musings

[sharonboomikim]

“I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” - Joan Didion

This not-knowing has been amplified during these strange times, during which the names of days and dates have lost significance as markers of anything, really, and instead time has been rendered a soup. I’ve taken to writing in my journal what I eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day so as to ground myself in the most minute (and easy) of rhythms. Today, I had a toasted piece of beer bread and a cappuccino for breakfast and pork ramen for lunch. For an afternoon snack, I had Korean butter waffles and black tea. Currently, I am sitting on my porch, basking in the beautiful day and suffering through my nasal congestion to write this.

Today is my last funemployed Monday! As of next Monday, your girl is employed. This is weird and frankly, incredible to me. Not that I am unemployable, but that this is the next thing for me and that I am finishing up my year-ish of funemployment under the most serious circumstances, a.k.a. a full-blown pandemic. Way to go out, I mean. Or in this case, not go out. 

I feel grateful to be starting a new job in the midst of the economy being blown to bits (that’s what the news is saying in a nutshell, right? I try to get away with listening to as little of it as I possibly can without being a complete and total ignoramus), and working in an industry that is actually seeing an uptick during these times. 

Did I think that I’d work in ed tech? Not really. Did I look down on those people who taught for a few years and then went into ed tech and nary looked back? Definitely. Do I have weird dreams of teaching and wake up feeling like I’m missing my first adolescent flame? Inexplicable why, but yes. So eating my words is not my favorite pastime, but alas a near and present necessity now. Unlike in the past, I am not reliant on this job being my next wholly consuming self-identifier. Instead, whether this next job feels amazing or depleting, I am trying to remember that even though I have no fully-baked or even half-baked 10-year plan, God does have a plan for me and that plan is one of love and deep knowledge of me. His goal is to bring me closer to who I was intended to be in Him, not a small and dumb goal like mine, which is to be the very best like no one ever was and to be paid more than my husband someday. Thank God that He walks beside me so I don’t misstep all the time. I am striving to believe that and believe it more every single day. 

[sharonboomikim]

new year, new me

one of my resolutions in 2020 is to write every day, to journal as a means of confrontation. in 2019, I read to the point where I listened in an unending stream of others’ thoughts, stories, and feelings without stopping to contribute mine. and this was what I wanted—2019 left me with a lot of life circumstances to which I had no clever response and it felt more straightforward to sit and listen to others, nod along when they experienced something I did, and to smile one-sidedly at the book, closing it when finished and scurrying to find the next in the chain, lest my internal monologue awaken.

see? writing is uncomfortable. a friend, who happens to be an engineer, shared that one of his resolutions this year is to read and write more, eyes averted downwards to my nonjudgmental carpet. first of all, I don’t know why people confess all their literary guilt to me—people, stop doing this to your (former) English teacher friends. it’s not supposed to be so ridden with guilt and I am not some priest in a confession booth. I gamely volleyed anyway and asked him why he wanted to read and write more (it’s all about intrinsic motivation), to which he mumbled something about not wanting to forget how to express himself. 

over rice cake soup on january 1, my dad shared some of his resolutions, written out on his phone. he’s experienced approximately 25 more revolutions around the sun than I have, and yet he’s still seeing it through new eyes and responding to his life. so I am trying the same thing, on this slightly-less-than-hopeful platform, to resist the self-inflicted aphasia and absenteeism that is so convenient. 

chill, right? ok must run to costco. bye

[sharonboomikim]

thoughts on books, 2019

the thought of sitting down and thinking about 2019, let alone the whole freaking decade, is exhausting and so I will instead reflect on what I read in 2019. 

books that made me weep:

1) tell me more by kelly corrigan

2) olive, again by elizabeth strout

3) the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe by c. s. lewis

4) the return by hisham matar

5) 82년생 김지영 by 조남주

6) goodbye, vitamin by rachel khong

7) the elegance of the hedgehog by muriel barbery

8) HP 6 and 7 by j. k. rowling

9) inheritance by dani shapiro

10) the interestings by meg wolitzer

books that conveyed what I needed to express but didn’t have the words for (sometimes overlaps with weep category)

