Soft Art and Sunrise.

  It has been five months now since landing in Korea.  My situation here has changed, though my feelings remain mostly constant.  I don't say much about my going ons here.  I often say little of a great deal.  Now, it is summer, and my time here is nearly half complete.  The first rainy season has come, and is now ending.  Here in Yeosu the weather is more mild than the rest of the country, and this first monsoon season passed quickly over us with no horrid flooding or downpours, though we did receive our share of rain.  You can always see the rain in the clouds before it comes, and smell it hanging there in front of you deliciously.  Some days I would drive my motorcycle to school and get caught in some torrent coming home, splashing through puddles dotted across the slip n slide of the pavement.  I was soaked, the rain tumbling down on me, my clothes doused and dripping, and all the water wetting me, the puddles and pavement, and the fog on my helmet visor, all that rain, all that rain, I just smiled, and laughed some reminiscent laugh. I laugh like that so rarely, but the rain, the rain does things to me, some emotional, bi-polar lover.  

  Some nights the wind would whoop and whish so loudly out my door, the thunder booming and beating, and lightning some melodic trance of hypnotic strobes. I would lay in bed, the window so close to me, and hear the night and the storm and violence, and I had reason to be awake when I knew I would be anyway, and I was in love with the rain again.

  What have I done in Korea?  How am I to make report of five months time?  Is it worth the read, or my time in writing it, when this night, this night I have much to do, but I don't forget you, nor of the absence I know is coming, so I write. 

  Well, in wanting to experience a culture different than my own, Korea certainly answers the call.  The people, while outwardly friendly, are also very traditional, and not easily accepting.  Being a foreigner in the most homogenous country in the world, where 98% of people living here are natural born Koreans, I am an oddity, and in the small coastal town I am in, I stand out more so than other areas.  I cannot go anywhere without being stared and pointed out.  Children and high school girls giggle, and often the boys as well, and the attention we as foreigners draw is like we are some Korean pop star, though a pop star feared with having some contagious disease, for though we are certainly an oddity and curiosity, we will always be outsiders, and always be treated as such here.  I am taller than most, though by no means the tallest person in town.  South Korea is the tallest nation in all of Asia, though I am certainly well above average height, and in a continent where everyones hair and eyes are the same color, I certainly stand out with mine.  "Oh, hairstyle good," is a common phrase I hear, and the curiosity to touch the foreigner gets the best of the children here, particularly my blonde hair, or my arms and legs, as body hair is not so common here.

  Favorite activities amongst the Koreans are in the Bongs, the Jim Jil Bong, PC Bong, and No Rae Bong.  The Jim Jil Bong is a public bath house, usually divided in to 5 floors, men's changing room, women's changing room, men's bath, women's bath, and the Jim Jil Bong floor.  The bath portions are filled with saunas, steam rooms, and pools of various temperatures, both hot and cold.  Many of the baths are filled with spices or herbs, and of course, as it is a bath house, dozens of men walk around naked, stretching out for massages, showering, or relaxing in the warm baths.  The bath houses provide soap, towels, toothpaste, lotion, and more, and it's common for people to frequent the bath houses each morning before work, or at night before bed.  The Jim Jil bong floor is essentially a large cultural hall where there are often thin mats or blankets and wood blocks or pillows to rest on.  This floor is co-ed and as the Jim Jil Bongs are open 24 hours, they also make cheap hotels, as you can find a corner somewhere on the floor and crouch down for a night's sleep.  During our first experience in a Jim Jil Bong, we woke surrounded by hundreds of people matted across the floor, and carefully tip-toed over them.  

  PC Bongs are essentially internet cafes, but really only used for on-line gaming purposes, as this is a nation addicted to computer and video games.  I asked a group of students to tell me what their dream vacation is, if money was not an option, and several answered that their dream vacation would be to stay home and play video games as long as they could.  This would be a typical response.  No Rae Bongs are karaoke bars divided in to individual rooms.  This is the popular form of karaoke in Asia.  Instead of busting out your incredible singing voice in front of the whole bar, you rent a room with your group of friends and are given the privacy to make a fool of yourself in front of only those who know you and are willing to photograph and video your embarrassing moments to later document on facebook.  

  My own experiences here are perhaps not so grand, though to me still memorable.  My friend Justin invited me to his gym to work out with him.  Well, this gym is a Jiu Jitsu studio, and my first day there the Gwang Ja Nim, or master, asks me to grapple with him, so here I am going at it with the teacher.  I've returned several times, and though I haven't learned any moves or really how to perform the art at all myself, still I am asked each time to wrestle by others there, and I act as their little rag doll to toss around as practice.  I am the sparring partner who allows you to hit them, but never hits back.  It's funny really, and I have even wrestled one of the Korean national champions several times, and I struggle through with him, but in the end, he always has his way.  I did once make someone tap out as I wrapped both ankles around his throat and victoriously choked him with my feet.  In the humid air that is Korea, wrestling around in a building with no AC works up a mighty sweat, and I love it.

  I think other than my adventures in the mud some few weekends ago, my favorite experiences here in Korea are in riding my motorcycle out through the country side, and across Dolsan Island, or out past Yeo-Chun to some beach, though it is not always the destination, but the journey that I go for.  One destination though was lasting and a favorite of mine.  It is Hyangiram, a temple atop a mountain at the end of Dolsan Island, on a cliff staring out to the yellow sea.  Rather than attempt again to recapture what I cannot, I will copy what I wrote then, on my two separate journeys to Hyangiram.  

Wednesday, April 15th, the year of our Lord, two thousand nine.

