Babymooning: the Songs by the sea

Coolin’ it at the coast

It is a peaceful moment as I write from Gangneung, a seaside city on the Korean peninsula’s east coast. While Dae-Han works on a presentation about environmental sustainability for my school’s Grade 9 class, I am watching waves crest against the shore. While there is a window, a road, and sand between myself and the sea, I can feel the waves washing over me, first meeting my chest and then enveloping this growing belly. Our sweet Sofia is currently busy swimming little laps in my tummy and it is delightful to know that someday she will be swimming with us in these waters.

Dae-Han and I arrived at our pension, La Casamia, on Thursday afternoon.

Not featured is the swivel tv that allowed us to watch our favorite show, Billions, right from this spot. Our babymoon included some binging.

Where does time go?

More than a week has gone by since I started this post. I have traded a view of the sea for a view of the coffee table where a half eaten bowl of pistachios lives alongside a stack of books on all things birthing and baby and grade 9 essays scattered about as a tall carton of micro-plastic free water towers above my cup of mandarin mindfulness tea. Here’s to hoping a cup-a-zen will center me amongst the clutter.

I did not get to finish this post at that cute coffee shop, but I will return to some babymoon moments now. We had an adventuresome honeymoon in Iceland, and we continued in that spirit with a good hike on our babymoon — we are both excited to put lil Sofia in a baby carrier and get her into the rich nature that exists outside of Seoul next autumn. Not yet sporting the baby carrier, what you will see is a husband who brings the selfie stick, his dad’s old camera, and a plastic bag to pick up trash along the trails.

Dae-Han does love trying to catch those just right shots. While these are not from the babymoon, he did quite a fine job of capturing some goofy and pretty shots of me in our neighborhood, on a nearby city street recently.

Sometimes I grab my phone in time to capture him caputuring me.

Everything, everywhere, all at once

While Dae-Han and I still have three months (we hope) before our BaciSong babe is here, I am glad that we took the time away from the city. For many months before Sofia was safely kickin’ it in my belly, I felt consumed by getting pregnant and staying pregnant; entering a time when we know our baby is healthy and growing has opened up my emotional landscape for a flood of other feelings.

My heart looks like a watercolor painting, holding the marvel and beauty of our growing baby and also grief for the passing of a season in our lives that was rather short. One side does not feel heavier than the other, and the colors of both blend together, for I would not have one without the other.

On the last night of our babymoon, I felt like the tears pooled behind my eyes might poor down my face. I am so brimming with joy at being a mama and parenting with Dae-Han. I am also feeling the feels about the transition from our life of simplicity to something richer, yes, and more complex.

Life be life-ing

Mmm, I suppose some of these feels are coming out as irritation lately. Today I have entered trimester three, and before today I entered Major Nesting Mode. So, this weekend especially, our house vibes have been giving Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. I want to minimize all of the stuff in our house, with everything having a precise place — including the bottle of ketchup in the fridge — and my husband wants to create a new world order surrounded by 101 stacks of books.

I am currently asking ChatGPT which spaceship to board to meet him back on Earth (noting that I won’t be catching any of Elon Musk’s rides).

In summary, Chatty offered the following suggestions: listen actively, embrace empathy, communicate openly and honestly, patience. And then my favorite two, which are good but don’t tempt me to exchange our therapist for AI:

Compromise and Flexibility

• No one’s perspective is absolute. Finding a middle ground might mean compromising on certain issues or adapting to new ways of thinking or behaving. This doesn’t mean losing your identity—it’s more about finding a harmonious balance.

Appreciate the Differences

• Instead of seeing differences as barriers, recognize them as opportunities for growth. People with different perspectives can enrich each other's lives in unexpected ways. The key is to value the other person’s viewpoint rather than trying to “fix” them or make them conform to your own.

I desire very much to find that harmonious balance, but I can also feel the desire for conformity … to my way of doing things. I’m building the baby, why don’t I just get to be the boss?

Perhaps after a good dinner I will find my way out of this sophomoric approach to marriage. Likely we will solve this with another episode of Billions, another cup of tea for me, a short whisky for DH, and a good night of sleep.

May we all toast to babymoons and the beautiful layers of partnership.

