Saturday, July 5, 2003.
Sun Su
Height: 90th-percentile
Sun Su Weight: 50th-percentile
Sun Su age:
13.5 months
Last
few Corean movies seen:
The Way Home (Love your granny.)
Huiparam Gongju (Interesting reversal.)
Sex Is Zero (Balls/boobs to the wall hilarity.)
YOU WILL NEVER KNOW
[Dangshin eun moreushilguhya.]
"Hakkyo eh kal su isseumnikka? [Can you go to school?]" I read in Corean to Sun Su while sitting on our porch. He looks at me curiously, then runs down the sidewalk to watch the '70s style ghetto Ice Cream Van drive past our street (above pic).
"Aniyo, kal su opseumnida. [No, I cannot go]," I continue reading out of the exercise book.
Sun Su runs back up the sidewalk, just in time for the water sprinkler to rotate in his direction and spritz him with tiny raindrop surprises. He stops to watch the summer heat vaporize the droplets from the sidewalk as quickly as they appeared.
We wait for Amy to come back from the store.
"[Can you teach English? No I cannot teach English.]"
Lately, Amy, Sun Su, and I have been spending time outside in these summer afternoons. Having little picnics in our driveway and porch.
Against my own inertia, I've been getting back to my Corean studies. Sometimes it scares me when I am apathetic about things I know I usually love. It feels like a part of me is dying, on its last few heartbeats with a NO CPR tattooed across the chest. If I am not this, then what am I, I wonder.
I still feel alive when I am moving toward those aspirations. When I want to move toward them. I still want to learn and to create. But I don't want to be selfish; I want to be a good father too.
This is why I am at peace when I am outside studying with Sun Su and Amy beside me. When I am at peace, I have no desire to rest in peace.
"[Can you find your way now? No, I cannot find my way.]"
Things are fine between Amy and me now. We never really talked about things after that argument. I make more effort to spend time with her. She is acting nicer too.
For a while I was on Affection Embargo. No hugs or kisses or leg-humping from me. No sir. I figured Amy would hardly notice the difference, since physical affection isn't her "love language" anyways. As you can guess, this would hurt me more than it hurt her. But at least my ego would remain unrejected and unbruised, my dignity slightly restored, and Amy wouldn't have to shake me off her leg whenever I'm in the room.
I specifically remember by the fourth day of my Affection Embargo, I was lying drowsily in bed. Amy had just gotten out of a hot shower. She leaned over to pick Sun Su off the bed and her still heated nude breasts touched my arm for an instant. The steamy sensuality of it shocked me into wakefulness (and weakness, I suppose). I knew right then that my Affection Embargo was not going to last.
I'm still a bit tentative though. I trust Amy but I am wary of how she can unknowingly cut me when I open up to her sometimes. It's not her fault. I probably do the same.
I feel sorry for Amy sometimes that she has to put up with me. My often impractical, even juvenile interests. The fact that I am not handy around the house nor do I have aspirations of advancing my career beyond it's current station. I am not a charismatic leader of men. I don't even like having to introduce myself or others at parties.
There are some things we just can't express - like how angry you can be at the specters inside or how much you truly love someone and can't quite show it. Things that are better written than said. Or better kept inside than written.
....
"[Can you be at home today? No, I cannot be there.]"
I catch Sun Su just before he topples off the porch as he pushes his baby chair into the bushes with HULK-ulean might.
His disproportionately large head has a disproportionately large gravitational field all its own. It's simply amazing his little body can generate enough energy to carry it much less maintain balance. For a while there, it was as if objects were attracted to the sheer enormity of his noggin. Every day, it wasn't a question of IF he would hit his head - it was a question of WHEN and WHAT would hit his head.
Once he pulled a clock by the cord off a tall dresser. With the precision of a computer-guided Tomahawk missile, it "clocked" him in the same exact place where he bruised his head just days prior veering into a wall corner.
His name might as well have been "Watchyourhead." As in,
"What are you doing down there - Watchyourhead!" BONK!
"Don't pull on that - Watchyourhead!" BONK!
"Slow down - Watchyourhead!" BONK!
He doesn't hit his head so much anymore. But when he did, he'd rub it and shake it and cry if he saw us looking, otherwise he'd just get back up and keep going.
I probably don't need to hit anyone over the head with how this analogy pertains to our relationship.
"Umma's coming home, Sun Su!" I tell him excitedly as Amy is returning from the store.
"[Sun Su, can you love me?]" I ask him with my newly learned Corean grammar. Sun Su looks at me quizzically like I am singing to him.
"[Yes, I can love you.]" I answer for him, deviating from the exercise drill, as he puts his arm around my neck.
He doesn't quite understand what I am saying yet, but he has a pretty good idea of what I mean. His mommy and daddy are like that too.
(Soo and I have discovered we wear the same glasses.)
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HAIRCUTS FOR THE MUTE
I went to my first Corean barber a few weeks ago. They did such a great job cutting Sun Su's hair that Amy and I decided to try it.
I'll tell you why I love the Corean hair salon.
I walk in. I wait. I sit down. The ajumma* cuts my hair. And Amy tells me it's one of the best haircuts I've ever had.
Worthy of note is that at no point did I actually SAY how I wanted my hair cut nor did they ASK. (The nice clean haircut has grown out in the past few weeks.)
That's the Corean way.
*(ajumma = older married woman)
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CONFESSION #1
I've said this before, but I just wanted to reiterate the fact that I do not have any tattoos on my body (nor does Amy). This picture was a photoshopped fabrication I did a while back. I am not so foolish as to get a tattoo of a big-breasted Asian femme with tiger claws imprinted on my back.
Although I do like drawing them.
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CONFESSION #2
Like many young men, I used to think it would be cool to be a secret agent. The travel, the women, the secret missions, the action, secret identity.
But now that I'm older I've come to reevaluate the so-called perks of being a secret agent.
Travel - Spending my life as perpetual tourist is not my idea of enrichment. The only place I'd want to go to is Corea.
Women - Unlike "love," herpes (or worse) is forever.
Secret Missions - Like I said, the only place I'd like to go to is Corea and I would not want to steal from, kill, or betray anyone while I was there. I'd be up for taking bootleg pictures at a BabyVOX concert though.
Action - Again, unlike "love," the nerve damage from a bullet wound in your leg (if you're lucky), is forever.
Secret identity - Doesn't everyone already have one of these?