    "...We walked up the mountain, the many steps, through the rocks carved out to pass through, me ducking low to fit the trail.  We heard the resonance of the temple bell hum out her tonal beauty.  We saw the monk slowly swing the wooden beam and rope of a pendulum, as an invitation for the bell to sing her songs.  We heard the monks chant, their followers bow, and kneel, and pray.  This was among one temple on the mountain.  The other, the peak itself, the ridge and rise of the mountain standing tall above the other temple below.  Are all mountain peaks temples?  Did God design them as such  We walked to that temple too, the burn in our legs prodding us still upward.  I must always reach the top.  I always wish to walk inside the temple, not merely stand at the doors or across the way.  I walked in that temple and there was a prayer inside me, released through my reverent awe.  Perhaps we all had prayers, the solemnity of a windy mountain peak.  I shall pay my homage in all temples of this kind..."

  Thursday, April 23rd, the year of our Lord, two thousand nine.

 "...We hiked straight to the top of the mountain, skipping over the temple in order to see the sun set. Kelli and I headed straight up, able to go faster than the rest of the crowd and made it up to see the sun slip down behind a mountain across the way from our own peak.  The rest made it up after that, but the glow beaming out from behind the mount was soft and luminous.  dusk is a glorious time to be on a mountain.  The gentle mix of blue and white hang well in the sky.  The islands around seem to stand out more in the subtle colors of dusk and the water calm and silent below.  The wind blows brisk and cool and I always find comfort in the wind.  Is it some memory of home?  The canyon winds that stream down and blow out over the orchard?  I wonder if one reason I love the ocean, the beach so much is because of the wind.  She always calms me.  I feel she has some song that only I can hear.  We walked off the mountain to the temple to show the others .  They were impressed and amazed as we were, though I do not think anyone saw the beauty I saw there.  I am always curious to meet people who see what I do, the beauty, who understand.  It was dark when we walked down.  Kelli and I looked for a place to eat, though the shops had closed down.  The Elders gave us snacks and that was our dinner.  Hyangiram does not have a temple stay program, but they let Kelli and I spend the night anyway.  Everyone else went home, but we slept at the temple on blankets on the floor and watched the sun rise.  It is known for its sun rise and means "standing where the sun rises."  There were no mountains to block the view of the sun rising up above the water, a giant orange and yellow circle like a Japanese flag.  Hyangiram is one of the four sacred praying places in all of Korea and if you stand and pray toward on the Goddess of Mercy statues, it is said your prayer will be answered.  I offerred my prayer, the same prayer of mine for many years, the prayer I am not sure I believe in.  We ate breakfast with the monks, rice and various kim chi and headed down the mountain for work.  I am happy we stayed, slept in a Buddhist temple, sacred and holy, woken at 3:00 a.m. from the prayers of the monks, watched the sun rise, standing where the sun rises, ate our rice with monks, and fell in love again with the mountain.  We sayed in a temple that does not offer temple stays and I made my wish."

I have said enough for now, and must be about other business.  In a couple hours I will be sleeping the night away on a five hour bus ride to Seoul from where I will fly to China, and then Japan, a month with my backpack, i-pod and camera, no plans or itinerary, only myself and the hopes of a million breaths.  I leave you now with the poetry of So Chong-Ju, a Korean poet, and his ode to these Korean mountains, and mountains everywhere, temples of their own. 

"One morning I suddenly looked with fresh eyes at our ancient mountains. They were just squatting there, as usual; they seemed to have quite forgotten how rough and stupid they were, and the clouds in the sky were all the time clustering and snuggling round them; there was no way I could understand why those clouds were pressing so closely against such repulsive old things.

But as I gazed at the familiar sight of them wooing each other, the next day, and the next day, and the next, I finally realized what it was all about.

It's just like when our young human couples kiss each other's cheeks, and stroke one another's hair; only these gestures have been going on for perhaps several hundred thousand years! As if all that remains of earth's sordid battles has been cleansed and gone soaring up to become clouds, that now for ever flow over a unified jade-coloured space: by their constant gestures of unrestrained longing the clouds have perhaps been consoling the mountains ever since they were young.

 

That night I heard the sound of a mountain singing in a clear ringing voice. Yes, rising out of a darkness still as if submerged a thousand fathoms beneath the sea, I clearly heard that mountain sing.

It must have been past midnight. It sounded like a song sung softly by a new bride alone, venturing to open her lips only a few weeks after her arrival at her new husband's family home. It was the kind of song that gives a glimpse of flowery fields seen when still a maid, and it brought their fragrance floating by. The mountain sang in a soft deep voice, seeming eager to arouse not just those flowers but even their very roots.

 

  Can anything remain so long unforgotten? Sometimes we hear of a young widow who has stayed intact and chaste, living alone for thirty years or more, still in the bright clothes she wore when first she entered her dead husband's home. But for how many years has each mountain stayed in one place?

A voice as clear as that of waters that grow no older though they endure the fall of countless dynasties: it seems that such a voice can be heard ringing in every mountain.

 

The next day

there was something which kept attracting my gaze in the bright daylight: the green shade there that seemed to have some secret to tell me. Here and there in the checkered shadows, it was as if grazing things were whispering, glimmering pale and green, then suddenly they were parted by what seemed to be the passing of a vast fragrance and there came thrust towards me a gilded swing bearing a melancholy youth. It seemed there was a desire to make famous, if not the mountain itself, at least its sons and daughters..."

 

"Marble and Mud."