When the best thing you can be is a happy hen

“9 eggs! You’re a regular chicken!!” wrote my friend Caroline in our WhatsApp chat. And by “regular” she did not mean average or normal. No, friends, she meant that I am earning an A+ at laying eggs — as good as any young, healthy hen. Except that I am no spring chicken but a woman working to conceive at an “advanced maternal age” (formerly “geriatric pregnancy” and what is that term except one that elicits images of a grey-haired granny pregnant in a nursing home so thank to whoever pushed for kinder language because #languagematters, yo).

At my Advanced Maternal Age (AMA) I was able to produce the same number of eggs as I produced at AMA minus 2 years when I froze my eggs in Minnesota. This earns me bragging rights. I am an overachiever who is writing today to tell you about the report card from my doctor which reads “Exceeding Expectations.” (There was no report card but I read this note on the doctor’s face through blurry, coming-out-of-anathesia eyes. She was impressed with me, I know it.)

Just like when I was a student and I didn’t find school exceedingly hard but I did have to work for my grades, I worked for those 9 eggs. This time I did not work with a tutor or go in for extra help with my teacher, but I did do the following:

1. Abstained from alcohol.

   This has actually been the case not just for the past 10 days of IVF shots, but for the past 5 weeks, since Dae-Han and I started doctoring with Cha Fertility Center. Dae-Han has also abstained, even though he wasn’t told he had to, and I appreciate the solidarity from him. Also, if you remember from my last post, drunk sperm swim in circles, so our chances now seem better that our little bean will know how to swim straight to its destination.

2. Listened more closely to my body.

   Workouts are generally my way of relieving stress and feeling good about my body, myself, and the world at large, so I often push myself to get in workouts and complete them vigorously. While I was able to keep working out during this process, I tuned in to my body and made sure when she said, “let’s spend more time on the couch today” I answered with, “you got it, girl.”

3. Took fertility supplements.

   Aunt Christy, our favorite Cali-based acupuncturist recommended that we take CoQ10 to increase sperm and egg health. When I told this to a doctor back home in a tele-health appointment he smirked a bit and said “well, it won’t hurt.” I like this doctor, but I also want to call him up and say, “you know how you said I might get 4-5 eggs at this age, well, I got 9, man.” I like combining the wisdom of the East and the West, and we are grateful that Christy has offered her expertise in Chinese medicine.

4. Avoided cold fluids.

   My mother-in-law was the first to say “do not drink cold water when you are trying to conceive.” I was a bit dismissive of this at first, but this again is Eastern wisdom, and Christy agreed I should heed this advice. So, no cold drinks and generally no cold food. Lots of tea and soup.

5. Gave myself 28 shots.

   The first three days of shooting myself up with hormones I was fine. The days following … I was fiiiiiine. No really, just fiiiiine. Which Highly Sensitive Person would be bothered by inducing Super PMS? Certainly not me.

6. Collaborated with my favorite person, Dae-Han Song, husband extraordinaire.

   I married this man for dozens of reasons. His smile, his kindness, his perfect skin, and most certainly for his ability to be the best caretaker. The past 10 days, Dae-Han became Hot Nurse Song as he prepared my shots each morning, working to take any fertility load that he could off my shoulders and onto his.

How is someone this handsome in their Christmas pjs right when they get out of bed in the morning? The man can’t take a poor picture at any angle or any time. May our progeny be good swimmers and just as photogenic.

7. Leaned into the Sisterhood.

The Sisterhood is awesome. It came in the form of many supportive messages from friends around the globe. The Sisterhood also showed up in action. Dae-Han had an incredible opportunity to go to South Africa this week for a conference, so our friend Alice stepped in to go with for my retrieval appointment. Our friendship reached new heights as she accompanied me into the procedure room — my gown flapping as I wiggled into the feet straps on the procedure table — to translate for me before I was in an anaesthesia slumber. She got me home after the procedure. She waited on me while I was laid out on the couch for several hours post procedure.

Alice is awesome.

So I’ve gathered some cool things this week. I’ve learned that I can be a statistical outlier in the best way possible. I’ve learned how much I like being in a deep anaethesia induced sleep. (When I told this to my friend Lychelle, she responded with an amused “Tell me your job is hard without telling me your job is hard.” Perhaps. I was forced to sleep and rest and this part was delicious.) I’ve learned — or perhaps I had this knowledge and it was reinforced this week — what an incredible community of women I have around me here in Seoul. I’ve been reminded that my husband is the shit. I’ve been reminded that I can do hard things — I can work a full time job in my classroom and work a full time job in my ovaries (I’d argue they have both been more than full time this week.) I have been reminded to honor and respect and love my body.

