath storms, and ferry rides to come.

Bodies shiver, beneath the first snowfall,

Snow from nothingness…

Candlelight, soft voices, warmth,

Dangers amidst the stillness— 

Acquaintances are embattled in brevity,

Their voices like snowflakes,

Convoluted, complexities—transient things. 

Goodbye, lunched into nothingness…

The unknowingness of being beheld. 

A storm from nothingness…

From apprehension, confessions, reminiscing— 

Of candlelight, of soft voices, of warmth.

Despondence, Canadian December,

Tumbling past Christmas cards—

Tumbling through turmoil,

Skipping holidays, imposition, 

Of sober stupors—lucid for the worst of it.

In disillusionment, strangers whisper,

Condolences, speaking of the worst of it.

The Good Life --Excerpt

I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what he was thinking, but I image he felt odd—as if his life was a book, and he found out that the final chapter he had been coveting—the promised climax—didn’t exist, and that the conflict wouldn’t be resolved. He must have felt like he was ending the story in the middle—maybe he even had doubt if he should go through with it, because the conflict would eventually resolve itself. But what if death was the resolution? What if he wasn’t the writer—as he initially expected—but rather he was a character, being guided by Tolstoy—in a modern retelling of Anna Karenin. Could he have been the reincarnation of Anna? No, if he were Anna he wouldn’t have hesitated for so long—he would have already taken the leap—because she was certain—she wouldn’t have been as ambivalent as him. He was weaker—of course he was weaker, he was mortal. 

Last Christmas

Today, for the first time in a long time, I was excited to be alive--the future seemed limitless, not redundant and needless as usual. As I held my gaze on Seoul, far below, my breath was stolen. There was excitement and desire, promise and fortitude.

   When I came to Korea, I was on the verge on growing mad--losing all hope of ever rekindling the ability to have a rational thought, my self-efficacy was hemorrhaging at an alarming rate. But each day it is slowly returning. Today was the first day I noticed the vast improvement--the mental state that I am currently engaged in is vastly superior to the dark place I inhibited last August, when I left. I can reflect upon the dark places that dredged me to Korea in the first place. 

   Each day brings hope: of being fixed, of negating the evil within me, of finding peace of mind. The taste of almond flour, coconut oil, cocoa powder, and avocado remind me of last December--last December, what a dark place--last Christmas, darker still, or the days that would follow (the darkest of all days). To steal a metaphor I'm fond of (from a song that's heartwrenching still) I'm still within the rose. I'm still the same person, with the same naive ideology. But I'm marginally more intelligent, I'm marginally closer to where I need to be. Where I need to be, where I never need to be is Halifax, what a dark place. 

   The world seems so small. Nowhere is more than a day away.

Last Christmas I was in a comatose state, I existed but was not alive--I was human, but with faux desire. I breathed, because it was inconvenient not to--but life was not happening to me--I was looking down on somebody, trying to awaken them, trying to teach them happiness. I thought I would never escape, I thought I would follow a dark road. From last Christmas I became somebody else--somebody I didn't wish to be--somebody trying to escape, and numb himself through artificial means. Somebody who was hopeless. I'm still not whole, I'm still bitter, and lost. But now I'm vaguely aware that the labyrinth may have an exit after all. 

This Christmas I will be in Sri Lanka, to contrast with last year's darkness. 

What If?

"When we came together I realized the whole thing was just a dream. A weird, wakeful kind of dream that's hard to explain.” He hesitated, and reformed his discourse “And it became obvious that time isn't the same for you as it is for me." He lowered his gaze.
   “Keep going,” she said. She smiled, not a real smile, but it was still encouraging.
   “I realized that nothing I did while I was away really mattered, I was just filling time.”
   "How'd you figure all that out?"
   "A lot of thinking, probably too much thinking. But I'm glad I thought it—all of it."

Remember all the stupid shit you did to remedy yourself, and fill the crevasses of your soul—the cracks in your walls of isolation? Remember brooding upon the straggling scars tracing your being? Bound together with medical tape and sutures, you sought to heal yourself. You were your own doctor—some kind of metaphysical surgeon superseding all limitations. You were laying in a pile of your own pieces. You're still not whole. You're still jaded. You're still bitter. You're still abstract. You're still gathering words together... to make sense of it.   

   What if all your mad thoughts, weren't so mad after all? Perhaps all you are, and all you imagine yourself to be, is more than a figment of your imagination. You are, after all, a being of your own cognition. Furthermore, the wasted days—the moments of your darkest hour—may not have been as circumventive as you thought, but instead became the mold of your unique bundle of flesh that still, without doubt, breathes and lives—though maybe not in the traditional sense. 

   I see through closed doors—I know nothing is what it seems! Imagine, I dare you, think of a place anywhere in the world—a deserted corner that is uniquely yours—a happy place, or the place you go to grieve. Now imagine you were dropped at a random coordinate around the globe and were told to find your way back to “your place.” Given ample time and resources you could do it—such is the power of the human brain—an ability to navigate from memory.