"There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in mudl" - Carl Sandburg I do so rarely write, and unsure I'll have much to say this night. I have written so little about my time here in Korea. I'll find the motivation to write more of my time here later. I suppose I am not yet sure who I am writing to, or for. It is for my own benefit I know, some second journal to assist my first, but I know what life is like here for me, so I find I rarely need to write it down to tell myself. I know few people read this. I know few ever will. Perhaps it is only that which gives me any sense of honesty or courage. I have always hidden my secrets in the most obvious of places, for it is there they are often hardest to find. I will tell you one thing of my life here, the annual Boryeong Mudfest. It is perhaps the biggest and most well known festival of the year in Korea, and certainly known as the most fun. It is a weekend of good, not-so-clean, fun. Twelve years ago a city called Boryeong decided to try and boost up its tourism. A good way to do this, they thought, was to capitalize on the cities well-known mud. The mud of Boryeong is known throughout the country, and other parts of Asia for its cosmetic value. It is known as some of the best, and finest mud around. Many companies bottle it up in body lotions, facial scrubs, soaps, or set up spas to soak in. With all that in mind, the city decided to throw a festival dedicated to this brown nectar of the earth and created Mudfest. While mudfest started off much smaller, it quickly took off and gained popularity, particularly with the foreign crowd here in Korea. The festival takes place over two weekends in July. This past weekend was the opening weekend, and between the two weekends, during those four days, between one and two million people participate in the festivities. There is a parade, fireworks show, live bands and theatrical performances, booths, food, camping, games, mud pits to wrestle in, a mud prison where spectators throw buckets of mud on those who wish to lock themselves inside. There are giant inflatable walls covered in mud to try and climb, rings, and a huge slide dowsed in mud to slide down. The city is on the coast and has the feel of a real beach town with long sand beaches and a board walk. All the festivities take place between the beach and board walk. It would be similar to Huntingon Beach's fourth of July celebration in California turning in to a giant mud fight. It was a total sensation. I went up with my friend Ruth. We woke early and took two seperate busses to get there, and had a spot reserved in a min bak, a traditional Korean stlye of motel infused with hostel where a bunch of people sleep on blankets on the floor. We painted each other muddy with paint brushes sloshed and slid, went swimming in a mud swimming pool with muddy water spraying down on us from sprinkler systems placed obove. We slid down the giant mud slide, splatted and splashed everywhere we went. We painted ourselves with red mud, blue mud, green mud, yellow mud, brown mud and ran through town revelling with hundreds of thousands of other people doing the same thing. Everything was chaotic, and yet simple and calming. I have always loved to play in the rain and splash in the puddles, or lay myself in the gutters and feel the rain water rush over and around me. Do not we all still have a child like that in us, who wants to splash in the puddles and come home dirty and wet? Mudfest answers that call, and if you are unaware that child still breathes inside you, Mudfest will bring it out, smiling and howling for a long waited dance in muddy puddles. You can throw it at your friends, cake it across your body, or fling and kick it to the sky, and never worry of it hitting someone else. The numbers of people who come, are proof of who we never really forget to be inside. Nearly half the people who attend are foreigners, and it's almost like being back home at a festival, English language and western faces everywhere. The city even tried to realize the festival has turned in to a foreigner festival and had some of the bands sing English songs, and hotels set up "buffets for foreigners." They were poor buffets, but nonetheless, it was a nice change from rice, kim chi, and fish with bones still left inside. It was surprising with the number of foreigners attending that the clubs refused to let foreingers in. They are Korean only clubs. That is not uncommon here in Korea. Some restaurants and bars here in my city are the same, either refusing to serve foreigners, or making it unpleasant for foreigners to be there, and people, old and young alike point and stare without trying to hide what they are doing. While Korean people are very friendly, they are neither open-minded, nor open. They embrace neither change, nor individualism, but instead conformity and sameness. They do not like that which is different, particularly in people, and I know no matter how long I were to stay here, I would never be fully accepted. I will always be an outsider here, and will always be looked at as someone a little less equal. Many families disown their children if they find out they have been dating a foreigner, and if that foreigner is a westerner, it is even worse. It is not this way in the big cities, but where I am at it is still considered rural and country with traditional and conservative Korean values. I love this country and her people, though I would never want to stay here for this reason alone. They are an un-accepting people, over-generalized I know. Anyway, back to Mudfest. It was a blast, and even the rain at night while we watched the fireworks shows and walking around in panchos to protect us from the stormy winds and slanting rain that hit late seemed to add to the splendour and authenticity of the weekend. Can mud ever be mud without a little bit of rain? All the rain could do was add mor puddles to splash in, and give a greater sense of something unique and something grand. We should play in mud more often, stop and feel it between our toes or brushed against us, then slide our flesh across another, slippery snake of skin. I should never wish to take away the rain, nor wash away the mud, and so in memory to the many days I played in puddles, with feet bare, or that I rushed like slip and slide through the mud, I alone or on the motorcycle I drove when I was young, to those memories, to many memories, I wish to write the words, but instead, leave you only with what I have said. "The world is mud-luscious and puddle wonderful." -E. E. Cummings.

"The moments that make up the dull day."

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking And racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time Plans that either come to nought, or half a page of scribbled lines Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way The time is gone the song is over, Thought I'd something more to say

  "Time" by Pink Floyd.

  Today is my birthday.  For another 60 minutes it will be so.  I cannot say I am in the mood to write, but I feel I must, and I know I so rarely attempt such things any longer, so here I am, spending the last hour of my birthday on a bed in a small studio thousands of miles from those I know, alone and lonely, as is the way of me.  Anyone who knows me, knows I have long now not been a fan of my birthday, and have so often done my best to avoid it, and it has worked too well. I am always of the same mind on this day, unaware except for emptiness down inside me.  

