Go Ask The Mountain

Go Ask the Mountain

It’s just a simple three-kilometer hike, nothing of great proportions. I do it almost daily, well, really nightly. It is a mountain, like but not like every other mountain in Korea, with one bug except. It is the mountain I will miss when I leave here. Tang San is my best friend in Korea.

Tonight while climbing up the side by the Golden Buddha of the Temple I sit at on occasion, it occurred to me I would leave this mountain, soon. I was sad for a moment and then felt my heart twitch with joy. I have lived and learned on this mountain. I meditate every morning in my room but Tang San is where I ask the questions that I need and often do not want the answers. Tonight the question was simple while slowly stepping on the bed of fallen pine needles with the refl3tio of the almost full moon shining a light for me over the branches and stumps. “What do I need to learn to tonight about myself, us or how I can be of better service or become of better man?” A simple question.

What struck me as I came to one of the side paths which I took a left around the family trying to coax their little dog with a red light blinking around its neck is this; why do I always ask to be a better man? Why not a better person?

I passed the dog and headed toward the bench I spent Saturday afternoon in the slight drizzle on Buddha’s Birthday sitting and reflecting. It one of my favorite spots on the mountain. Yesterday late afternoon I had an energizing experience of standing Qi Gong in front of the bench while sensing the curious Koreans passing by looking at the strange Foreigner. Strange indeed but not because I was standing and meditating. Tonight I kept walking. I wanted to stay focused and present. There is something here I need to learn.

Then another question slid into my consciousness. Why do I get irritated when women speak of themselves as something separate and, therefore, special and seem totally fine with making that distinction myself? Hummm good question. Maybe someday I will have the answer. I was not able to let go of a nagging feeling in my belly. It was initially stirred yesterday afternoon during a Skype session with a friend discussing our departures from Korea. What have I done here? How is it that a mountain in a city of a half million people is my best friend? Maybe my only close friend? How did I spend this much time here and really only make a few semi-strong relationships and they were predominantly with Koreans? Why have I avoided non-Koreans with such commitment?

Well, I have done some things! I have done the rough drafts of a novel, a book of essays and memoirs and the foundation of a cultural and social book about Korea and Koreans. That is something. And I learned about non-verbal communication, especially energetic exchanges between people. I leaned that sex is not a given. Good friendships can be formed with folks I have never seen or heard online. That writing is important to me, no, essential at this point in my life. That I could fly 8,000 miles but still miss my dead family members. I still don’t have a clue about much, not a surprise. That going months between ANY physical contact with humans above grade six is challenging, very challenging. Koreans do not share physical affection with other that are not family except for women who walk with their hands or arms wrapped around each other as a matter of course. Hugging matters, even to a semi-cold distant man like myself.

Tang San is my friend. It is hard for me to visualize my experience here in Korea without my time on this mountain. Like all good friends, Tang San lets me come to my own conclusions but rarely leaves me without something new to chew on. Tonight, while reaching the base of the mountain and walking down the staircase in front of the Church with large red cross in the sky and the larger painting of Jesus n front of the building I realized where I am headed next has many mountains. They are larger and dry with little else but rock. Deserts are like that. This particular desert is without sand, just rocks, mountains and space. I will try to make friends with those mountains like I have been fortunate enough to with this one. And hopefully that will not give me the answers without forcing me to search and claw a bit first too. Tonight I was thinking of Gurdjieff while walking- a Teacher, a model and haunting face with intense expressions of locked eyes, forceful cheeks and a forehead that tells stories of many miles. I will walk some of those same miles soon enough.

The Road Not Taken

It had been more than ten years since we last spoke. It was all so raw and painful back then. Her presence still felt like a hand cultivator clawing and scraping up and down my spine, slowly and deliberately. Just like the way I plant Lacinato kale every April except this one- slow and deliberate. Even though I was so happy she found the right man for her, I had not really ever let go of the questions in my mind.

Did I give up too quickly?

When Pastor Matt consoled me that I was not breaking my commitments with God by ending our engagement, did I use that as my get-out-of –jail-free-card?

Was I just not man enough to really handle commitment from all the pain and disappointment over the years?

Did I bail on the one woman I totally fell in love with and ached to be near night and day?

Ten years. So much has happened since then. All the physical scars from the biting, scratching and pinching have healed and been replaced with fresh new skin many times now that all physical evidence is filed away in a box with all the other Cold Cases. I had grown and gotten stuck and grown again so many times. She had gotten engaged again, broke up got married to a Navy man and lives in the suburbs of Virginia with their daughter Mary Elizabeth, she must be three by now. And then there was last year when she was placed in a state mental hospital by her husband and stepfather, losing rights to leave him with their daughter when she was finally released. After ten years, I knew it was time to face my demons and visit, not knowing why, just knew to visit.

“So you will really be here in a half an hour?”

“Yes, I think it will take me that long.”

“Really! I can’t wait for you to meet M.E. she is amazing. OK, so I need to take a shower before you get here, I look awful. Just let yourself in the front door. And since you know that if we are going to have lunch, you will have to make it. So, just come in, and look around for something to make us for lunch. I can’t believe you are really coming. I am so excited!”

I hung up my cell phone and took a deep breath. Am I ready for this? Funny, it is like history has stopped. I will be walking in her place because she is not ready, preparing food for us in her kitchen because she doesn’t do kitchens and no greeting at the door, no hug hello, no “I can’t believe you are actually here!” Just, “Let yourself in and make us something to eat for lunch.” Ten years, married, child and nothing has changed.

I got lost once on the way over but that means I will only have to wait about twenty minutes for her instead of thirty, the food won’t be completely cold by then. I slowly open the front door to their suburban mass manufactured house in a Desperate Wives look-a-like “community”. The blue Ford Explorer she told me to look for was in the driveway, so I knew I was at the right house and not just walking into somebody else’s house in this military families neighborhood. I did not want to get shot or deported. The house smells just like I remember her. This is a mistake, what am I doing here?

“Hello” I say loud enough for anybody upstairs to hear.

“You’re here? Already” I am not dressed yet. Just look in the fridge and make whatever you want.” “Mary Elizabeth, mommy’s old friend is here. Do you want to go down and say Hi to him?” “She’s being shy.” Loud enough for me to hear. She probably won’t come down without me, she is a bit agoraphobic just like her mother.”

I scrounge around the fridge and only see various kinds of over-processed foods I would not feed President Bush, let alone a little girl or myself. Oscar Meyer bologna, Wonder white bread, Pillsbury flake biscuits, Ahh, eggs an actual real food. Oh yuck, Kraft individually wrapped cheese food for my protection.

“Did you find anything? How about scrambled eggs with cheese, M.E. loves that.”

“I found that. I can make that if that is what she likes. Are you going to eat that as well?”

“I don’t really eat food anymore. The meds they have me on have depressed my appetite. Just make enough for you and M.E. I will eat whatever she doesn’t finish.” Her voice sounds closer and I hear two adult and two little feet starting to come down the steps. When they come within my view, a shot goes up my spine to my brain and the only word that comes to mind is “Crazy!” She has the look of all the clients I have worked with that are crazy. OK, we don’t call them crazy but that doesn’t mean they aren’t crazy. I can see it in her eyes and feel it in her energy. Crazy. I knew right at that moment that the road not taken was a road needn’t be taken. Freedom: all the questions have now been answered. No more questions, no more doubt and no more shoulda, coulda, woulda. Done. No, definitely did not need to have taken this road. Phew! By the Grace of God in spite of ourselves every now and then we step on the path that is ours and leave behind the road not taken forever. Freedom… at least for me.