This past Friday I was invited to a get together by a hilarious British man named Jamie. He is roughly forty in people years, but fourteen in humor years. Thus, he entertains my twelve year old sense of humor like a Futurama character. Jamie is also an English teacher, as were all of the guests he invited. My best friend and ‘sister’ introduced me to all of these teachers a few weeks ago, but this was my first actual invite to a ‘party’. I was so absolutely stoked to go as every person attending is ‘bloody’ fantastic, their presence as equivalent to the wings of a dove... well, maybe the wings of an emu or ostrich, something with a bit of pizazz. Anyways, just seeing them and being with them made me more excited than Barney on X, and there was pretty much no way I was missing this charade. So when I realized that I had signed up for a mountain climbing trip that left that Saturday morning at 8, I thought nothing of the time nor journey I would have to take in order to actually MAKE the trip. The reason for my ignorance this time being my blinded longing for a night out with my ostrich friends. Too excited for an ET (English teacher) booze and schmooze, I planned my itinerary around my night out rather than the entire weekend trip up and damn mountain and back: I would A) ride the subway the three hours from Suwon to Uijeongbu and meet Jamie there at 7 PM, B) begin the night with beer and go with the flow, most likely hit up some fantastic Korean food around 11, C) pass out in some space that was not taken up by a fellow ET (there were 8 of us in one room, this was not suprisingly very difficult), D) set the alarm for 6 AM, thereby giving me two hours to figure out how to get to the Uijeongbu Subway Station and from there to the correct station in Seoul (there are 11 lines and hundreds of stops, figuring this part out takes an hour by itself... Oh and the ride to Seoul from Uijeongbu is an hour plus!), E) find the correct exit at the Express Bus Terminal Subway Station that will lead me to my bus, F) get on the damn bus and pass out again... from there on I go with the ‘Adventure Korea Tour’ itinerary.
The night goes pretty much as ‘planned’ as it could be. We have a great time hitting up the local pubs and such, then stop at a quaint Korean joint to gorge ourselves. I choose not to, as my stomach is rather full of beer and soju, but the rest of the crowd finds their fill and afterwards we go to Jamie’s and pass out. Before I sleep though, I set my watch to what I think is 6 AM, then take a Xanax to help me get to sleep with the purest of intentions to make my trip to Seoraksan, a trip I paid 98,000 Won for (or 80$).
The Xanax works like a charm, I pass out to what I’m sure were excellent dreams, filled with rainbows and chocolate. I don’t wake up once during the four hours of bliss, and thus this is where the ineffable luck occurs, and my mind cannot ever reject an external, omnipotent Being...
I wake up.
Yes, that is the magnificent shock to my soul. I actually wake up from the deepest pits of sleep after a long and full of night of dancing and drinking. For those who have tried to party like rockstars, you know this is a Godsend- especially after a Xanax. I was so relaxed when I woke up that when I looked at my watch, I didn’t even react- I mean no sense of alarm what so ever. I simply stared at what I had lost and then snickered at my luck. My watch read 6:40. I clicked my alarm to check what I had actually set it for. The screen flicked to 9:00, and a message in my brain flicked to, “You’re an idiot.”
Yet, I didn’t really flip out. Usually I would and I KNEW I was supposed to be. So I made myself get up and get my things together in a panic, hoping to rewind time and force my watch to read 6 again. I clicked the side again just to check, and the demon 6 showed itself twice: 6:46. Damn. I thought. Then said the phrase out loud. My sis, Amy, woke up at my noise and asked me what the hell I was doing.
I replied a muttered, “Well, that sucks I guess, but it’s not like I died.”
She just looked at me like I was high, and asked again, “What the hell are you talking about? Aren’t you going on that hiking thing?”
To this I laughed ironically, having given up all hope of making my longed for ‘get away’, or that’s what I had thought of it as a couple weeks before when I had actually signed up for the trip.
I told her something along the lines of, “Um... yeah, about that... I’m pretty sure I missed my boat. Haha, again!” I was referring to the missed plane flight to South Korea six weeks prior. The thought hit me that I should maybe take appointments and time a bit more seriously, but then the Xanax hushed my worries and I just chuckled at myself.
Amy however did not chuckle. She blurted her thoughts with her full feelings, as she has done her (and my) whole life, “DUDE, you can make the trip!”
At this statement I just laughed again and shook my head. No, I did the calculations in my head yesterday on the subway ride here. It takes an hour to get to Seoul alone, not to mention the getting to the Uijeongbu Subway Station, I have no clue!
I reiterated this to Amy, who once again yelled at me, “If you get your ass moving you could make it! Why are you just standing there laughing, get your shit and get outta here!”
Ahh... Amy. Nothing like the voice of reason in my dreamlike state of being.
So I grab my shit, and I get out. Jamie gives me directions to the main road and encourages my ability to hail a cab. I follow his stated course with the utmost diligence of any hung over twit and actually find my way to the main road... you know that one with all the cars going by. I look both ways, another milestone, and proceed to hail a cab.
Now, this in itself is yet ANOTHER gift from God/IT/Allah, as Uijeongbu is not happening at 7 in the morning, and the ‘busy’ street I’m on was so busy I saw four cars actually moving, and one of those was a holy cab. I hailed it with all my strength and it swerved to the side. With all of my stuff on me, so that I look like a hobo, I lean over and it leans with me. I ask the man in Korean I had just learned the day before, and AMAZINGLY remember at the moment, “Uijeongbu heeja cheolyeok?”, or “Uijeongbu Subway Station?” He nods his head with a smile, most likely at my bad Korean. Then he proceeds to drive me the all of five minutes to the subway station.