  I cannot now explain the reasons, though I have them, my reasons for an animosity turned antipathy.  Has this day ever been more than just a day?  When I was a few years younger, I would run away on this day.  I would go through my rituals of an inflicted solitude.  I would hide, up in the mountains behind my house, across and over in the valley down in some field, on some empty ski resort in early summer months, on some cliff, standing at the edge, looking down and over my city and the world it seemed I knew, knowing enough to know I knew it not at all.  I would jump upon my motorcycle and find in me a freedom of escape that only there was possible, and I would have to stop, and lose it, and go back, and it was all gone.  

  I remember how strange it seemed to me that so many of my birthdays I was greeted with rain, a perfect reflection of torrential confusion, and I loved the rain.  I cannot say I feel the same for the day any longer.  I cannot say I feel anything at all.  It has never appeared to me a day worth a mention.  I have not had a birthday party in over 20 years.  I'm not sure I've had a birthday cake in a decade.  My one friend, Suzette, is the only person who has remembered my birthday each of the last few years.  I don't think I've ever had a group of friends take me out to celebrate, nor do I recall the last time some group has sung happy birthday.  It is of my own fashioning, and I am not sad for it.  I don't say these things for pity.  It is my doing, my planning.  Birthdays are not really a big deal in my family.  I think we all get this equal treatment, though I try the hardest for it, and yet, it is strange that I do like to celebrate for others.  There are some women whose birthdays I still mourn at not celebrating with them, some whom I have tried so desperately to make it a perfect day, and known I have succeeded.  It is a happiness I have never allowed others to feel.  I still struggle with realizing that birthdays are not necessarily about those whose day it is, but rather about those who care for them.  I do at times now finding myself curious of how the other side lives, those friends I know who have parties and cakes and special birthday dinners and blow out candles with circles of friends about them and singing.  I wonder about it, and saying so is hard for me to admit.  You would have to now me to realize that.  When I was 19, I did receive a cake.  My sister picked it up for me with her then boyfriend, now husband, John.  My sister, knowing me well, did not have "Happy Birthday" written on the cake, but rather "Quack Quack."  It is why I forgave her for the cake, for the kind gesture, for the duties a sister so gladly performs.  I was such a punk then.  I still am, and the sad part of it all is that I hold on to such things for the mere sake of holding on, and not for any genuine feelings still inside me.  I think I am waiting for someone to pull it all out.  Oh, a topic there we could talk of.  

  I remember last year on this day I was skating home through the streets of Huntington Beach with my dear friend Suzette.  Suzette never reads these posts. I know few people do, and because she is unaware of this all, I can freely say I love her as my greatest friend of the last few years, and while I have told her that in person, I know she does not fully understand, for those I do value, I value with a depth that legions could not conquer.  I was with her, on our longboards, cruising the black pavement, two blocks off PCH, and we reminisced about that past year.  We were together the year before as well, and if I were back in California now, I think what I would want the most is dinner with my friend and Cold Stone ice cream.  We also talked about what we wanted to happen in the next year, that next year ending this very day.  One thing I said was that I wanted to find the woman I would marry, not to be married, but only to have found her, to have a good idea of it, to feel she would be the last woman I would ever date, kiss, and love.  I believed then it would happen.  Months before that I had even thought I found the woman, but then, I had hopes and prospects and confidence in it.  Now I remember our talk on longboards, and I confess I am further from it then ever I was.  It is a frightening thought that I pray God blesses me to never have to think again.  

  This birthday is a more unusual one than others.  I am in some foreign land and given to too much thought of goals left unaccomplished and dreams unrealized.  So what is this birthday for me?  What is the memory of the last year for me other than what is explained in the lyrics atop this post?  Words relate to me too much at times, and I do not expect you to glean the same from them.  All I know now is that this is a post I really had no wish to make.  I am tired, and the day that means nothing to me is close at end.  I will wake tomorrow the same as I woke today, and that day will end as well, one day blending to the next, and for my myself I find no distinction.  

  "There is still no cure for the common birthday."  - John Glenn

To you, I a common man, on this my common day, leave you with a most uncommon goodbye and God bless

  Be Well

  Stay Well

  

The Waygukin way

  Well,  I am in South Korea.  I moved here about six weeks ago.  I don't know what to say about it.  I suppose I am writing because I know I need to.  I know it is overdue,  and now I have the few moments required to sit at this screen and type a few words.  I can go in to all the reasons for coming here, for uprooting my life and moving to some country I know so little of, where no one speaks my language, and I do not speak theirs.  Perhaps there are too many reasons though, perhaps I do not understand these many reasons myself.  

  I moved here to teach English.  I moved here to in some attempt to seek out the adventure I know I have been missing throughout my life.  I moved here to experience some new place, some new culture, some distant land and people.  Maybe I moved here to escape the reality of losing my job, of a bad economy, of so little prospects.  Maybe I moved here just to escape, to run.  Maybe I moved here in some flight and plight for freedom inside me.  I moved here to learn, simply to learn.  I have many hopes for my new life here, for this next year before I return back home, not knowing what home to return back to.  I have not yet realized my dreams for coming.  I wanted to learn Korean, a new language.  I know only a few words, and am realizing I will not learn the language in a short year.  It is a difficult language to learn.  Being here makes me want to learn Spanish, become fluent in it.  The difficulty of Korean, knowing I will not adequately learn it gives me such a desire to know a language other than my own native one, and Spanish being a language I already have studied and can hold basic conversations in, I want to learn that language, and I think of going to some other country after this, to learn some new culture, to learn a language I know I could learn.  