Right now I am bloated and my pants do not fit and I feel fat (and I know that this is a stupid thought) and my boobs hurt and they didn’t even grow at all with all of the hormones and I have complained about this to my sympathetic husband and I am going to stop now. Goshdarnit I am going to start worshipping this body for all that she does and all that she creates. John Mayer is handsome but also kind of a jerk but I will take his words and run with them. My body is a wonderland. A wonder of creation and beauty. I hope your remember this about your body too.

Our next step in The Hatchery (I think this metaphor might be cracking) is to wait until the end of the month when we will find out which embryos are genetically sound and ready for transfer.

There is plenty of uncertainty — how many eggs were viable for insemination, how many embryos went to blast, will the embryo implant in my womb — but today I am just one Happy Hen.

Note: words throughout the post in italics are hyperlinks

Our Seoulful Life

This morning

I sat with five friends. We sat in silence, and in meditation, in community, and in conversation. My friends Lindsay and Jason’s campus-apartment living room, where we had all gathered, had that Good Vibes Only feel. That is not to say that everything that we were talking about or feeling was all “good.” It is to say that we were a group of six who were holding space for one another and ourselves to sift through the many thoughts and emotions and energy that was surfacing as Jason guided us through an inquiry.

I am new to this group, this being my second time attending the inquiry session and if you ask me to explain what it is the best response I have right now is “A safe, meditative, reflective sharing of space.”

Last year my new friends and colleagues pointed out how much I say the word “space” and indeed here I go again today. I like space — sharing space, creating space, finding new spaces, exploring internal and external spaces.

Before we all experience semantic satiation with the word space I will get to one of my larger takeaways from the inquiry session today. As one of my friends was sharing some of what she has been processing this week, she quoted Debie Thomas’s Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories:

“Sometimes, accepting what we haven’t chosen is sacred work.”

When Thomas writes this, she is reflecting on John 13:3-15. How these words were useful to me is outside of the context in which Thomas is writing and I am going to be a bit roundabout in getting to why and how the words struck me.

Six weeks ago

I was in Tokyo for a conference. It took about three hours to find myself enamored with the city. The chicken skewers with all of the yummy sauces with the Asahi beer with the aesthetic of a much-quieter-than-expected street with the strangers who were so eager to help us even when we didn’t ask with the early cherry blossoms

and the blue blue sky and then the sushi with old friends and the soba noodle soup with more Asahi and the city-so-safe-a-six-year-old-could-navigate-the-bus-alone. And the 7-Eleven. Seriously, the 7-Elevens. So many new snacks and bento boxes. It was all of it for me.

“I love Tokyo",” I thought again and again throughout my five-day stay. “How cool would it be to live here! I could totally see it.”

Three Weeks Ago

Dae-Han and I were on our first international trip together. Arising well-before dawn, we had landed in Da Nang, a coastal city in the middle of Vietnam, at 10 am. As soon as we debarked the plane, we began breathing in the warm, humid ocean air and tripdorphins (the endorphins that kick in when I travel) flooded my system. Looking over at Dae-Han, holding his hand, I could feel a grin stretch across my face. “Are you excited?” I asked him, the last syllable of my question reaching towards the hazy sun. Smiling and laughing a bit at my giddiness he replied, “Yep.”

It took me no more than three hours to fall in love with Da Nang and its neighboring city, Hội An. It was the warm ocean and the fresh seafood and the open-air neighborhood coffeeshops and the phở and reading books at the beach and then at the pool and the fresh coconuts and the gritty sand under my feet and the grit on the street where people walk with smiles on their faces and the chill vibes of the slower life with the fresh fruit from the vendors that scooters speed by boarded by four family members at a time and walking everywhere with Dae-Han’s hand in mine as we shared space in a new place. Together.

Two Weeks Ago

We flew from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. We were spending twelve hours in the city to see Ceci and Carlos — kind of wild, flying in for less than a day; the life of international school teachers is one of #privilege.

I had been twice before, but this was Dae-Han’s first trip to Vietnam’s largest city. Our twelve hours were spent sipping champagne at Ceci and Carlos’s beautiful apartment, eating tacos at a hip restaurant, and then toasting to friendship at a speakeasy. It was some kind of dream.

