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.

The Reformer and I

Some time around the evening of October 1st, 2021, I was scrolling the dating app Bumble. I usually scrolled the app in the evenings, laid out on my cream couch after a day of teaching. Having been recently burned by an American man living on the Army base outside of Seoul, and having just finished Squid Game had me wondering if there was even anyone worth searching for on this app. or in this city. or in the entirety of this shadowy, shadowy world.

I swiped left, and left, and left, and left, and left andleft andleftandleftandleft … and then

I paused —

I swallowed the English teacher for a moment, and chewed on the words, “I enjoy it and find meaning from fighting for a better world.”

“And you’re a feminist too, huh, Moderated,” I thought to myself. “Well, we’ll see about that,” I said aloud to the empty room, skepticism cutting into my hope.

I thumbed away at my iphone keyboard, typing, “After watching Squid Game, I could use someone who wants to make the world a better place.” This began my first chat with Moderated.

In the coming weeks, I would learn that Moderated’s actual name is Dae-Han Song. In those first conversations via Bumble and then KakaoTalk, Korea’s WhatsApp, I learned that Dae-Han was kind. When I was struggling to negotiate what it would take to avoid quarantine after Christmas 2021, he picked up the phone and called me to see if he could help me navigate a visit to the Gu, or government office. I also learned that Dae-Han is well read. He quoted Shakespeare, and perhaps I thought he was trying to show off by doing so, but I would soon learn that Dae-Han is too earnest, too humble and authentic to show off, even when he could or maybe even sometimes when he should.

Before Dae-Han and I met in person for our first date, he invited me to join an online [progressive] forum that he was running. The focus of this forum was The United States’ role in Afghanistan. I understood little of what the forum really was, I knew little about the topic, but I was intrigued. I accepted his invitation.

On October 7th, I signed into Zoom to listen to Dae-Han and his International Strategy Center colleagues host researcher, historian, and author Vijay Prashad.

In truth, I was a bit distracted by Dae-Han’s handsome aesthetic, but I did also gain an understanding that there is a perspective about the US’s involvement in Afghanistan that the West has not been telling.

As I watched Dae-Han interview Prashad, I did not know — still do not know — enough about global politics to decide to what degree I agreed or disagreed with Prashad, but perhaps what was more significant to me was that the experience of being in that forum felt interesting, engaging … even expansive.

I do not think that Dae-Han had any great ulterior motives in inviting me to the forum (alright, he has since told me he did want to show off. a little.), but what I gathered from this invitation ultimately was that he was willing to be vulnerable, to show an authentic side of himself from early on, and that he was indeed who his Bumble profile said that he was: a man seeking to make the world a better place, even when Squid Game and certain Army dudes would lead you to believe there is little light left in this world.

Over the course of over a year now, I have come to know the heart of Dae-Han. He is who the Enneagram names as The Reformer, a “conscientious and ethical” man “always striving to improve things.” Perhaps it is no surprise that my father is also a Reformer; while his and Dae-Han’s politics are different, I can see them both striving for the greater good in this world.

Part of what has drawn Dae-Han and I together is the way in which we both do want to make spaces more equitable. While I work on a more micro scale, mainly my classroom (and recently beyond as I have become involved in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion movement), Dae-Han works on a macro scale, co-running an NGO that is “dedicated to learning about and connecting with international social movements that confront injustice and corruption.”

As a dedicated activist striving for more justice, Dae-Han — the man I now call my partner, my keeper, and the love of my life — attends and engages with local protests and rallies. Recently, he asked if I wanted to attend one of these gatherings.

In truth, I did not take to this idea immediately. “A Saturday,” I thought to myself. “There is so much I could do with that afternoon: read, write, rest, run, nestle into a quaint cafe.” But I reflected on the weekend that Dae-Han gave to me in October, attending a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion exchange at a nearby(ish) international school. And then I thought about my desire to understand my partner’s work in this world better, and my desire to understand Korea better. And so I said, “yes, I’ll meet you at City Hall.”

As I was about to leave the apartment to take public transportation — ah, the ease and dependability of the bus and metro system in Seoul — it began to rain.

“Hey, just making sure the rally is still on,” I texted to Mr. Moderated.

“Rain won’t stop Koreans from gathering today,” he responded.

My last chance of a couch potato afternoon splattered like rain onto the pavement as I boarded the bus to City Hall, with some residual disappointment for missing the stillness of a slow Saturday but also interested in an afternoon to observe and learn.

When I arrived to City Hall, I found a crowd much larger than I anticipated. Some 90,000 farmers, workers, students, delivery people, and activists had gathered to struggle for better protection of the rights of Korea’s laborers.

While I could not understand the words each person was speaking, I could hear the strength and power in their voices. I also found it quite beautiful that there was sign language interpretation for the entirety of the rally, which you may note in the above — the woman in the circle is currently signing his speech.

Weighted down by rain, this banner is trying to float into the air.

