...oh, and here is the most perfect picnic table EVER to brighten up my day\
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Without further ado...
My
Classy Mother
I struggle to find a starting point
for this story. I was in a
relationship, my heart was ripped out of my chest, not literally of course, but
don’t tell my 26-year old self that, we broke up, and I fell back in love
again. Oddly, this all has
something to do with my mother (what doesn’t?). When the New Man said he wanted to travel, to see the world,
to get out of this god-forsaken town, I was completely on board. After all, running away from the life I
used to lead sounded like a holiday I’d like to live for awhile instead of
visiting and inevitably having to relinquish. As it turned out, my should-have-been-one-year stint in
Europe with the New Man turned into a going-on-four-year life all over the
other side of the world. What an
adventure it’s been.
The
original plan is that Craig and I would travel to Italy and find work teaching
there. Unfortunately, employment
was hard to come by when one wasn’t a holder of the coveted EU passport, and
the search was far easier the further east we looked. Craig announced in January that it was Korea he’d chosen and
that I, too, should pack my bags and join him on this transcontinental
journey. It was mid-February when
I made the decision. I was on an
impromptu road trip through Texas of all places, when a giant billboard kept
appearing at the side of the road, “Go there, Lex”, it read. Sure that this was a sign, not for a
war memorial at Lexington, but to me to leave this place (North America) and
venture out to the Great East, I announced to my family that I would be going
with Craig to Korea. My father’s
response was priceless.
“Asia? You can’t go to Asia!”
It
was settled: I was going.
I
wonder sometimes if I was truly just running from the past or if I was proving
to myself and to my people (family and friends at this point, for the term, “my
people” would come to mean something completely different one year later) that
I could do something amazingly risky; something so outside of the Hamilton,
Ontario life that I had signed up for when I said, “I do.” Either way, I was well on my way to
making sure this was going to be a risk worth taking. I thoroughly researched the school systems, the culture, and
packed my two enormous suitcases with every single prized possession I
owned. I was ready to join Craig,
who had left four months prior, and ready to start our awesome Korean lives…for
the next year anyway.
Before
I get to the hilarity of the airport, let me first say that Craig and I talked
once (once!) via Skype the whole time he was in Korea and I was at home. Once. I knew it was over and I knew it was never going to happen
for us, but I went anyway. I thought
that once I was there, he would remember the magic and we’d start the romantic
montage I’d dreamed of for four months.
Somewhere deep down though, I knew it wouldn’t work out. Upon careful reflection, that is
probably why I went: knowing that there wasn’t a man waiting for me, preparing
to withstand yet another paralyzing blow to my ego, my heart, my life, I needed
to get away from the people who loved me so that I could grieve on my own. It was time for some independence and
time to feel this debilitating pain, again.
The
journey to Korea was not routine, but who would have thought it would have
been? My luggage was overweight
and I was completely broke, so my father had to bail me out. I was so embarrassed. Then because I was stopping over in
Chicago before continuing on to Seoul, I had to go through US Customs in the
Toronto airport. My parents had no
idea the mayhem that was about to unfold as they waived goodbye to their only
spawn. When asked on the customs
form if I was bringing in any weapons, fruits, seeds, meat, animal products,
weapons of mass destruction, terrorists, or live Ethiopian babies, I replied
frankly, “No.” The muffins my
mother had made for the trip over were in plain sight. As were the cherries she’d lovingly
washed and wrapped up.
Again I was prodded, “Are you sure you
don’t have any of these products?”
“Nope”, said rather glibly.
“No seeds or fruit?”
A strange look upon my face followed
by a slow and steady, “Noooo?”
I was asked to step into The Room on
the Left. Do whatever you can to
avoid The Room on the Left. It’s
where baby-kidnappers and machine-gun builders go when customs officers are sure
they’re the Bad Guys. And now I
was one of them. I still didn’t
understand the gravity of my situation until I was called up, some forty
minutes after arriving, some forty-five minutes after seeing my parents for the
last time for twelve months, to the booth to “explain myself”. I still thought this was a big
misunderstanding and, in fact, ate most of my flax seed-riddled muffins before
diving into the cherries…oh god.