I knew I loved HCMC from my previous visits, and walking down the street with Ceci, Carlos, and Dae-Han, once again I found myself thinking …

“How cool would it be to live in Vietnam? The vibe is so nice, the people are so kind, the flowers are always blooming. I could totally see it.”

It’s a little bit bananas that changing schools when I was thirteen years old put me into a depressive state for the better part of a year and now I am living in Korea with a sense that I could live just about anywhere in the world.

This early evening

I sit on my couch accompanied by the sound of passing cars outside and vapor puffing out of the essential oil dispenser beside me. Dae-Han is gone, on an overnight retreat. I have lived alone for most of my adult life, but I now find that I miss Dae-Han as soon as he is gone for one of his quick trips.

In this solitude, with the sun casting shadows of our monstera plant onto the couch, I come back to Thomas’s words. “Sometimes, accepting what we haven’t chosen is sacred work.”

In three months from today, Dae-Han and I will say the vows we are writing for one another as my dad officiates our wedding ceremony. These vows are a choice. Co-creating a life together is a choice. I am in love with Dae-Han, and I make the choice to be loving towards him each day as he does to me. If all of this has been rooted in my own mindful choices, why am I so drawn to Thomas’s words?

Thomas’s words connected to something my therapist offered me this week. Tracy pointed out that while Dae-Han and I have agreed that Seoul is a long-term home for us, I continue to consider living in a dozen other places. I do not think that fantasizing about various scenarios is inherently harmful, but Tracy’s point was that perhaps it could keep me from really leaning into our life here in Seoul, that I could be holding back from a fuller immersion into what we can create in Korea. So when I heard Thomas’s words, what struck me most was “accepting” “choice” and “sacred work.”

I am in an interesting and challenging and beautiful space right now. One in which life is no longer about my own personal agenda or whims. In previous relationships, there often came a point where considering combining my life with someone else’s became too scary, sometimes altogether frightening. This moment feels nothing like that. Because what it is is sacred. The connection Dae-Han and I have with one another, the way we love one another, it is sacred. And I think I am now beginning to understand what it means to then engage in the sacred work of building the Us. With that building comes accepting that some of my vision for life will shift in both small and more pronounced ways.

This moment

I do not have a particularly witty way to close today’s post. I think I just want to end with gratitude — for people that consciously or inadvertently offer me wisdom to consider, and for the man with whom I get to run, bike, and build with for the rest of our lives. It took me such a short time to fall in love with you, and so I can picture us together in any city, especially Seoul. #OurSeoulfulLife

Alfonso’s Italian Restaurant

I follow his gaze, into the past. The memory isn’t mine, but it becomes tangible to me as he describes being in his second year of high school, watching a program that aired every evening at 6 pm where home-taught cooks showed their audience how to make tasty dishes. Once a week, a trained chef would come on the show, and on this day, it was the tall, white chef’s hat that strikes him. A defining moment, we call it. From this point on, Gongjakso, the young boy from a small Korean village, knows that one day, he too would like to be a chef.

Today, Dae-Han and I talk with Gongjakso, who has adopted the Italian name Alfonso, in his restaurant where he is indeed the head chef, and most days the only chef. The restaurant can seat up to 16 people and is situated on a side street in a Korean neighborhood. Sunlight coming in through the large front windows bathes us in warmth.

In the four years that the restaurant has been open, Alfonso has not spent any money on marketing. People nose out his made-from-scratch Italian food through his Instagram, Naver, or word of mouth. I can attest to this. While Alfonso’s is not far from our home, we would likely not have found it had another restaurant owner not told us about it after learning of the neighborhood we live in.

I first took Mom, Dad, and Grandma to Alfonso’s when they came to visit in November. We were so enthused with the pasta and wine that I brought Dae-Han back for a weekday date night.

It is a shame that I was the only one present to hear Dae-Han’s 5-star reviews of these meals.

After fawning over the food once again, Dae-Han arranged for my 40th birthday to be at Alfonso’s. It was the perfect place to hold an intimate celebration with fabulous friends for a foodie’s 40th.

Cultivating connections has always been a vested interest of mine. Since moving abroad 10 years ago, I have become even more invested in creating community, to find my home away from home. Every dinner at Alfonso’s restaurant has allowed me to celebrate the connections and community that I found and fostered — from family to love to friendship. Thus, I wanted to know more about the man that had created a space that kept me coming back, for more food, for more special evenings, for more sense of home.

