Soggy

Soggy

It has rained much lately. Korea has a rainy season during the summer and we are in the middle of it. This weekend has been wet, very wet. I feel soggy inside although I have only left my room once this weekend.

Soggy but not wet from water. Soggy with laziness. I feel fat but not from food. I feel tired but not from activity.

I am an active person who also enjoys being still. I have not been active or still this weekend. I have been sitting but not still. The only thing that is active is my mind’s need to avoid feeling, being. I am not present while sitting heavy for hours. I had a long deep nap from the exhaustion of non-activity. Non-activity. There must be a name for activity that isn’t, inactivity does not quite cover this state.

Many years ago while living in an intentional community of hard core activists except me; one of the community members used to laugh warmly and appreciatively at my desire to sit and be still and do meditation while they were out doing their thing to change the world full of anger, rage and self-righteousness. I would sit. I was not soggy then the way I am soggy now. Then I was full of presence, focus and depth with a mind willing to be with itself, at least sometimes. One night sitting up late listening him play guitar and trying to sing folk songs, we were laughing at where I fit into the community. Then with his brown eyes below his long reddish auburn hair and fare skin bursting with excitement, he yelled out in the middle of a Woody Guthrie song, “You are a Passivist! Not a pacifist, you are the opposite of an activist. A Passivist!” He was so ecstatic he found a way to identify my spiritual and personal way of dealing with change at that point in my life. That became how I was identified back then. Who knew I would less than ten years later become a slothful man in South Korea hiding from rain and himself after existing as a man who used every season and natural experience as an opportunity to get know myself and our world better? When did I become slothful? Lazy? Gluttonous? How does this happen? Why is resistance to greatness so seductive and powerful? Is this why so few can find and then hold on to answers; the real answers that the rest all sit around filled with alcohol or caffeine intellectually pondering over without any real experience or personal knowledge with words like existentialism and Darwinism rolling off their tongues like the granola they ate for breakfast?

How did a mystic become a mystery to himself?

And more importantly, what does it take to return to such a state of being but with the added knowledge and experiences to integrate, creating maybe one or two steps further along the staircase of life? Can we ever return to the Garden of Eden once we have eaten the apple and still be true to each other and ourselves? Is there a way to go back AND go forward?

Tang San Mountain Tonight

I put on my new waterproof windbreaker I received via a delivery guy last week for the first time. I had already de-factoried it last week with a nice wash and ten hours in the sun hanging out my window and the smell is fresh air not plastic and chemicals. This made me smile casually. I stepped outside my, door and my neighbor across the hall was returning to her place and said “HI. How are you?” She meant it. We met a few times previously. She can speak English and is an English teacher at a hag won (institute) here in Cheonan. “Good! I am going out for a nice walk.”

Her face looked puzzled. “But it is raining outside.”

“I know. I said I was going for a walk, I didn’t say it made sense.”

She smiled warmly, “It should be good. Bye-Bye.”

“Yes it should, thanks. Bye-Bye.” And down the marble brown and tan steps to the exit door and the stone and cement walkway in front of our building. It is barely raining, one of my favorite walking environments, especially with the temperature in the lower sixties and dark. This kind of weather seems to always facilitate reflection and sensory awareness that I typically do not have at my access. I walked up the little hill across the street with the green and white concrete tiles to the main drag in my neighborhood. My neighborhood. Wow, I really live here now. I am no longer rock star nor Martian. I have achieved both neighbor and alien residentship. I am an alien. Many of my family members and friends have wondered if I was an alien for as long as I can remember. They have proof now in the shape of an ID card in my black Eagle Creek wallet.