There are pits in the cherries.
And seeds in the muffins.
Seeds. In. the. Muffins.
Clearly visible from the outside of their cellophane wrapper. What an idiot.
“I’m
terribly sorry, Sir”, I choked out.
“I didn’t even realize I had these. My mom made them for my trip over to Korea and when the man
asked if I had any seeds, I naturally said no because I don’t have any seeds
and then I realized that I had a lot of seeds…there are seeds all over the
place in my hands right now and I completely realize now what I’ve done wrong
and…”
The
customs officer cut me off.
“Young
lady, you lied to a United States Customs Officer. Do you know what the fine is for such an offence?”
Offence? Come on. I just forgot about some damn seeds! Cherries! Since when are cherries a crime?!
“No,
Sir.”
“$200
to start with, but we can certainly detain you for an appropriate period of
time.”
Well
now I was sweating. My mouth was
dry. I was on the brink of tears
when I simply blurted out, “I’m moving to Korea to be with a guy who probably
doesn’t even want to be with me anymore.
I’m completely out of money so much so that my father just had to pay
the Korean Air lady so that I could take all my precious belongings with me to
a foreign country. I have nothing
and I can’t give you anything. I
have nothing left.” I was
drained. I was tired. I was dejected. And the journey had only just begun.
He
gave me a stern warning and let me go.
I walked so briskly away from the kidnappers and bomb-assemblers, it was
a miracle I didn’t trip. If this
was any indication of how the next 365 days were going to play out, I was
certainly in for a wild (read: awful) ride. Lessons learned: Read Carefully and Don’t be afraid to admit
defeat. In hindsight, though I had
“nothing”, I still had a enormous amount of gumption. And that’s really something.
Korea certainly wasn’t easy for
me. The first week was lonely and
fully challenging at every step. I
had a work colleague who was obligated to take me under his wing both at school
and with regards to my apartment, and because he was a decent, loving man, the
transition to making that teeny tiny place my own was far easier. He became known as My Man very soon
thereafter and I am to this day eternally grateful for the time and energy he
invested in my ignorant, intolerant self.
There was one other person who made a
big impact on my life in Korea: someone who showed me the intricacies of
traditional Korean life, and taught me that being gentle and open allows for
empathy and acceptance. Mrs. Lim (pronounced, “Yim”), who became known as my
Korean Mother, was instrumental in my transition from narrow-minded,
belligerent foreigner, to the woman who would grow to call Asians, “My
People”. With grace and pride, she
inculcated me with her culture and begged to know more, more, ever more about
mine. She tended to me when I was
sick: brought me to the swine flu clinic and held my likely disease-riddled
hand while a nurse stuck a probe so high up my nose I could swear it touched my
brain; delivered boxes of food she’d
cooked herself early that morning then carted on the hour-long bus ride right
to my house; picked up my favourite pumpkin soup with black beans when I called
in sick for the umpteenth time that month; and introduced me to my first Asian
acupuncturist. I trusted her
implicitly and was eager to help her in any way I could.
In one of our many conversations about
North American culture, which regularly centered on food, I told Mrs. Lim about
my mother’s disdain for the expression, “I’m full.” Finding this quite odd, Mrs. Lim needed to know more.
I started the story: “When I was
twelve, my mother planned a very ornate, beautiful trip across the Rockies from
Banff to Victoria, British Columbia.
It was a breathtaking adventure that changed my Mom at every twist and turn
of the road. I was completely
oblivious to the beauty, however, or so my mother thought, because I was twelve
and vile and wanted to be at home with my best friend, talking about boys and
hair styles.”
This she could not believe: how could
anyone not want to experience the splendor of the Rockies? This woman had two very normal children
who, I’m sure, would have felt exactly the same way, but Korean culture
necessitated that they never speak or act disrespectfully to their elders,
rendering poor Mrs. Lim completely oblivious to the fact that her twelve-year-old kids were just like
twelve-year-old me: awful.