Alfonso began telling his story, speaking in Korean to Dae-Han who had come with to translate. This afforded me an opportunity to simply listen to Alfonso’s tone, and watch his eyes dance and his body become animated with gestures when I asked about how he first fell in love with food and the idea of being a chef.

It seemed that his young adolescent self is still living inside of him, returning to tell the tale of that day in front of the television. Over the course of an hour, sipping coffee out of cool glass tumblers, Alfonso told Dae-Han and I about how his parents at first were not thrilled with his choice to pursue food and the life of a chef. Growing up at a time that the patriachy had an even firmer hold on family and societal structures, Alfonso’s parents were displeased that he was interested in things that “a man shouldn’t do.”

What a man should do: what he loves.

His parents, being both loving and wise, were eventually won over as they saw a young man who was formerly a poor student begin to excel in his university courses. With time, Alfonso would go on to get a Master’s and PhD in Hotel Management with a focus in cooking and cuisine.

Culinary school in Korea is generally not centered on one kind of cuisine, and it was at this time in Alfonso’s life that he began working part-time at an Italian restaurant. The delicious recipes were easy to learn. Since there was not a school specifically for Italian cooking, Alfonso found his way to Italy. Over the course of a number of more years, going back and forth between Seoul and Italy, he would visit all 22 provinces, study pizza-making in Rome, and hone his skills at making all sorts of homemade noodles.

Books that Alfonso has written, including the first Korean dictionary of Italian cooking words.

Alfonso loved the the way that life in Italy was less fixed. In ways, this offered him more freedoms. But in the end, it was the pace, culture, and ethos of Seoul that brought him to return for good.

Four years ago, Alfonso opened his Italian restaurant that lies off the beaten path. He now teaches cooking classes three afternoons a week, is open for lunch each weekday, and offers dinner reservations six days a week.

I am pondering playing hooky in order to take part in Alfonso’s pasta-making class.

On Sundays, Alfonso is in his restaurant, enjoying the solitude, sun, and some tunes that play out of the speakers as he prepares for the week ahead.

For Alfonso, it is not expanding the restaurant or making more money that motivate him most. While he has one part-time staff member for weekday lunches, Alfonso prefers to prepare and make his dishes on his own. It would be hard to find a long term business partner, he explained to us. More than money, his personal ambitions are about the fine craft of his food. “A great source of happiness for me is that people come here. That simple act makes me so happy. And a completely empty plate, one where you can’t even tell what I served because the plate is so clean.”

It makes me smile to watch Alfonso share these last words with us today. Because I know then, that we’ve contributed to some of his happiness. And we’ll be back to use his bread to sop up all of the sauces again, because what he serves up equates to our happiness too.

At Last, an Engagement Story

I want a Sunday kind of Love

On Sunday, December 10th, in a quiet corner of Morococo Cafe, Dae-Han Song and I became officially engaged.

After a day spent together first at a cafe on the West Sea outside of Seoul, then at my favorite used bookstore, and then at the sweetest tiny chocolate shop, we arrived for dinner at the restaurant where we had our first date on October 9, 2021. I had a sense that this would be “the place.”

To be candid, after my grandma had brought Dae-Han her engagement ring — the ring I had asked for this past summer — when she came to visit with my parents in October, after he had had this ring in his keeping for weeks, I took a deep breath while we ate dinner one night and said, “I will be really sad if we aren’t engaged by the time I go home for Christmas.” “Yes, of course,” Dae-Han replied. “We will be.”

It is a bit funny, I suppose, that in 2023, as part of a progressive partnership, I was waiting for him to propose to me. But I was. Roxane Gay, one of my favorite authors, has a book called Bad Feminist. In one of the essays within the book, she “confesses” that pink is her favorite color and that she reads Vogue. Do these things make her a bad feminist? I think not. And I can see why that even while I am building an egalitarian partnership with Dae-Han, I wanted something of an old-fashioned proposal.

It ended up being “something old, something new” nothing borrowed, nothing blue. Dae-Han chose to stick to tradition in so much as he planned the day and he presented me with the ring, but he did put his own new spin on the proposal. He did not get down on one knee or say, “Will you marry me?”