  I wanted to travel while here, see as much of this large continent as I could.  I hope to make it to 8-10 countries while here, a difficult task, but one I know I can accomplish.  The time for traveling will not come till the end of this venture, and as things change, and have changed already, I know some of my traveling plans already have been altered.  I cannot state the reason just yet, but new plans will have to be made.  I am impatient to see other places, to watch the sunset over a new land, to bow to some passing stranger on a street I don't know the name of, to gag on the food or gulp it down, to smell every particle of dust and fragrance of flowers in the air.  I want to swim in every ocean, every sea and judge the sand between my toes.  I'll have it.  I need to have it, or else not just this experience, this one mere year, but all my life, every moment hereafter will be a void never filled, and I'll continue to look back not only upon the life I did live, but upon the life I never lived.  

  I want to read while here, to study, to write, to learn.  I have time to read.  I read most every week day, and am engrossed in a book right now.  I have time after classes at school, but before I am allowed to go home.  I sit in my classroom, silently, or out side on a bench with the noise of swarming and curious school children buzzing about me, and I read a book.  I love that time.  I look forward to that time, and as much as I love the weekend, I find myself waiting for the week, to wake up early, to go to work, knowing that only on workdays will I find the time to sit and read.  I am anxious in the book, to discover what I know I will not discover for 250 pages more, but I must get through those 250 pages as fast as can be done, and when there, 250 more pages will be ahead of me again.  I am anxious to finish the book, and yet I find myself already depressed at knowing I will finish it.  What then will I have to look forward to?  What then will make the week so enthralling, the otherwise moments of drudgery so exciting?  When I finish the book, I know I will not be able to read it any longer, that this great masterpiece is something I will no longer experience for the first time.  I must complete it, the addict inside me will not let me stop, and yet I want to stop, to pace myself, to calm myself and drag this moment out, so that always I can look forward to it.  I will not though, and I merely pray the next book I find keeps me so much with it.  It is hard to find books in English here, and the books I have I fear will not last me beyond 2-3 weeks.  I must find something new soon.  

  I don't study here.  Why don't I?  Why don't I find the time?  My free time has not really been my free time and I really have no time for myself, this now being among the rare moments of solitude, and I a craver of the silence, a seeker of the solitude.  I wanted to study Theology, like I once did, to know the things I knew, to feel the things I felt, the things I know if given oxygen I could feel again.  I wanted to study languages, business, vocabulary, anything, and yet I have not.  Why haven't I?  Are my excuses adequate?  Should I stand up and say I need the time?  Will the insanity from lacking it break me?  Can a shattered man be broken?  

  I don't write.  This is my first entry since being here.  I slack in all my duties, and I apologize.  I apologize to myself, to my many future selves and all who could learn from the stories I could tell if only I took the time to make the stories.  I will be better.  I know shortly I'll have the time, more time than wanted, more time than needed, and I'll be forced with it, shoved in to it, and we'll see how healthy and strong I can remain then, when it is I alone who will listen.  We'll see what stories come from that, from inside me, without me. 

  I wanted to experience living in a different country.  I have always wanted this, never allowed it, never allowed myself it.  I knew that with losing my job I no longer could make the excuses.  I knew it was this time and only this time where I could make away from being responsible, safe, practical.  I wanted to go to Central or South America, again, knowing I could learn the language fluently, but of course, I can never fully kill the practical man inside me.  This is it, right here, why I chose Korea over any other place.  They pay more.  Most countries pay their English teachers only enough for basic survival, but here in Korea, they pay an actual wage, a higher wage than the beginning native Korean teachers make.  They pay all airfare expenses and a years worth of rent.  They cover half medical insurance, give a small settlement allowance, and pay a monthly salary far exceeding other expenses.  It is possible to work here, travel many countries, and still go home with money to wait out a bad economy, or to run off to some other place for some new adventure.  I am living in another country though, and I can feel how grateful I will be for it, in the near and distant future.  I am learning a new culture, bowing is becoming second nature, and I am starting to feel I disrespect myself when walking in my own apartment with my shoes on.  When I shake hands, I put my left hand across my stomach and at my side and when giving or receiving anything I place my left hand upon my right arm, grabbing with my right hand.  I am eating food I would have, could have never thought of eating, eating things I do not like, all in an attempt to know the culture.  I was a vegetarian for over 13 years.  For over 13 years I stayed away from meat religiously, and I gave it all up the night I flew here.  I realize one cannot truly experience a culture without experiencing the food, and that is certainly true of Korea.  The food is a big part of their culture, and while I do not like much of it, I eat everything I am given.  I try everything I can.  I gave up myself for it, a large part of myself.  If you are not a vegetarian, you will never understand.  Giving it up, is giving up one of the larger parts of your identity.  I find myself embarrassed at meeting vegetarians now, as though I am one of those who gave up.  I find myself ashamed at eating meat at times.  I am NOT a vegetarian, and yet deep within me, I feel I still should be.  Why am I embarrassed for this?  Why am I ashamed?  I know I was a vegetarian longer than most those I meet now.  I know I was stricter and more obedient to the task than most I meet, and yet, still this is how I feel.  I do not regret it though, for I know I am in fact experiencing more than others.  I know I am learning more about this place, about the people.  I try everything, not only the food, but every option, every activity, every gesture.  I have eaten food, and will eat food I know I shall never wish to eat again, and I am glad for it.  I'll do it intentionally, and some of it, well, some of it will surprise me, and I'll find myself liking it here and there, as I find myself learning to like things now the more I eat them.  I should send you pictures of the things they eat, videos, or write some blog dedicated only to that.  