1) i miss you when i blink by mary laura philpott

2) rules for visiting by jessica francis kane

3) conversations with friends by sally rooney

4) the female persuasion by meg wolitzer

5) hourglass by dani shapiro

6) how to get filthy rich in rising asia by mohsin hamid

7) little women by louisa may alcott

books from outside my comfort zone, but pleasantly surprising and illuminating:

1) on writing by stephen king

2) severance by ling ma

3) still life with rice by helie lee

4) bad blood by john carreyrou

5) HP series

6) rebecca by daphne du maurier

7) big magic by elizabeth gilbert

fast-moving, slightly guiltier reads but I don’t care still great:

1) daisy jones and the six by taylor jenkins reid

2) home fire by kamila shamsie

3) mrs. everything by jennifer weiner

4) normal people by sally rooney

5) the magnolia story by chip and joanna gaines

need to be mentioned but no category, just impressive stories that I will remember:

1) homegoing by yaa gyasi

2) the hiding place by corrie ten boom

3) out of a far country by christopher and angela yuan

4) the secrets of an unlikely convert by rosaria butterfield

overhyped and unenjoyed:

1) asymmetry by lisa halliday

2) americanah by chimamanda ngozi adichie (lovely first read, not great second read)

3) circe by madeline miller

4) where’d you go, bernadette by maria semple

5) maid by stephanie land

6) my year of rest and relaxation by ottessa moshfegh

[sharonboomikim]

Currently reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, whose book title I have appropriated to scoff at my current year. At dinner parties when people ask what it is I do—always after a lengthy discussion of what Daniel does, of course—I’ve with forced-breezy laughter called this my “eat, pray, love” year. And I tried watching the movie, but even with the completely distracting smile that is Julia Roberts I could not get too far into it. Too fluffy, ugh. My pragmatism would not allow me to venture past the seven-minute mark. 

The whole thing savors of hokey American entitled self-exploration, the kind that my parents did not know and the kind that they still are puzzling over as they try to understand what on earth their daughter is doing to her career. Obviously, my own processing is tinted by the influence of the people who raised me and taught me what I know and now unquestioningly believe about hard work and value and reasonableness. 

But anyway, I stumbled on the book at the library as I was wandering through the nonfiction section—by the way, nothing will make you feel so quite small and unknowledgeable as twenty paces down a nonfiction library shelf, such knowledge there is in the world—since I never would have sought it out on my own. Liz Gilbert would say here that the “big magic” found me. 

Anyway the book has been a thought-provoking one, though it is at a breezy reading level (again, I snub my highly-educated nose at this). Mostly, she says that complaints about constraints are old and unoriginal and are a drag. This I highly identified with, both in having some modicum of self-awareness and seeing Daniel’s face struggle to be patient for the billionth time as I reword the same “struggle” over dinner, a constant side dish accompanying our meals. 

Instead of re-chewing the same stringy, gray morsel ad infinitum, why not create a new thing? An obvious by logic but terrifying by execution kind of concept. 

What if I am not “good enough”? What if people laugh? What if I become, by unknowing bits and pieces, Elizabeth Gilbert? What if I have experiences I can’t translate and share with my immigrant parents? But these fears in and of themselves are obvious, and unoriginal, and again, not that interesting on their unanswered own. Time to try something, as opposed to just talk about starting something... 

[lizclimo]

[sharonboomikim]

staying up to wait for the sweet potatoes to finish roasting

autumn is here in full force. today, in classic californian fashion, I pummeled through piles of huge, crackly fallen leaves in my birkenstocks. I do often fantasize about living elsewhere, but california is undoubtedly home. 

a lot has changed since the unfamiliarly hot august days we moved in to our new place here in san jose. for one, i’m working now, and that has dramatically shifted how I spend my days and what I think about. 

so I started some part-time work. it hasn’t been long and so I shouldn’t analyze, but hey, then i’d have nothing to write about and also I wouldn’t be myself. 

so far, I have to say that I don’t miss teaching as much as I thought I would. I feel guilty about that; I do. but then I am also relishing the silence, discovering my own creative voice and investing in that (I sound like such a millennial right now and I’m just going to own that and just let it be), and enjoying relationships, old and new, a lot more than I used to. 