As a couple, we had been talking about our wedding and marriage explicitly for some months. There wasn’t any mystery or surprise around getting married, and to my mind, there shouldn’t be, at least not for me. So rather than take a traditional approach to proposing, Dae-Han began a beautiful speech with “Well, this is where we had our first date …” After sharing heart-felt words with me, he took out the ring and said, “I want to marry you” to which I rather quickly replied, “I want to marry you, too.”

Somewhere, someone must have been playing Etta James because this moment embodied her lyrics:

And my arms need someone
Someone to enfold
To keep me warm when Mondays and Tuesdays grow cold
Love for all my life, to have and to hold
Oh, and I want a Sunday kind of love

After we toasted to us, our love, and a lifetime of Sundays, we shared with Morococo’s manager, Wahid, just how special his cafe had become for us.

Wahid was thrilled for us, and we took pictures together, but this photo was especially for Gram, who he had met with she and Mom and Dad were in town. (Grandma be crushing.)

Love is here to stay

While this night was our official engagement, I look back now at the number of months leading up to it, noting that our engagement really was something that happened over time, just like falling in love. Merriam-Webster may define engagement as a fixed event or plan, but to me, it seems to have been something more cumulative.

Over the course of our relationship, we have been engaging in open, honest, candid conversations about what we have wanted as single people and how these visions could shift for us to co-create a life together. Dae-Han seems to have come to me as a man who was already so skilled at evenly and respectfully addressing things that may be bothering him; I continued to engage in conversations with my therapist about how to avoid being passive-aggressive (a skill I had inadvertently honed) and being direct about my wants and needs.

Over the past few months, we had engaged in quite a few trips between Dae-Han’s former apartment and the newly coined Baci-Song Abode. This move meant manoeuvring furniture and bags and boxes down steep steal and cement steps. I held feelings of fear that Dae-Han was going to crash down the steps bearing heavy weights and seriously injure himself while also harboring feelings of frustration that he had chosen to live in an apartment that would now force us to engage in such “risky business.”

For his part, Dae-Han calmly told me that I did not need to help with the move, that he could do it himself or with a friend, if I was going to feel so upset every time we went to move a load. Bless this man who is able to share words so peacefully when I have lost my words and commenced giving off less than “good vibes only.”

I do credit myself for bringing an abundance of good vibes, too, though. Most of the time, I’ve got nothing but love, laughter, and besos to give.

Really, the ease and beauty that marks most of our moments and most of our days is credited to both of us. We have chosen to engage with each other, to be present with each other. Dae-Han and I have chosen to not let our grievances fester. We do not harbor anger or resentment because we have made a conscious choice to engage in the work of our relationship together.

These choices are what have allowed for love to grow between us, the trust in our firm foundation to be laid. All of these moments of engagement have led us both to the understanding that love is here to stay, like Sinatra sang.

It's very clear
Our love is here to stay
Not for a year
But ever and a day
The radio and the telephone
And the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies
And in time may go

But, oh my dear,
Our love is here to stay
Together we're going a long, long way

At last

Before I met Dae-Han, I felt that I had been walking a long, long way — well, walking and crying and pouting and crawling and crying a long, long way — in and out of casual, semi-committed, and committed relationships, but that true partnership was just going to be forever allusive in my life.

It may be cliche, but all of those steps and stumbles that led Dae-Han and I to find each other, they were really worth it. If we both needed this much time to live and learn and mold ourselves to be ready for each other, well, We were worth the wait.

Since that first date in October, 2021, there has been no soulful wailing about how I guess I was just meant to live a Single Lady Life (no one should wail about being a life-time Sexy Drifter anyway — perspective is everything). No, since Dae-Han and I met, it’s not that I “just knew” he was the one from that first date, but I did know he, and We, were different. When I was home for Christmas, Gram said to me over an old-fashioned at Oliver’s, “You two are so compatible, it’s almost scary.”

Before Gram had noted it, this thought had also crossed my mind, how wildly compatible we are and how wild it is that in this expansive world we now will walk together for all of our days.

