tabernacle of memory

"Like wandering Jews, Mexicans had no true home but the tabernacle of memory."
-Richard Rodriguez

I took my coat off, closed the book I'm holding hostage of, and glanced over the tiny window.
I'm here again.
The City of Angels, where my different tabernacles of memory seem to collide, yet merge into other cultures when the least expected.

이번에는

"Tienes que echarle ganas, Hani."

언제부터인가 계속 쉬운길만 찾아왔다.
나중에 힘들까봐
나중에 고생할까봐
아프지 않으려고
슬프지 않으려고
눈물 흘리기 싫어
눈물 보이기 싫어
나 자신을 보호하기 위해
다른사람들을 밀어내왔고
어리석은 행동임을 알면서도
하면서도 미안해하면서도
내게 쉽게 보이는 길을 걸어왔다.

이번에는 부닥쳐야할까봐.
뻔히 보이는 아픔을 달게 겪어야할까봐.

senior

2am, and Amy was still working on her project. "I've been a bad student today!" she said. And believe me, Amy is the last person you'd think of when you hear "bad student."
"How did THAT happen?" I asked, as I was getting ready for bed.
"Senior."
Just like that, without any hesitation. Calmly and simply, senior.

When I was a freshman, I was more than ready to go out to the "real world" and start making history. The idea of college seemed insignificant where there were too much to be done out there. Now that I'm a senior, I don't want to get out of this little college world in which I'm, well, rocking. Then the idea of graduating in 5 weeks becomes more nerve-racking than exciting.

Joel and I talked about battling against the materialistic (often referred as the realistic) thoughts in order to do what we really wanted to do. Teaching in Egypt and becoming fluent in Arabic for him, and working for non-profit organizations for me. I thought passion and love were all that mattered. But with this tight monetary reward we'd get by doing what we want to do, we decided that saving for the grad schools we both want to go to was out of question.
But God will provide, my parents always said. He always does.

home

"Which food comes to your mind when you hear home? Mexican? Korean? American?" Robert asked.
"When I hear the word, I think of my family. No particular food, scent, or place. Just my parents," I replied without hesitation. But that's not all.

I also think of my parents praying out loud constantly throughout the day. I think of my mom singing like an opera singer in the mornings as she fixes breakfast. I think of my dad trying to cuddle with my mom. I think of long family road trips involving deep conversations, jokes, snacks, music, sermons, and some car sickness.

I can easily tell you how much I love Mexico. I can delicately tell you how much I miss Korea. I can now tell you how much I appreciate this small Midwest community in the States. But I can't tell you where my home is.
I used to find great comfort in words such as "our home is in heaven," but Reformed worldview tells me that "our home is on earth as it is in heaven." And I don't mind it. I have faces to imagine when I say home and I will see them soon.

beautiful

"Too weak. Maybe use a different word like marvelous or splendid," a classmate commented on my paper, and as much as I respect the person, I disagreed.

The word beautiful is simply...beautiful, and no other word can quite convey the same chill I get when I say beautiful.
Don't get me wrong--I don't intend to demean other wonderful words like marvelous, fantastic, stunning, splendid, magnificent, and so on. But I get frustrated as some people order the words to express "the degrees of beauty," often the word "pretty" being on the bottom. In my opinion, they all express different kinds of beauty and there's no point of labeling one "higher" than another. To me, the word "beautiful" has a mild sense of breathtaking pleasure aesthetically and sometimes even morally.

When I watched the Canadian couple Scott and Tessa free dancing on ice, the only word that I could think of was "beautiful"--and they were. Simply beautiful. They danced, smiled, and held each other so gracefully on ice that I believed it all: that they were deeply in love with their dance, that they were enjoying every single second, and that every single movement was a part of who they were.

When I watched Kim Yu-Na figure skating last night, the word I could think of was "stunning." I held my breath throughout the performance despite the confidence she showed from the beginning. I prayed she wouldn't fall, that she would do the best she could. And when she was done, I found myself clapping and screaming in awe. Stunning, I thought. Absolutely stunning.

Both dances were outstanding yet they had different feel to them, and the words that came to my mind reflected it. Maybe it's just me. But I refuse to change the word I chose for my paper. I refuse to believe that the word "beautiful" is somehow weaker than "marvelous" or "splendid."

Beautiful.
I love the subtle chill the word offers.

religion and intolerance

"[Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales] found that people who were raised religiously were more intolerant and less sympathetic to women's rights."
-Journal of Monetary Economics, 2003

Three fairly opinionated female students, two thoughtful and respectful male students, and the professor who did the research for his book we're helping with talked about this for the most part of our regular meeting.
The discussions moved further as we mentioned women in church offices, church limitations, homosexuality, church's lack of tolerance, what is sin, and so on. And of course, there was no conclusion. I don't even know if there can be a conclusion. We still believe what we believed before the discussion only this time, with more reasoning and justification.

But I'm still startled. Is their finding still true?
How has this happened?

Ellah Acosta

"Aaaa, me voy a morir Andres, me voy a morir."
"No te vas a morir, Vero. Respira."
"No si, si me voy a morir. Aaaa ya ya ya ya"
And I just stood there thinking I was never going to have a baby.
It was too intense and painful to be in the room. I felt powerless and useless as I couldn't share the pain. So I excused myself and called my mom.

"But what if she really dies? What about the baby? What about Andres? What should I do? What can I do?" I was freaking out.
"I said that too twice and I'm still alive. She'll be fine, don't worry," said my mom so calmly and naturally. I wanted to believe her but the painful moans and screams were more real to me.
Time went by too slow. When I first got the news that she might have the baby today, I was simply excited. Then nervous. Then worried. Then anxious.

It was 2:30pm and we all thought the baby would be born at around 10 or 11pm. Vero and Andres had been in the hospital since 7am. And apparently, Vero was about to die--or so she screamed. And she gave birth to Ellah Acosta at 3:48pm. Ana and Tazz came at 4pm and we waited together in the family lounge. We talked about how Mimi would have loved to be there with us and how beautiful the baby was going to be (also how beautiful Ana's baby would be if she had one). And we were right. Ellah Acosta (middle name to be determined yet) was beautiful.7 lbs 10 oz. 21.5 inches.

I couldn't stop smiling in awe. And when I finally managed to take my eyes off Ellah, I noticed how exhausted yet relieved her parents looked. Parents. Suddenly Andres and Vero seemed so much more mature than me.

"Your family is complete now!" I said joyfully.
"No...one is still missing," Andres said looking at Ellah lovingly.
"No, Andres. It is complete. I never wanna go through the labor again," Vero said, still in pain.
Andres stayed in silence smiling. "We'll see," his smile seemed to say.

We thanked God for Ellah was born healthy and strong, and not with six fingers (Andres' fear) or three fingers (Vero's fear). We thanked God for Vero's hunger and pain, reminding us that she was, after all, still alive.