  Well, my time to write is wrapping up, and so this writing must wrap up also.  Let me quickly tell you of where I live.  I live in a city called Yeosu.  It is on the south coast of Korea in Jeulonom-Do.  They call it a small city, though it has 350,000 - 400,000 people, though it has the amenities of a city much smaller.  There is no department store, no mall, and little in English.  Few people here speak English, and many consider themselves more country folk than city folk.  They are a proud people, proud of their culture, of their country, of their food, and I love this pride in them.  I know I have heard it said there is no such thing as righteous pride, though I have never fully agreed with that.  I am proud of things.  I am proud of my country, and I find myself saddened when I meet people who cannot say the same about their country, regardless of what that country might be.  I do not find myself saddened in this country.  They are friendly here, so much so it makes us feel guilty at times how they treat us so well, even those who do not speak our language, who cannot understand us.  My city is on they yellow sea and is made of over 300 islands, the vast majority of which are un-inhabited.  The city itself is a small peninsula.  My school sits atop a large hill, halfway up Gu Bong mountain.  We have a view of the bay below us, the water of the sea, and Shinae, the old downtown area.  A picture of my city is below, of the water and some of the small islands taken from a small Buddhist temple above my school.  It is a beautiful place there, small, undisturbed, quiet, almost secretive, with a large cherry tree which is now in full blossom.  Quiet music, prayers, or chants play silently and rhythmically over small speakers above the main temple.  The air now is calm, some wind nearly always blowing, the water below , the city far away, the sky and trees and mountain all that is near.  It is a temple indeed, if only for the soil and oxygen around it, and for the desire to sit and meditate, to stay and pray.  It is a temple indeed.  

  I live in a small studio apartment, a bed, a fridge, a two burner stove.  It is smaller than many of the bedrooms I have had in the past.  I live the minimalist life.  Oh, Thoreau be proud.  I have this laptop, a small TV left in the apartment with some channels occasionally playing shows in English.  I have a camera, scriptures, a few novels, a suitcase of clothes, and that is it.  The bed is unimaginably hard, like resting on a stone, so I bought a small pad to place on top of it.  Only now are people beginning to buy matresses and beds in Korea.  Many still sleep on the floor, resting on yo mats laid across the ground.  The floors are heated. I have a fan, a bar posted up against the wall to hang clothes on, and a small bookshelf acting as a dresser drawer, and as a bookshelf.  The bathroom is small, no drawers, cabinets, or shelves, and the shower is a hose hooked up to the sink, no stall, no tub, just the bathroom floor.  I have a large patio with a washing machine and a clothes line, and the washing machine leaks water all over the patio, creating a small wading pull.  

  Yeosu is surrounded not only by water, but also by hills and mountains, which are slowly beginning to green, though the trees have been blossoming for near two weeks.  Koreans do love their blossoms and hold festivals for nearly every tree with blossoming flowers.  I have been to many already, and I too love the blossoms.  I can see a row of cherry tree blossoms from my window, and I am growing sad to see the blossoms slowly replaced by leaves.  I see pink and white in many shades on every hill side.  It is beautiful, and soon it will all cocoon in to dark and deep green.  I'm including a few pictures, and will post others later.  For now though, this post is long and tiresome to read.  It is night now, and sleep is calling.  I think of all of you, back in America.  You are now just waking up to a day I have already lived.  I am searching for a sleep you will not experience for many hours to come.  I am reaching back through the time, the hours and the miles, and I greet you with some kind word to say goodnight.  

  

Ozzy Rules

Oh, it has been busy and crazy, and life will soon become far crazier.  I look forward to it.  It is late now, and my mind and body are worn down, but I know I must write.  About a week ago I returned from a trip to Melbourne, Australia.  It is a goal of mine to take each member of my family on a vacation.  A few years back I was able to take my dad to London, as he spent a few years there in his youth it was a wondrous place to take him.  More recently I had the opportunity to take my oldest brother Dustin to Australia, one of his dream trips.  His best friend Lisi lives down there, so we flew down to visit him.  All I will say about the trip is an extended excerpt from my journal about our drive down The Great Ocean Road . Wednesday, February 11, the year of our Lord two thousand nine. ...The drive was beautiful, taking us down through beach towns of sea green and white foam waters, winding through  and over hills of vineyards sloping down to the sea among the rolling hills and steeps cascading down to the sea.  We passed through gorgeous farms manicured in the country side and landscaped gardens and endless fields of sheep and cattle.  We drove through dark forests stretching out to oceans and cliffs, walls of trees swallowing the road, the pavement, our car.  We drove down the road, hours of nature and scenery to The Twelve Apostles, rocks eroded out of the dropping cliffs from centuries of battle with the unforgiving sea and quarreling winds, three great elements, land, air, water, warring to destroy the creations they have fashioned, unyielding artists of stone and sand and sky.  It is a glorious place, miles of stretching ocean and near endless white wash against the brushed sand.  God is an Aborigine I think, in His art, His work and creations.    How I love the Ocean, an ocean as this, clear blue and green and white, the waves curled and crested and crashed, lulling and humming like a didgeridoo.  God is an aborigine I think, in His music and instruments, water, sand, and oxygen and wind, some symphony of pleasing songs, an echo.  The land, she speaks to me.  Everywhere I go she speaks and I listen.  There are stories she tells.  Some I cannot understand, but all I am grateful for and keep these stories, sacked inside me.  The Twelve Apostles, they are beautiful, crowns of Australian majesty and surely Apostles they are, guardians of this continent, watchtowers on the southern coast, beacons of the untamed, unknown divine.     We drove from The Twelve Apostles down to a place called Triplet Falls and took a hike, or bush walk through the forest, a jungle of ferns and Eucalyptus.  We bush walked deep down what must have been a ravine, dark in a forest, the canopy hundreds of feet above, bum trees near like the redwoods of California, giants among mere men.  They climbed to a sky they hoarded in, selfish with the sunlight they only allowed to trickle in.  If I could be some bird, or put claws on my hands and feet so I could climb and nest atop some ancient temple of timber and say to him, "brother, I know you."    We travelled down the path, oh glorious trees, gum trees climbing high and ferns down low of all sizes, some like trees, like the palmettos I saw in South Carolina.  The hike culminated at a river and falls pressing through the rock and trees.  We drove down to Otway National Park to spot koalas and saw them all around us, napping in the branches and walking the balance beams of tree limbs to snack on the green of Eucalyptus leaves.  I climbed up low in the trees to be closer, to look into the beads of their eyes and say to them also, "brother, I know you."  Oh, God of great things who made me, these too are yours, and in them I honor you.    We continued down The Great Ocean Road, all mesmerized at the furious calm of the waves and each of the colors.  These sights could never be painted, never captured...Oh ocean, I love you.  Am I leaving you?  Always I will keep you inside.  We watched the sun sink down through the clouds, kissing the water in the western horizon, and we upon those mighty cliffs, and we saw dozens of kangaroos out for food in a green field divided by a calm brook emptying in to the ocean.  They hopped and jumped along and ate, and I watched, enthused and happy...   