There are less folks out on the streets than usual. This makes me happy. Tonight I brought my iPod and headphones seeking private time in public; hiding in plain sight. I do not put on my headphones yet. I want to feel the rain and hear the water and smell the freshness before I go inside the tangled web called my brain. Maybe I should take a shot at walking up Tang San Mountain. How muddy and slippery could it be? I have now passed Young Am Chatam Hokyo (elementary school) where I am an English teacher. I like teaching at a public school. The sense of hominess that is present supports me being me and them being them. Yeah, I will take a short walk up Tang San tonight. How bad can it be? I have my cell phone if it gets too bad. Crossing Ssang-yangdong 2 and heading towards the back of Highvill apartments where the trailhead begins. I hesitate at the trailhead, fear is ugly and ruthless. I take my first cautious steps up the steps to the dirt trail. I see three young guys walking down talking casually. They are not alarmed or cautious; I will be safe. They are the last humans I see on the mountain tonight. A rare contrast to the fifty or so I typically see at ten at night on a weeknight. I am grateful I will get rain, mountain, dirt and space while listening to the bugs and insects make their chirping and buzzing sounds. They are different than what I know them to sound like back in the states, more buzzing than I can remember. The dirt is soft but not slippery, which makes for a nice gentle walk. I slow down to breath in the smell of green, wet. It is its own smell without name or identification but certainly fragrant and embracing all who care to give in to its loving sweetness. The drops on my head are small; I take my hood off. I want to miss nothing tonight. Wet, the smell of greenness wet, the wet soft soil and the sounds of those who live here on the mountain. Tonight is my night here since others chose to stay indoors tonight. I feel bad that folks run for cover at any sign of inclement weather, it is such a treat on nights like tonight. Then I again smile that hidden gesture of knowing a secret that you won’t share; the secret is life is good and I am on the mountain by myself. The motion-sensor lights on the path tickle me every time they go off and on, I feel like I am walking through a scene in some movie from a time in the future or on planet Q or something. Time to turn around; I have enjoyed the walk and the mountain, no reason to get greedy. Besides, I want to listen to Vas and it seems like sacrilege to put on my headphones and iPod at a moment and place like this. Maybe even blasphemy.

I reach the bottom and enter the sidewalk with ochre, green and burnt red tiles and start up the hill to the right. I walk while searching for Vas on my iPod. They rocked me last night on my bike ride and I want to relive that again tonight in slow-mo by foot. I pass a couple who gaze at me, I feel shame at now being one of the people I judge walking in public with headphones and shutting off the world. I am back on Sang-yongdong 2 and turn left towards home. The fresh air pulls my head to the right and I notice the signs for Boar English Academy and HanKook University for Foreign Studies with its green, yellow and white sign. I approach the first of two Paris Baguette bakeries on my short walk home. The have a new Korean wheat and buckwheat cornmeal bread I tried tonight for the first timer, it was good with my jinn Ramen and Curried chicken over a vegetable salad I had for dinner tonight. I am back at Young Am Chatam Hokyo. I look up at where my classroom is. There it is, third floor on the corner facing the police station across the street. I am not ready to go home yet. I want to sit somewhere dry and appreciate the night air and mist. I remember there is a small shelter near the soccer field across the door I enter and leave daily, since my slippers are in a cubbyhole there for me to wear every day at work. I love wearing slippers at work; it should be an international law that every school in the world bans shoes worn by anyone. I imagine a lot less violence and disrespect. I plop down under the shelter on the top step of the left hand side. It feels nice. Fresh, clean, alive. I relax for just a few minutes. I am pleased and satiated; I do not want to be greedy tonight. Take what I need and leave the rest for others. Life is good.

I leave school grounds through the gate and turn right. I pass the other Paris Baguette and Nong Hyup Bank where the Korean government sends my paychecks and takes out money to pay for the delicious lunches provided at school, and I wire money to the states to pay some old balances left from six months without pay. The American dollar’s crash has cost me about four hundred dollars on Friday due to exchange rates having dropped almost 30% in the three months I’ve been here. Should I go left up the hill by the park next to Mama’s Touch Chicken or the usual way? The usual way. It occurs to me stronger and louder than earlier tonight. This is my neighborhood. I live here. This is my home! I am a neighbor again. People know me. They cannot speak with me and do not know my name, but they know me. We have exchanged bows and smiles- connection. Warmth and respect do not need words.

Tonight I will write about tonight. I have written intentional lies my last three pieces. Time to return to me, the real me. Tonight is about me. Well, not really, it is about us. Our lives, our dreams and our moments together and separate. We breathe, we eat and we love and then we cry. This is who we are. This is my home. I live here. I am a neighbor again. I can offer my home to Couch Surfers again. I have a home. I see it, there it is right in front of me now. I think I will go inside, turn on my MacBook, continue to listen to Vas and type till I am done.

I am done.