As various speakers took the stage, Dae-Han translated for me. I am not particularly good at retaining information, dates and facts the way that he is, but I did learn that people gathered at this rally were struggling for three main things:

1. the ability to form unions

2. a law that would hold businesses more accountable for industrial accidents (addressing negligence)

3. the reversal of crippling fines placed upon those who strike (based on the pretext of lost business)

I do not understand Korea, her politics, and the struggles of the people well enough to pretend to have tangible viewpoints on the broader and smaller issues named here.

I did, though, feel the energy of thousands of people united to fight for their own and others’ safety and rights. It was an energy that thrummed and drummed into the air and through our bodies.

Dae-Han and I operate in quite different spheres, at this point we do not entirely share the same ideology, but I appreciate endlessly having a partner who shares in my journey and invites me to share in his.

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.

Busan and the Abundance Mindset

I am 58 hours into a trip to Busan, the second largest city in South Korea. For 38 of these hours, I have been a solo explorer. For the other 20, Dae Han, my love, spent 9 hours traveling in order to have almost 1 full day together. While I cannot quantify the gratitude I have for him and the way Dae Han cares for me, 100% of my heart was happy to share in this weekend with him.

I have 4 hours remaining in this trip, 4 hours until I board the train bound for Seoul that will take 2.75 hours to return me to my home in South Korea’s largest, most densely populated city.

In the past 2.2 days, I have spent roughly:

5 minutes shopping for a sun visor because I arrived to the beach without my sunglasses, and to be honest, I would have bought this visor regardless because its giving me those cute beachy vibes.

7 hours reading 2 books: Pachinko with Dae Han and The Beginning of Spring on my own. We found a lazy spot in a park to read Book III of Min Jin Lee’s epic novel turned Apple TV series.

45 minutes appreciating Haedong Yonggungsa Buddhist Temple. The temple was especially popular on this day as Buddha’s birthday is near and it was Children’s Day, an important holiday here in Korea.

5 hours eating yummy meals, some of which started with 반상, side dishes that offer sweet, savory, and umami flavors — for a food and culture lesson on 반상, give a listen to my student Jihoo’s podcast episode entitled, “Where Side Dishes Take Center Stage”

Some amount of slow moments savoring the feeling of home that I always have with my handsome man, while sipping Earl Grey and letting dark Ecuadorian chocolate truffles melt in my mouth.

1.75 hours running along the water, finding spots for moments of meditation or a place to complete a short HIIT circuit of squats, pushups, and planks

3 hours walking and watching fisherman, surfers, and swimmers.

20 minutes becoming two of those swimmers, finding the sea’s very cold waters at first almost intolerable, and then … really refreshing (Dae Han spent at least twice the amount of time submerged in the sea than me).

Some hours just gazing out at the aqua water washing over the sea stones.

Since moving abroad almost 9 years ago now, I have become increasingly aware of how time passes. Perhaps it is because settling into life abroad brought with it a sadness of missing time with family and friends Stateside. It has also meant a keen awareness of how, over time, I have been expanding through challenging, sometimes uncomfortable, often delightful experiences. Perhaps, too, the sands of time have become the focus of my attention so often because as we age, we fear we are “running out of time".

Being on the beach this weekend, I have been reminded to try and work away from the notion that there is a scarcity of time. While deadlines, timelines, and checklists have their place, what I am choosing to breath into is abundance right now. The world would often have use believe that we need to produce more, buy more, be more … if you listen to the world, there is a mindset of never-enough-ness.

I have 35 minutes before I need to start walking to the bus to take me to the train station. That is a finite amount of time left to spend sea-gazing, but I can also recognize that there has been enough exploration and restoration to return me to Seoul a better-rested woman.

As I finish this post, I am back in the BaciAbode. It will take awareness to maintain my abundance mindset as I begin preparing for the week ahead, but I am hopeful that remembering the many slow breaths I took in Busan, I can also give myself permission to do the same in Seoul.

Before I sign off today, I want to acknowledge that there is a truth to scarcity, generally truths that I do not have to face if I avert my eyes, but truths nonetheless that I feel because of being part of a collective human psyche. Some in our communities and countries do not have enough support, resources, or seats at the table. Scarcity is indeed part of their reality, and a reality I believe we all have the capacity to shift. Dae Han is a devoted leader of the NGO called the International Strategy Center. The ISC hosts online forums (usually once a month) in the spirit of solidarity with people around the world, to understand current events and issues more deeply.

On May 21st, they will be hosting a forum on Korea’s Disabled People’s Movement. While I know that many readers here are not Korea based, I think the forum could be worthwhile for all of us in our respective places in the world. I encourage you to join the forum, to listen and learn and consider those near your homes that are facing scarcity, not as a mindset, but as a reality. First my parents, and now my partner, help me to understand that we have the power to bring more abundance to others.