  This is what I will say of that trip.  Another great adventure now begins, and adventure I will need to write much of, if only for me.  

The Invisible Man

"I am an invisible man...I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids-and I might even be said to possess a mind.  I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me

 - Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

  It is a day for writing, though I do not know what words my mind can speak now, so I will let my fingers do the writing and perhaps my mind will tire of their incompetence and find some way to speak.  

  My mother in her blog some time ago wrote a line in reference to the picture shown above.  It is a line that still stays with me.  

"This is Cordell, standing at the shore, with his poets heart, soaking in the serenity that he finds in the myriad beauties of creation. He's not always content with his solitude, but he no longer seems afraid of it. "

  I am not always content with my solitude, but I no longer seem afraid of it.  Is it that my mother has such insight into me?  Mothers should know their children, and my mother more than most has an ability, an insight, a talent, and I know how she joys in my joy, and how my sorrows burden her perhaps more even than they do burden me.  Even now were I to write down some of myself, my secrets, my passions and longings, it would be harder for her to read than for me to write.  I make my mother cry.  I know I do, and I cry because of it.  No child wishes this, but I know she cries because she cares, she hopes, she pleads with God for me, and I know she will cry still, perhaps even at reading these words here.  I am sorry Mother.  Let us wipe our tears together, for I cry too.  I cry with you.

  It is true, I am not always content with my solitude.  People do not realize that my self-imposed sense of isolation is not always intentional.  I am a man of weakness, and this is my weakness.  Is it also true I no longer fear this solitude?  I once did, greatly so.  I beat at my chest to take it out of me, but the silence is deafening in what she says when we but listen, and I have learned to listen and find the calm in the noise of my solitude.  Yes, sometimes I love her.  She is my solace, and yet my torture.  I am glad I no longer seem afraid of her Mother.  I am glad, but do you know that yes, she scares me still?  Do you know I run from her and try and drown her out at times, but cannot?  Yes, I fear her.  Solitude is the heartbreak of those special women I have ever loved, those I tried to love, and lost, and more so, this silence, she is the pain and heartbreak for that one woman I have yet to love, yet to find.  Solitude is the joy of discovery.  While I am embattled with the confusion that I am, still I have a depth to me, an insight that perhaps no one but you, dear Mother, would ever see in me.  Solitude gives me this.  It is the joy of riding my motorcycle alone when I have nowhere to be but on the saddle of my bike, the time to think, to dream, to believe in the life I know I am meant for.  Solitude is the birth of knowledge, the hundreds of books and poems and words those far greater than I have left and written, and I understand them.  I know some author somewhere in time knew I would read his words, and wrote them for me, for my own joy in reading does not equal his joy in writing the words down knowing I would read them, and I would get it, and when I feel the breadth of poetry and passion, and it clicks in me and moves me to places beyond mere solitude, this author, he shouts out "Yes, that's it.  You got it, dear boy.  Thank you for understanding.  Thank you for this catharsis in me."  

  This solitude, she is pain of passed opportunities, of falling victim to the inability to meet my own mark of perfection.  Silence is the nagging reminder of unfinished goals, unrealistic expectations.  She is that moment in music, some song that each time you hear you must sing it, shout it, feel it.  I sing one thousand songs inside me each second that I breathe.  Silence is the hard reality that sometimes she is all you have, all who will listen, all who will ever understand.  Solitude is the terror in thinking no one will ever see past mere skin, and the glittering faith in hoping someday, someone will.  

  I will always take the bad with the good, for it is the sorrow which defines the joy.  I have much joy, and I would not chase out the solitude.  I enjoy my moments alone.  I have mentioned that in an earlier post.  I take myself out on dates, on motorcycle drives, walks on the beach, dinner and a movie, or simply set moments aside for good conversation.  I fight.  I apologize.  I struggle to get passed the barriers.  I try to let myself in.  I laugh.  I smile.  I cry.  I dream and make believe.  We are our own best friends, our own worst enemies, and solitude is the same, for silence is but the personification of those voices we do hide.  I cannot hate the silence, those solitary moments, for I would only be hating my own created self.  I am the master of my ship, the captain of my soul, and sometimes I do set the sails astray, and I fear the silence only because I fear those things that I might say.  Am I who I am meant to become?  Was today the day it was meant to be?  