I don’t know where it’s going. I have a lot of #strongfeels while I am sweeping literal dirt from the floor of the plant shop I now work at, wondering how the hell I ended up here, harvard degree and all. my parents’ experiences are scars I carry, romanticized and felt only secondhand. 

there are also moments of relief and sheer fun. I can live day in and day out for a week with a long-distance friend, traveling outside of california in the fall for the first time in years. I get to walk through central park in peak fall crispness in total blissed-out solitude. I keep a standing weekly coffee date with an old friend at a new cafe where we’re low-key scoping out the barista for her (today we got his name!). I can get lost in deep convos in really comfy mall chairs at valley fair until 9 p.m. on a weeknight. and of course, I fearlessly start baking sweet potatoes at near-midnight, knowing I can wait up for them. I wake up slower in the morning. I tip more and more often, knowing myself better in smaller jobs.

I don’t have a career trajectory at the moment. sometimes i think i’m doing it all wrong. 

but I do feel that I’m seeing things I couldn’t see before and breaking what I previously thought were unbreakable codes of being. I am also more honest. for this, brené brown would be proud of me. i think i’m also proud of me. 

“adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.” - emerson

in semi-related news, i’m very highly interested in these new autumnal birkenstocks. to mark the seasons?

[sharonboomikim]

for remembering

This is an odd year. When the vast majority of my peers are spending most, if not all, of their time at work--whether that’s physically or mentally--somehow, God has seen it fit to put me “out of joint” for this time being, also known as “out of work.” 

Last Sunday, Daniel and I attended our first home group. We were the youngest by far. The church meets in Palo Alto, and I have my *opinions* about Palo Alto. But as people shared, I was (of course) proved wrong. Because I was the most privileged of them all. By far! 

These folks, farther along in life, were going through a litany of Real Life Things: their kids not doing well in school and not knowing how to navigate all the ed tech stuff but wanting to help; their special-needs teenager keeping them up so that they hadn’t slept for more than five hours each night; bedridden parents; property disputes between father and son; heart murmurs; long-distance marriages, the like. And there were we: the adorable newlyweds, me the wife who can afford to stay at home but not without an artistic crisis of self on the daily to provide some gravitas. Who’s Palo Alto now?

Anyway, Daniel and I left that home group feeling like... oh my goodness we need to Live Life Now. Now! Because once kids come in to the picture, adios life. Adieu to just-us vacations and sleep and sanity and any kind of margin for crises of the abstract sort. The people in the group were gracious and encouraging, and asked us to live some good, good life in their stead. In classic me fashion, I immediately felt the pressing weight of fun.

It really was a reality check for me in thinking about: what have I always wanted to get better at? What have I always wanted to do but put off? Melmo asked me recently about what I would want to take to a deserted island. I only remember two things. A Bible and commentary so I could get really knowledgeable and learned up on the Word, which I’ve always “wanted to do” but never found urgent enough. The second was a voice coach to improve my singing.

So, lately: It has been a weird luxury to have unhurried time to spend in God’s Word. All my needs are met, and no one needs anything from me. Perhaps my life prior was too busy, in perhaps a logistical but definitely aesthetic sense. And that’s not to say that I don’t still waste a ton of time. I mean, I am watching the most TV I have ever watched in life right now. Someone please talk “Fleabag” to me.

But even with that, with all this time I am daily going through the process of rediscovering that only God calms. The day begins and I flip over the same stones I turned over yesterday, ad nauseam: social media, books, food, TV, podcasts, shopping, houseplants, the like. And every day I feel that I am taught the same thing, when I finally arrive at reading my Bible. That my heart is truly restless until it is in God.

Please don’t think I am holier than I really am. I am nowhere near the point where I’m like... “oh all I need is (coffee and) the Word!!” “If only I could have more hours in the day so I could pray!” Insert beatific gaze to the heavens. Definitely, what I am learning is that my hunger is too little. 