Peace and love,

BaciAbroad

Living Seoulfully: Unexpected Delight

"I think you never know where life is taking you. The unexpected and the expected, it's all for the good," were some of the first sage words HyoEun, a 19-year-old international student, offered our shared space today. The last time I saw this former student of mine, we were at her high school graduation. Six months ago, we were both in Shenzhen, China. It was dripping outside, not with rain, but with beads of sweat, rolling off of every resident's back and arms and nose. I had posed with HyoEun, dressed in her black graduation gown, her dark chestnut hair flowing down her back and over her shoulders, in the air-conditioned, broad open space of G&G Creative Community. HyoEun's graduating class had been one of those special bunches where the energy between the students is such that the spaces they enter buzz with laughter and camaraderie, singing and dancing -- I am not trying to paint perfect picture here; I am writing the reality of this funny and fun-loving crew.

As a teacher -- like a parent, I imagine -- I do not want to say that I have favorites. Teachers and parents, we seek to support and connect with all of our children. We reflect on how to meet the needs of the diverse and unique souls before us, and we love each of them for the special things they bring into our lives and into our classrooms.

Some connections just hit differently, though. I suppose I saw some of myself in HyoEun from the beginning, from the first day that we began to share space in the classroom, lit by the sun coming in through the window that looked out onto the South China Sea. HyoEun's junior year was her first year at Shekou International School. She was quite quiet and reserved, though I could see the wheels of her thoughts as she listened to her classmates' opinions and insights on topics such as racism and feminism and various global issues.

Over time, HyoEun bloomed, having been watered by the rains of praise in the form of feedback, having offered herself the sunlight of self-compassion, she unfolded like a peony in the springtime. Her contributions to class were thoughtful and reflective, measured and deep.

I was lost in thought for a moment, thinking back to the two years I taught HyoEun when she continued speaking again. "You know, the world is much more beautiful than I had expected," she reflected as our conversation continued over a vegan breakfast at a tiny, sweet restaurant near her university campus. "We spent so much time talking about global issues in high school that I hadn't expected so much beauty too. I mean, we need to know about issues. When I was in San Francisco, I spent part of the weekend serving food at a homeless shelter. And it might seem that people just want food, but they want human connection. That is what we are all craving. And so we connected. We had conversations. I also had picnics with my friends on weekends" she said, painting a picture for me of her diverse group of friends.

Here our conversation turned to a discussion of privilege -- we have both been afforded great privilege in this life, two of them being to travel widely and to learn by attending wonderful educational institutions. I noted the way that HyoEun has been able to embrace life's pleasures, and to use her privilege to bring more beauty to the communities surrounding her. This too is the way that I was raised, and recently I have felt a renewed appreciation for the lessons surrounding power and privilege that my parents taught me through their own gracious modeling.

HyoEun attends Minerva University, a program that has her and her 200 cohort-mates moving to a new country each semester. Her cohort is comprised of students from all over the world, from Nigeria and Bulgaria, from the Philippines to South Korea, which is HyoEun's passport country. As Minerva offers scholarships on a sliding scale, the students in HyoEun's program are culturally and economically diverse. Regardless of country context, Minerva does not provide a cafeteria for the students. "This is a good thing," HyoEun explains, "because this way we get to be a little more independent and also share our favorite dishes from back home."

As HyoEun shared with me more about her university experience so far, I was delighted to hear that her time at SIS had prepared her to move into seminar discussions with confidence and openness to new ideas and insights. "The topics we discussed in your class, they have come up many times in my university classes. We have even talked about We Should All Be Feminists" HyoEun says with a smile. This, of course, delights me to no end, that I must be doing something right in the classroom if the conversations we have and the texts we read help to shape young women such as HyoEun, and to help my students to feel ready to engage in such discourse.

Interested in where HyoEun might take her degree in the future, I inquired if she still wanted to be a dentist, as she had previously mentioned. "Hmmm, I am still asking that myself," she replied with a smile. "I have always been a science person, but now it's the social sciences that are really engaging me, and so I am not sure what exactly I will do following university. It is possible to apply to dental school, but I could also enter into a social science field right after I finish university. And you know what," HyoEun continued as her smile broadened a bit, "it doesn't even stress me out to not know ... to not have the answers."

I nodded and smiled back at her. "That's pretty cool," I said. "I think a lot of university students, a lot of humans, feel pressured to know, but if we can maintain our openness, we land where we are supposed to land."

As we continued to eat our meal slowly, sliding tofu and broccoli and warm rice onto our forks, we talked about the circumstances that had brought us to share these moments outside of the classroom, and outside of China, catching up with each other. HyoEun had not planned on attending Minerva, and I had not planned on moving to Seoul, but a certain openness that we both have allowed life to lead us here.

In Korea, HyoEun has reconnected with parts of her family and is, ironically, learning about Seoul through adventures led by her Armenian friend. In Korea, I have connected with a wonderful man, and I am learning about the city, not so ironically, through adventures and excursions led by him, and by new friends.

You really don't know where life is taking you, I continue to think this evening, now sipping an aromatic grassy green tea that my beau has recently gifted me. I do time and again find, though, that it takes you to the places where you need to be, in just the right time. Today, the place I needed to be was catching up with HyoEun, feeling the life force that runs through her. It was lovely to hear that the work we did together in the classroom fed her intellect and spirit well. Today, HyoEun's wisdom and spirit fed me.

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."