I continued. “One night, after a poignantly delicious meal at a fondue
restaurant of sorts, where a young, growing me ate all the meat she could eat,
and was on cloud nine for the first time during the trip, I leaned back, put my
hands on my engorged belly and replied, ‘I’m FULL!’ Well, my mother was having no part in that. She
adamantly stuck up her index finger, waived it defiantly in my face, and said,
“You do NOT say, ‘I’m full’, young lady, you say, ‘I’m SATISFIED’, all the
while shaking her head disapprovingly.”
Well that hit Mrs. Lim in all the
right places. She was beaming: my
mother was just like her! But
there was one striking difference.
This difference stayed with me, and with my mother, for all this time:
“Your mother is so classy!”
And so it began: my mother was classy
because she got rid of two coffee mugs after getting new ones as gifts instead
of letting the extra clutter her cupboards; she was classy because she planned
dinner menus by cutting out recipes and table setting options from magazines;
she was classy because she “had her colours done”, a service I don’t even think
Mrs. Lim fully understood. It’s
not that I don’t agree with Mrs. Lim: my mother is classy. It’s just
that My Korean Mother had a bit of a lady crush on my actual mother and it was
pretty hilarious. Everything my
mother did was classy in some way, shape, or form. Until one day…
As I’m sure you’ll read in this book,
my mother had a (ahem) “near death experience” involving The Boat in the
Burlington Bay. Because she had an
actual near-death experience
involving water, I was all-ears to hear the telling of this harrowing tale
after it first occurred. Fresh
were her wounds as she regaled me with a real-time account of how she –your one and only Mother!—nearly died! I listened intently, sure that she must have
been calling from the hospital, poised to come home on the next Korean Air
flight out of Seoul. And then my
mother announced that she could stand in the four-foot deep water at the mouth
of Lake Ontario and all was just fine in the land of skippers and
captains. Oh, we did have a laugh
about that one. And I, in true
I-do-love-telling-a-great-story fashion, immediately told my expat friends in
Korea. Pealing with laughter, I
knew I had a keeper.
The following day, I told Mrs. Lim
that I had a vexing tale about My Classy Mother to tell her from that
weekend.
“It is a doozy”, I said.
“Doozy? What doozy?”
“Never mind. There’s no time to explain. Prepare yourself.”
I launched in, careful to ensure that
my facial expressions completely and utterly surpassed all levels of fright
from the original tale. Emotions
mounted to horror status as Mrs. Lim inched further and further toward the edge
of her chair, now fully in the know about Mom’s childhood water scare. She was on her feet when I told her
about the sailboat (“See? Your
mother is so classy!”) and the
adventures of getting certified to sail it.
“And brave, too! She so brave!” Oh brother. Was there no end to her devotion?
At long last, the moment of truth was
upon us: the punch line (of course not the end of a joke to Mrs. Lim, but the
climax, the pinnacle, the reason for her current standing and punching
[punching!] stance). Her eyebrows
were raised so high, her tiny Asian body tense in a wide-legged,
fight-or-flight position, fists clenched, jaw tight, when I told her:
“And then the man on the shore yelled,
‘Why don’t you just stand up?’ and she did! She was in four feet of water! Bwhahahahaahaha.” My enjoyment was palpable.
But Mrs. Lim, oh Mrs. Lim was another
story. She literally
collapsed. Well, she didn’t
actually fall, but her whole
demeanour plunged: her eyebrows remained raised, poised to accept that this
could not possibly be the end. Her
dreams, her classy lady crush…this couldn’t be happening. She straightened, brushed off her
trousers, and relaxed the tension in her face at long last. She was frazzled, I could tell. Perhaps telling a joke about my mother
wasn’t the thing to do. Did she
find me insulting? What did I want
her to say? “Ohhh…not so classy
anymore!?” Was I just awfully
cruel about my own Mother? Oh
dear. I’ve made a crucial error.
And then the corners of her mouth
curled up slowly, creeping dangerously toward what could only be described as a
grin-grimace hybrid. She pointed
at me and said in a clear mysterious voice,
“Your mother is still VERY classy.”
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