  I am a private man.  It has been a frustration with some I have dated in the past.  One word often used to describe me is "mysterious."   I guard my solitude.  I guard my secrets, my mind, my heart, and the thousand truths in each of my eyes.  I am a private man.  Why then do I blog?  Why do I write in such a snitching tone, all my words a confessional narrative?  Why do I write?  Are not these posts journal entries of personal matters?  Things I never share, now parceled out to an unknown public?  Why do I do this?  I go against myself.  Is it catharsis only?  Or is it a buried need, a mousy hope and desire for someone to know me?  These words are safety, a voiceless telling of a secret self.  This is my anonymous message in a bottle, an expression without having to talk, to face, to answer questions.  If I never talk, then I do keep myself, my mystery intact, so I write the words, and place them in a kind of space where few will ever find them, but all are able to read.  I know few people read this.  We are a secret club.  Maybe I write for the sake of writing, to prove that I still can, to show myself though I may be unable to fashion poetry, still I can write some expression that means something, that I can show some sincere voice.  Perhaps I write only to read my own words and gain the satisfaction of knowing they are mine.  Perhaps I write to allow something in me to slip out, and prove to people I am discoverable; I am worth it.  Perhaps all of this.  Perhaps none of it.  Is it a game for me?  We all the mouse, and these words the cat.  I am a private man, a man of mystery.  

Pura Vida

I recently came back from a trip to Costa Rica with myself and four of my female friends. I feel I would be remiss in my duties as a blogger, if that is what I am attempting to be here, were I not to include some entry about the trip. I am not entirely sure what I am to say about the trip. I would find it boring were I to give a travel log, so instead I think I'll copy down a few excerpts from my journal.

I do not let anyone read those things I write in my journal, so this is new for me.

11/27/08

... Last night we did a night hike up through the mountains just across from the volcano... It was complete darkness and raining, so we walked through the mud of the jungle able to only see a few feet in front of us and walked across a suspension bridge, we balancing in the dark of the jungle, swaying slowly and silently above a rapid river below us. Afterward we went to a spot in the river fed by natural spring hot pots. The water was fantastically warm and fast moving, creating a wonderful and long water slide carrying you down the river and off a small waterfall to still warmer water and you could swim under the waterfall to a cave, dark and empty but for the water and our bodies ...

We came to a waterfall and were able to walk right to the base. It was wonderful to see the water clear and white rushing through the forest juxtaposed against the swarm of green and trees. I found a long vine hanging down from the canopy of trees above, and like Tarzan I climbed up the vine and swung through the jungle and fashioned a loin skirt out of giant leaves from the plants growing and made my Tarzan noise and beat my chest in ape fashion with my Tarzan hair and leaves covering my near nakedness. It was a great time.

...Several of the bridges were suspension bridges that rocked and swayed with each movement we made forcing a drunk walk across. Some of the bridges were through the jungle and through the trees, both dark and green, and mud soil, and other bridges were above the jungle, atop the canopy, the jungle floor far far below us and we ended with the perfect vista of Arenal Volcano and the gray lava of day visible flowing down the side slowly smoke rising.

...Today, we walked across the street to the beach, the ocean dark and lonely and we all stripped down and ran in. Skinny dipping is always a must, and the sand sparkled as we walked on it, and the water glowed and glittered from movement like fire flies in the ocean. We were alone there in the water and could not see each other even, but only the sparkling of the water, my own naked self against the air around me and the millions of stars in constellations. The sky is so clear tonight, and these stars stand out in a way you could never hope to see in California. It was amazing, and I could have stayed long there alone with but my thoughts and God, and were I with my wife, we would have made love there on that beach among the sparkling sand and stars and naked together we would have loved everything around us and each other and shared that moment, beach, ocean, sand, sky stars.

11/30/08

... Saturday we came down to Manuel Antonio. This is the prettiest place we have been to. It is the beach I hoped to see by coming to Costa Rica, and we hiked through Manuel Antonio National Park where jungle meets sand and ocean and the beaches are white and soft, surrounded by rain forest and the green of the hills. We saw sloths, iguanas, many birds, raccoons, weird rodent creatures, lots of monkeys, and an electric blue butterfly. The park was great. i would have liked more time there, and you exit at a small lagoon and some locals boat you across to the beach near where we began.

...A huge rainstorm moved in with lightning about in the jungle. It rained hard for hours, and the rain water piled high and flooded, and Suzette and I ran out in our swim suits dashing and splashing in the puddles all through town and a local said we looked like kids how we played. The rain fell warm down on us, soaking the skin of our bodies and we ran down the beach and jumped in the ocean with only dark and water around us. We played in the waves that crept up on us, the rain still coming down and it was glorious and warm, and I could go back. Take me back some time to that night with a woman I love and who loves me and we will kiss there in the ocean, the music of the waves and the touch of rain falling hard on us in a dark ocean and a black sky. Take me back sometime, and I will kiss her, there in the water. I will kiss her. We continued to play in the rain and walked down the street and found an art gallery dimly lit on the patio, closed, but still playing soft music and we waltzed there in the rain on that patio, dancing not just in the rain, but with it also . Why do I love the rain so much? I always have. I was alive last night, and shouted and sang and the elements knew my joy. We shared it all and drenched and soaked, I was in love with the moment.

Much else I could include, and much more I could write new, but it is late, and I have done my duty. It was a great trip, with great friends. Costa Rica is a beautiful country, the type of land I dream of someday owning, and life there, it really is simple, and laid back, and beautiful. It is the Pura Vida.