In fact, my hunger is pathetic. I am too rich in all things to have my attention held for long. I am not desperate enough and the circumstances around me all but guarantee this, while still never leaving me feeling completely adequate. My feeble petition is that God will expand my appetite and not let me become one of the sleepers. It does feel like getting back into shape after not ever exercising. I’m still mostly on the latter end of that experience, so hopefully that simile made sense.

[sharonboomikim]

A daughter of a former Marine, I was fairly coerced into becoming a decent swimmer by seven. Having been impressively impervious to all other athletic put-upons, swimming is the one thing that has stuck.

A son of a father who feigned laps swum in school because he did not possess goggles and did not know to ask, Daniel is less proficient in the water. He can swim. But he does not know how to side-stroke, and here those who catch my drift have been picked for my swim team.

This is a rare upheaval in our marriage, in which I outwardly appear more fit—slim, long-legged, posture not great but definitely straighter—but trail him in every physical trial.

Put those children in the rolling waves of an ocean, albeit of the milder Maui variety, and the scene is obvious.

“Whoa,” he says, pride tingeing his voice. “We’re so far.” He bobs, exhilarated, can barely see his father on the shore.

Of course, I say internally. Of course we should be. I want to rush on ahead, swim out farther, see more fascinations underwater, saltwater burning but. So I do.

And just as I expect to hear his voice, I do, though later than anticipated:

“Babe, let’s stop. You’re the farthest one out,” he calls from a distance.

I know it only gets calmer the farther out you swim. I know my in-laws are watching us, probably worriedly, from the receding shore. I know that if my dad were here on this beach he’d be leading the pack out even deeper, at home in this sea.

And I swim back to him, my shore.

[sharonboomikim]

to-do task no. 9

Daniel and I recently fought about his claim that I “always” break rules. We were told in pre-marital counseling to avoid such declarative statements about each other, especially using the words “always” or “never,” and so then I smartass-edly referred to one of the governing laws of our marriage and pointed out that he, too, had broken a rule.

But this person who spends the most time with me by far and sees my minute moments and decisions is probably onto something. 

I tried to rebut his argument by saying that if he had spent the last five years modeling and enforcing lots of frequently-inane rules to our dear nation’s future, day in and day out, he might also have something to say about rules. 

But then I rebutted my own self in my head (and in that annoying teacher voice that honestly is like reflex sometimes) that such experience is not a sufficient excuse for me to flout rules “always,” especially when my disregard is harmful to myself. 

In the case of this specific argument, I had swallowed the fluoride that the dentist had told me to spit out because my spit was filling up my mouth and they didn’t give me a moment to do it before handing me my floss and leading me to the door and so I didn’t think that a little bit of fluoride in my system was that big of a deal. Daniel, of course, had stopped the dental hygienist and asked for a place to spit. He then dutifully kept a spit cup nearby for the next half hour, as explicitly instructed, depositing fluoride-y saliva as needed.

Anyway, I learn from this weird partnership called marriage. And this summer break—a severance of its own kind—has provided some margin to reflect. Why did I surreptitiously break the rule instead of following it, albeit in a slightly disruptive way? 

Perhaps, with some meaning attached, the rules will start to make some sense again. At least some of them.

[sharonboomikim]

when you read a book and discover that you enjoy all the quotes they’ve provided, not their actual writing...

“Form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” - Wendell Berry, “Poetry and Marriage”

From Carl Jung: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”

[sharonboomikim]

confrontation

Only when he came clean with God did he experience the grace of God: “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.” (Psalm 32:5).

[sharonboomikim]

five imaginary lives

#1: high-powered executive #girlboss. wears well-tailored suits and the best shoes. commands excellence and fear from others. 

#2: elusive barista wearing neutral colors, warby parker glasses, and consistently pouring the best lattes. wears clogs non-ironically due to having small, delicate feet to pull them off.

#3: vendeuse of flowers and on-demand typewriter poetess at farmers’ markets in wealthy neighborhoods. wears big hats and overalls, sometimes together but usually not.