After finishing our dinner at Morococo on that Sunday night, Dae-Han and I walked to the metro and then walked from the metro nearest our home back to our apartment. Even if I see our engagement as a series of moments strung together, I was of course giddy about our official moment. Now wearing a ring that Grandpa had given Grandma in 1957, a ring with one love story twinkling up at me with every sparkle of the diamond, I put my hand in Dae-Han’s and swung it as we walked. I dug into my coat pocket with my other hand for my phone and pressed play on the Spotify. You can’t make this up: Etta James started to sing:

At last

My love has come along

My lonely days are over

And life is like a Song

My “At Last” — my very favorite Song — and I dancing at the Seoul Foreign School holiday party, a prelude of the days to come for the Baci-Songs.

Hello From the Other Side [of the World]

Hello, it’s me.

I was wondering if after all these months you might be wondering where I am.

It’s been a minute, though, really. The other day a friend from China messaged inquiring if I “might have written on [my] blog about moving to South Korea?” She and her fiancé are rather done with China’s zero Covid policy and looking to return to Korea, possibly, where they first met.

Esthé’s message was probably the final sign that I needed to allow myself to step away from marking exams, find some solitude, and for anyone reading, offer a bit of an update.

Since moving to Korea, two things have consumed me: 1. a very bustling professional life, and 2. falling in love. I still love teaching, and I am grateful to be working at Seoul Foreign School, a top-tier international school, but the work does swallow me like a large tidal wave some days. And weeks.

Falling in love, on the other hand, that really hasn’t consumed me so much as it has wrapped me up in the best down blanket a woman could find. And who wants to crawl out from under all of those layers of warmth? Not I. Thus, I’ve been a bit absent from the blog.

I’ve also stayed warm smiling under the California sun while visiting Dae Han’s family in July.

I am currently writing from what has become Dae Han’s office, formerly my yoga room (which was underutilized). Pumpkin blended baked oats just came out of the oven, and I recommend you give this recipe a whirl because it is über simple and pretty tasty. My new “sweater weather” scented is burning on my left, in front a photo of Dae Han’s family from the summer, and on my right Che Guevara (#lifewitharevolutionary) looks past me with intensity.

Dae Han’s not quite all moved in just yet, but the number of his items in the apartment has been increasing. We’ve been moving him in steadily, rather than all at once. Perhaps this helps two adults who have lived so much of their lives independently merge into a shared space a bit more gradually. Perhaps we’re both just too busy to muster a one-fell-swoop approach.

What I do know is that my life became exponentially richer since we met, almost one year ago. We may experience some growing pains as we go from having ownership over our own spaces to creating a shared space now, but what the days with Dae Han teach me is that the man shows up. For all of the conversations. For all of the negotiations. For all of the “stories I am telling myself” that are full of angst or projecting or worry.

There’s such a difference between us

Between the Us that Dae Han and I are together, and the Us I have ever been part of in what now feel like previous lives. I have pretty unending gratitude that a 38-year-old me met a 42-year-old Dae Han last October 9th. That woman and that man had done (and continue to do) a lot of work on themselves to show up to each other as rather integrated humans.

It’s no secret that I’ve been marked A+ on past relational report cards for Passive Aggresivity (I like this new word; let’s go with it). For me, this ineffective communication style developed from, well, many things, I think. I don’t like confrontation. So, there’s that. But I also didn’t really get that I could have needs, share my needs, and expect that there should at least be a conversation about how he/we would meet them. For many years, I also lived in a lot of fear that if I had needs — and boundaries — that these two things would push men away, or make me less desirable, or lovable.

I credit my D (who ever thought I’d celebrate such a score!) for Passive Aggresivity on my current report card to good therapy, a lot of reflection, and a strong will to do better — for myself and for my relationship. I also ascribe my healthier approach, where one actually addresses things that bother her in a direct manner, to my Dae Han. Take today, for example. It doesn’t matter the actual thing that was bothering me. It matters that DH can read me (not entirely a closed book — if you know, you know) and always evenly asks, “what are you thinking about” when he can see that I am chewing on something I need to spit out.

Dae Han has created for me the safest space to share, to fumble, to be all of me. And so sharing with him about my needs, desires, boundaries, it doesn’t feel threatening or scary. I am no longer worried that someone will walk away when they see all of me. What this man does when I start to open up is magical for me: he opens his ears, his arms, his heart, and becomes that downy comforter that soothes and settles me.