The world is just a series of closed doors, and rooms. At any given time we can only see one room, but there is an infinite number of rooms coexisting concurrently. If you traversed to another room, and left your room behind, how would you be sure that your room ever existed? No thought I've ever thought has been sensical. 

There's no water, but I'm drowning

Everything is O-K, but I'm flailing

I'm happy, sorta, but something is missing

Standing Still

If my feet stop moving—if I hesitate—I will start thinking again, and that is terrible for my health. If gears start turning—tiny gizmos in my brain space—then I may forget to appreciate the potential glee a moment could bring. The days are rigid—if they aren't rigid there’s too much of that awful thing—the aforementioned poison, the toxin, I wish to avoid. So the days are scheduled, with only ten minutes for thinking—ten minutes for not being alive, ten minutes for reminiscing, brooding, and being otherwise dreary, and unsociable. And after the allotted time has passed again, the clocks restart—the people resume to walk—and life is, more or less, the same as it was before the thinking—aside from fifteen or twenty new epiphanies,

I’m searching for stepping stones, to abridge each day. I would like to walk across the lake, but I

Sink…

Sink…

Sink…

Because between you an me—this is a secret so we shan't whisper this to anyone—sometimes I think when I shouldn’t. Sometimes I think things that I wish would not be thought. But those thoughts sink with me, until I become afloat. But when I do dredge myself free of those thoughts I’m me again. But sometimes they resurface along the shore, as I walk back, and I start to consider the possibility that they weren't bad thoughts after all. When I think they are no longer thought—that they are gone for good—I go back to the beach and pull them from the sand. And they are as they always were, not great but good enough, considering they came from MY head. 

I’m searching for stepping stones, to create a path oblique from any prior—a path that moves forward, and doesn't tend to lead back towards home again. I’m searching for continuity and the seams to untattered the parts of me that still need to be sewn. 

Halloween

This week was pretty hectic. I lurched by back doing 1RM testing on Saturday and I was in a lot of pain for a couple of days, but it gave me a great idea for a short story! My back is still a little sore but I have been up to 85% and seem to be fine so I am going to be starting a four week squat block 5 times a week with one recovery day.

   Time has been a commodity. Every wakeful moment seems to be busy--but I guess being busy is a choice. I've sent off two short stories to literary magazines and am on the process of finishing off a couple others. I've been reading a lot this week, short fiction, trying to become the best writer possible. I have been imposing 10 hour work days upon myself on Saturday's and Sunday's, with 1 day off every two weeks. I'm exhausted. But it's a good exhausted. 

   The school I am working in is undergoing renovations, so on Saturday I helped with moving furniture from the first floor to the fifth. It was good. It was really good. There's nothing like manual labour to keep your mind clear. 

This is what my schedule looks like on a normal weekday:

7:45am wake

7:50am shower/make breakfast

8:05am Studying Korean

9:05am Get ready for work

9:30am Start Work

12:30pm lunch/study korean

1:30 Work

7:00pm Get off work

7:30-9:30pm Write/edit/magazine submissions

9:30 Gym

11:30-12:30 More writing

12:30am- Reading fiction/non fiction

I'm tired. But good tired. 

Keep Moving Forward

My tie draped across the desk as I knelt beside one of the students, trying the explain why foot becomes feet while man becomes men in plural. "Just is," was the best I could manage. "Write it down. She pulled the tie I was wearing, nearly choking me in the process and snatched the red pen out of my hand. She drew a heart on the back of my hand with the word 사랑, which means "Love".

 
"My god," I thought. "What am I doing here?" It all seems so strange some days, and I feel like a lost puppy even still. If I've learned anything in my time in Korea thus far is no matter how different the culture, or how backwards a place may seem, the people are still the same. We are afflicted with the insipid traits--jealousy, greed, and languish. But we also share a common goal of loving, and to be loved. There is good and evil in all of us. I enjoy watching the innocence of the kindergartners--they have n't been touched by the heartache that life can bring, and it sorrows me to think their purity can't last. I would like to meet them again in 20 years, to see what became of them. 

   This week has been rather nondescript--but I came to the realization that I have been sleeping far too much. I went from 9 hours a night, to 8 hours, and now to 7 hours in order to fit two more hours of work into the day. I have been trying to become more serious as a writer, and an in the process of polishing off five short stories which I hope to start sending to literary magazines in November. I'm prepared for rejection--lots and lots of rejection--in fact, if I got published on my first try it would feel too easy. 

   Between query letters, working on new material, editing, reediting, networking, reading, studying I feel that working 8-10 hours a day is imperative to really "Break into the market." It's been tough to find three hours a day to write/edit/pursue magazine listing. Maybe someday I'll be able to make this dream come a reality. Everyone wants to be famous, but nobody wants to put in the work. For now I'm satisfied where I am, working the old 9:30am-7:00pm and being the most unlikely kinder
garten teacher there ever was.