#4: editor at a well-known publishing house, reading, editing, advising authors. desk is a mess, but known to be highly skilled at finding and cultivating the best talent.

#5: co-owner of a bookshop, cutting out literary quotes from things i read in order to affix to nooks and crannies within my shop. always ready with her reusable thermoses and straws. writes poetry under a pseudonym.

[sharonboomikim]

artist date: one

I watch the water bounce in its glass, envying its purity and straight-forwardness. Type a little louder to create bigger impact. For every action, there is an equal and opposite force. These laws apply so comfortingly to things.

For me sitting at the keyboard, I struggle even to begin the action. What if the equal and/or opposite is not true? What if it muddies, creates bad law? I’m not quite sure what bad law is, but I hear it’s no good. 

How do the sentences emerge in sequence? What follows? I surely don’t, so who does? How much does God care about sentences? 

[sharonboomikim]

the longest 2018 reflection ever

this morning, i made cloth napkins with nicole. sometime during the third hour, she and i fell on the subject of 2018 and all that had happened in the last year--a continuation of the conversation we started in small group last night. i said something along the lines of ‘how can you sum up a year in a few words?’ 

...and that’s pretty much what keeps me from reflecting on years. they are arbitrary markers (but markers nonetheless) and are too vast to be reduced (but you can still notice, appreciate, ruminate on parts of it, can’t you?). after having read some friends’ very honest reflections on their years, through positive peer pressure i find myself here, giving it a go.

what a preamble, and how needlessly dramatic.

here goes:

january:

- i celebrated my 27th birthday intentionally by actually planning something, and people showed up! 2018 was a year of consistently feeling the love of my community, and this birthday was a total reminder of that.

- we received our first wedding registry gift: a kitchenaid stand mixer in aqua blue. leslie and monte were kind enough to gift us this extremely generous gift. moreover, we actually use this thing, which is frankly surprising to me. i am no longer afraid to make cookies.

february:

- i read brené brown while working out at a gym. new year, new me. she got me thinking, and more importantly, expressing my feeling more.

- daniel and i ditched our valentine’s day reservations at el mono and went to the über-fancy juanita and maude, where i had the most delicious pavlova of my life. i totally buy into the ridiculous expectations of valentine’s day and am grateful to have a husband (then-fiancé) who indulges me, eyes rolled.

- my bachelorette weekend! i was uncomfortable at how loved i was--no surprises there. repeat that 100x over the course of preparing for the wedding. i got to make cheese, stay in an upscale log cabin, eat good food, and hike. and pet a baby goat. #goals

march:

- i was tired and frustrated at work. the third year of teaching felt uninspired, especially second semester.

- crate & barrel on fourth street closed its doors, and fiancé and i scooped up our plates, utensils, etc. for CHEAP. this was clutch. but we should have picked up utensils because we only have four sets right now...

- i worked out regularly-ish. life achievement unlocked.

april:

- was a question of a month that throbbed for months afterwards. we got on a flight to beijing, just shy of catching daniel’s nainai before her passing away. this trip was a palpable moment of ‘shit, i am growing up and i have no idea how to act.’ i was asking questions of God i honestly felt He might not be able to answer. and even in the midst of this, there was beauty--i climbed the great wall of china, with soft snow fluttering all about, hand-in-hand with my husband-to-be, father-in-law excited to know me and show me everything.

- pre-marital counseling with the iwawakis was such a kindness from God. 

may:

- umma and i got matching mani/pedis for mother’s day. she was beaming in pleasure throughout and after. reminder to self to do this again, and not just once a year...

- we found an apartment to live in and began our series of not-so-veiled fights at ikea. ‘500 days of summer’ is a lie, i tell you. 

- socal college trip with at-that-point juniors. this was a semi-traumatic school trip that i do not wish to go on again. as i was sobbing in my (shared) hotel room on the fourth night of the trip, i really questioned whether it is worth it to be in this profession, whether it is worth it at all to care, whether i can allow myself to be in this profession without caring or does that make it void, all the things. i was tremendously frustrated at my students and also blamed myself for a lot of things outside of my control. this trip was a learning experience for sure. i am not good with messiness and spontaneity (what i call unpreparedness). and i am slow to forgive.