There are many things that have not come easily to me, in academics or life (and some that have) and I don’t regret that. A sound work ethic goes a long way in developing a healthy relationship — and I am finally getting to enjoy the fruits of this labor because I have found a partner who has been building this robust (one of DH’s favorite words) relationship with me from the Genesis. Dae Han (nor I, at this time) are religious, but finding the connection I have with him, it is spiritual. So, I have been here, in Korea, in Seoul, in the arms of a man who I may believe was sent by God, or the Universe, or perhaps my grandmother’s and mother’s and father’s and sister’s wills, all wrapped up together in Hope and Faith.

Hello, my friends and family,

from the other side

of the world

and of Doubt.

Hello from Faith

and Hope

and Happiness

Hello

and now goodnight

from my city apartment in Seoul.

My Seoulful Life: Sympathetic Joy

I took myself to dinner last night. I find that taking myself on dates can be an empowering, soul-filling, delicious way to treat myself after a long day or week. I begin the evening by doing my hair with care, applying make-up slowly, and finding a new, cute, bougie-ish place to dine. And then I sidle into my Sexy-Drifter self as I step into a taxi who I pretend is my personal chauffeur -- perhaps especially imaginative as most drivers pass gas as they shuttle me around Seoul.

I had hoped not to dine alone last night, though. After a full day of virtual professional development -- one incredible session after another from Seoul of a Leader -- I had hoped to find a new friend to adventure with, but each of my messages had been returned with a kind, "I'm so sorry, I've already got plans tonight."

Slumped into my sofa, I spent a few moments feeling quite sorry for myself. Will I ever feel as connected to people here as I did in Shenzhen? I mourned to myself. Eight weeks into my new life, I can see that I am about as patient as my father when we were growing up, waiting for his wife and three daughters to get into the car for church on a Sunday.

After moping about for a bit, I decided I should reframe how I was looking at the evening. I messaged a restaurant owner who I had recently become acquainted with when I offered my firstborn in exchange for good goat cheese. "Any space at a table for 1 person around 7 tonight?" I typed into our Kakao chat. When Ian replied that he did indeed have the space for me at Vineworks, I popped myself in the shower and gave myself a pep talk. Off you go now, I said to myself after a quick back-and-forth with my soul-sister Ceci about how to address the sheerness of the top I had donned. (Silk scarves from Cambodia work beautifully to cover up the boobies when you don't want to wear a bra.)

It was my lucky night because my taxi driver chose to squeeze his butt cheeks together and wait for the big release once I had exited his vehicle. I walked onto the rooftop of the restaurant right as sunset was starting, and the show did not disappoint on this particular Saturday. Alright, girl, you're just fine I reminded myself. And then Ian brought over the wine.

I settled into a chair at my small wooden table and opened one of my latest reads, Sharon Salzberg's A Heart as Wide as the World. Just a couple of pages in, I became distracted by a group of women at the other end of the rooftop. They appeared lost in their revelry, laughing and trying to get the perfect photo as the sun was painting the horizon in vibrant pinks and oranges. I snapped a shot of them as balloons bounced softly on each side of their table. And I smiled. How sweet it was to be privy to this moment of theirs. Rather than feeling left out of fun for the night, I realized I shared in their joy from a distance, and that distance did not lessen the depth of contentedness that I felt. My pouty-ness had turned to peace.

As I returned to my book, I chuckled. Right on the page in front of me, Salzberg was writing about the third Brahma Vihara, or third Buddhist virtue, that of sympathetic joy. I read and reread the passage:

"Sympathetic joy is the practice of actively taking delight in the happiness of others, rather than feeling threatened or diminished, as if the happiness of another takes something away from us ... with strong sympathetic joy, we are able to feel happy when others feel happy; we rejoice and take delight in their happiness."

As the sun fully set and I was surrounded by the city lights of Seoul, I sipped more wine; Ian poured a Sauvignon Blanc and then a fruity red. It was at this point in the evening that two of the women from party walked happily in my direction, carrying a tray of cupcakes. Upon their recommendation, I chose a strawberry chocolate cupcake, so touched by their kindness. I told one of the women that I had snapped a photo of them earlier and offered to send it to her. "Oh, yes, please," she said with excitement.

As I finished the rest of my wine, which paired so deliciously with the cupcake, I decided to read one more chapter from my book. I could not help but feel it was sweet serendipity that had led me to pick up this book on this night. From a section entitled, "Returning Home" I read:

"When we turn on the light of wise attention, we can see clearly. Seeing clearly, we realize that we have no distance to travel in any direction to find our real home, where we belong, where we can be at ease -- it is right where we are."