- one golden moment in the midst of that trip was seeing one of my former students making it at UCLA and still in pursuit of that english major. i love that kid (have written about him in previous posts). another was sitting on a bench at pomona college with gabriela, talking about teaching and kids and responsibility. she took care of me, and i needed that.

june:

- we started assembling furniture in our new place! jordan and matt were hugely instrumental, and i mostly took funny videos of them making idiots out of themselves (i.e. putting the vacuum box over their bodies and getting trapped within). daniel sacrificed many hours of sleep, the mobility of a few toes, etc. to get our place set up.

- i got coffee with a former student who had just finished his freshman year at middlebury. it is strange and wonderful to me that students can become adults and almost-friends. this is the beauty of teaching seniors.

- bridal shower! aesthetic af, girly, thoughtful, catered towards me in the most loving way... this was a joy. again, i wish i hadn’t been so uncomfortable lol. lots of PG gifts for ya domestic girl. ashley and i made granola and a vat of strawberry-lemon compote to hand out as favors.

- seniors graduated! graduation always leaves me emotional, but this year i was pretty much done. i did not linger long, but instead went straight to ippudo to join daniel for a hearty 9 p.m. dinner, with a celebratory beer of which i only consumed half and felt woozy. my tolerance did not grow in 2018.

july:

- daniel and i got MARRIED! not to sound cliché, but it truly was really the best day. there was something hyperreal about every moment of that day, and there’s a dumb smile on my face even as i write about it. nuff said, i love the man.

- we went on a glorious honeymoon for two weeks to paris, amsterdam, and london. daniel gained 10 glorious pounds, which have remained with him a souvenir of this trip. summer in europe is le best. 

august:

- got the best haircut of my life and a balayage shortly after at grove salon in albany. seriously tho.

- attended two weddings, struggled with being on break and being a housewife.

- touched brian mcknight’s hand. then came home, insta-stalked him, and didn’t relish the hand-holding as much. 

- little brother got married!  it was an emotionally difficult night for me, and i was grateful to have daniel as my confidante and strength through that weekend.

september:

- the weddings continued: two in one weekend at the same venue! it was a fun weekend of reunions, beautiful vows, and pinching myself over and over again at the fact that oh my goodness we are now adults doing adult things.

- miraculously managed to spend time with monica--which felt like a total luxury given that this time of the school year usually is nuts and a little more. we cafe-hopped around in downtown oakland and just talked and talked and talked. the comfort of a good friendship.

october:

- felt lucky going into work each day, especially loving my new seniors (whom i taught as freshmen) so. freaking. much. i will fall apart at graduation. 

- resuscitated a dying orchid, cut my finger badly on a mandolin slicer, worked out-ish.

november: 

- cindy was in town and we spent a heavenly day wandering around in the mission. i ate an apple that had red flesh and we were both mesmerized. i stepped into bi-rite market and felt a surge of desire for worldly things.

- ashley got engaged! i cry at all the things and i will maybe always be this person and that is okay. 

- met hasan minhaj randomly at fremont whole foods. did i mention his face is half the size of my face? 

- we double-dated with brian and joanne, who came up for thanksgiving. spent a rainy but lovely day in san francisco. 

december: 

- was especially sweet because of emmaus partnership with laura, which started a few weeks prior but really hit its stride in december. we have been reading thomas merton’s no man is an island and our discussions and prayer times left me spiritually invigorated and hungry. super grateful for the community that surrounded both daniel and me through the year.

- daniel and i bought our first christmas tree together with the aide of our pseudo-son, sam, and made christmas candy to hand out. 

- i pursued reconciliation with a few people, which was a personal victory for me. done prayerfully and thoughtfully, it gave me a restored heart for the unity of believers and helped me to communicate my needs and start to trust church leaders again. 

- the year closed out in washington d.c., with joon, teresa, and hahn. daniel and i babysat hahn for a night and that was also a huge learning experience. sorry to joon and teresa for any harm we unwittingly inflicted upon your wonderful boy. i miss this family already.

that was way longer than i intended, and i have been an unhelpful spouse while daniel has been preparing for dinner guests. wow, 2018 was FULL. and while i did not understand so often this year where God was leading, looking back i am so grateful that this year was actually really... full of people. 

the previous few years were so isolated--i remember roaming around stores during the weekends, feeling aimless if i wasn’t working and frankly having nothing to do--but this year has been a surrounding with community. community that does not always “get” me intuitively (and i have to stop expecting this, and expecting myself to be this for others), but is a messy fits-and-starts, hodge-podge kind of thing. but in 2018, i learned and practiced that i must stay open and stay hopeful and know that somehow, God is working it for my good. and He has. 

i know not all years will be like this, and the big fanfare that is our wedding is over, but i want to remember this beginning and how before creating our own family, God surrounded us with friends who were pivotal in making daniel and me family at all in the first place. and my many questions and doubts will not be answered neatly by the end of the year, or even by the end of my life, and God will not show up in the way i want Him to or expect Him to whenever i call, but He is answering in His own way, in His own time... and this season is sweet in that i can finally say that for the first time in a long time, i can catch some parts of what He is saying. and the mystery is not frustrating; it’s even exciting again.

[sharonboomikim]

thoughtfull sleep

after a tiring week and an exhausting evening, i thought i would naturally fall asleep and wake many glorious hours later. the problem with a thoughtfull night’s rest is that it can often come unannounced.

i found that i didn’t want to sleep anymore at 3:30. checked my phone for the time, tossed it back down into plush carpet, wishing it the cushy sleep i was not having. the thoughts that swirled, in no coherent shape or form, in my head for the next few hours were my students, lesson planning, how should i teach socratics, should i write a yelp review addressing that awful restaurateur we suffered last night, why does my husband make such odd noises in his sleep, what have i accomplished (the mortal question), am i a good wife, am i a good friend? 

my attempted prayers were jumbled, a skein of choppy scraps of yarn in many disharmonious colors. 

for all my attempts at efficaciousness, there will always be an infinite number of things to better, to stop thinking about and just do, to ponder and not do. the night painted this as a garish pastiche, but the quiet morning--even as my fleshly tiredness has already begun to set in, frail body--is yet unconquered, the blessing of a question.

[sharonboomikim]

“to be of use” by marge piercy

The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.

[sharonboomikim]

three days left

it’s been go, go, go time and so i have done what i do best during busy times, which is to put my head down and get tasks done like a machine. to-do lists have been my best friend in the past two weeks. 

blogging is not on the to-do list, but as the day draws nearer, the tasks dwindle, and i also thought that i should record some of what’s going on in my head so i can look back later and laugh at my stupidity. ain’t that what blogs are for? :)

part of me is in disbelief that i will be irrevocably off the market in three days and legally married to someone 5ever. it feels thrilling and finally and scary and barf-inducingly cliché, all at the same time. these are big life things that everyone goes through and from which other people have emerged unscathed, and even happy, but i am discovering that i am more obsessive and nervous than the average individual. i have no chill. 

i am going to try not to cry on the day of, but that feels impossible given the fact that i spontaneously break out into tears whenever anything related to community, parents, people praying for us is happening. increasingly leaky faucet up in these eyes in the past few weeks. i used to be so cool and now i’m all mushy. anyway, my concern is the $$$ i’m paying for the paint on my face (and gratefully so, since i’m getting 97% of the pimples i’ve gotten all year on my face this week) and whether i’m just going to let that all wash down in rivulets off of my face or bite my lip until i’m bleeding down my chin. during a cry earlier this week--i think i was translating my dad’s toast--daniel kept smearing my eyeliner horizontally across both eyes and so i took the opportunity to instruct him on how to properly dry a lady’s tears when she is wearing expensive paint on her face. 

YA DO THE DAB. DAB DAB DAB. 

this turned into an ironically not very emotional post. thanks, pop culture, for claiming yet another innocuous word. BACK TO THE TO-DO LIST! (aka pack for rehearsal lunch, pack for honeymoon, review vows............)