I get out with a rush, the short taxi ride rejuvinated my hope and my heart was beginning to find a rythym in it. I can do this! I can make the trip! My getaway!!! My own personal getaway. I can do this. I can do this! Just move your ass!!! In the words of Amy, “Move your ass!”
I move my ass up three flights of steps, my baggage whacking me randomly from the jostle. I whip out my T-Money card with a ‘what I hope is saving me seconds’ motion, and then slam it on the entrance reader full force. Beep. It reads. So non-chalantly and almost irritatingly so. I hustle past it with an attitude of sheer importance, and race down to the boarding area to find the doors of the subway opening! Yes, I can’t believe it myself. They’re opening! It’s the right train and everything!
I practically skip to the damn car and melt on the seat. This is actually plausable. I say to myself. I look at my watch, 7:06. Maybe this won’t take a full hour. Maybe the station I”m going to is closer, or maybe the bus won’t leave on time. My mind haulted at that, Wait, this is Korea. They ALWAYS leave on time.
At this point I relax again, into the state of hang over and Xanax. I non-challantly drop my bags on the seat next to me and get up to look at the subway map.
The lines are all a blur this morning, and it takes me a few seconds to decipher where exactly I’m headed. Finally I see the little “Express Bus Terminal” blip on subway line number 7 and 4. I put my finger on it and trace line 7 to where I’m at. I’m on Line 1, so I have to transfer at some point. What is the fastest? Well, I have no clue. I’ve never been this way. Hm... well I have two choices, 1) I stay on Line 1 here and get to Seoul ASAP, then transfer twice there to get to the Bus Station. OR 2) I transfer to Line 7 in the next couple of stops and take my chances as to its schedule. It might come right away or it might be 15 minutes. The latter case meaning I’’m headed home to sleep and in need of further plans for the weekend.
My mind mulls this over for the next couple of stops. I hate transferring because I don’t know the times for the other trains, and I don’t know their stations. It can take me ten minutes just to find the correct transfer area, and this was not the time to be figuring anything out for ten minutes. All of a sudden the radio system announces the next stop as my transfer point to Line 7. Alright. This is the deciding moment, I think. It’s either this, or stay on to Seoul. Take your best bet, Jen. Use your logic!
I sit for about five seconds, the doors only staying open for ten. And given a couple more seconds I feel my feet move below me, and my hands grab my bags. I fly out of the car just as soon as the doors decide to shut, and keep on flying while my mind races for its next obligation. Okay! To Line 7 we go!
I run up the flight of stairs to my left, their signs tell me I’m headed the right way. I turn to the right and continue their directions to the platform labeled “Line 7 to Konkuk Univ. That’s my direction, I remembered seeing it on the map a few minutes ago, so I follow it, and continue the rush towards my destiny.
I sit for only three minutes, rather short compared to the ten to fifteen minute intervals the trains sometimes have. And as I sat I started to feel this calm, this knowing that everything was going to work itself out. That worrying was just another headache on top of my hang over. That if anything it’d be for the best if I missed the bus, because then I could go home and get the rest I could feel tugging at my mind, and nagging on my eyeballs. As the minutes pass I tell myself these soothing chants of blissful sleep to come. But as minute three pulled around I heard the warning whistle go off and a voice saying my train has arrived.
Subway Line 7 was my ticket to a weekend of changed philosophy, a new friendship and an embracement of love as my creator and savior. At the time I was riding it, I had no conception of what it was bringing me towards, or how it was getting me there a few minutes earlier. Instead of yearning for this unknown goal, I closed my eyes and slept, so aloof to the world and the experience that laid ahead.
I woke up a half hour later, with still five stops to go. I thanked whatever omnipotent Being for waking me, then proceeded to stare at the subway chart as the stops flicked by one after another. I glanced at my watch again, it read a flat 8:00.
SHIT. Mother effing shit.... Okay, It’s okay. You knew you weren’t going to make it right? Somehow you knew you couldn’t just waltz up on out of a drunken night and hung over morning to make it to the station on time? Let alone climb up a freaking mountain?! You HAD to realize this somewhere around an hour ago didn’t you?
Then the other angel kicked in, You can still find it! You just need to move your ass! Get off at Exit 8 and RUN!
To this angel, aka Amy, I replied in my head:
You know, maybe the gods have stalled the buses, and they’re waiting for me. Yes! Maybe they’re waiting for stragglers, for the dopes who can’t tell time! Well hell, that’s me! Maybe! Maybe... alrighty new confidence, Exit 8. Now you just have to find exit 8 and your weekend will reward you! Just use your calmness, your Xanax, your whatever. Just use your logic and you’ll be fine. How hard can it be to find exit 8?
Hm... how hard can it be? Well, I get off the train with my new found energy and hope and run towards the sign reading Way Out. It also has the numbers of ALL the exits on it. That means that ALL the exits are that-a-way, and that my finding number 8 may not be so easy among 10 exits total.
I run up what I hope is the last damn flight of stairs to find a myriad of hallways and booths leading to the multiple ‘Way Out’s. I look to the signs for help and find my way through the labyrinth with what I feel is great wit until I come to an intersection that tells me exit 8 is in two directions.... FUCk, goes my head, and in my heart there’s a pang of sadness... I feel all my energy lost from the lack of sleep, the stress of it all, and the six flights of stairs I have sprinted still under a coma of alcohol and Xanax. I really wanted to make that trip... even though I’m exhausted, I really wanted to see beautiful mountains and streams and everything... I wanted to just getaway... to remember the country....
This was my brain in that whole minute of standing there debating which “8” I should follow. I looked at my watch again and it read, 8:12. I looked up at the exit signs with a blase yet drawn attitude. I took the exit to my left, where I could see the flicker of sunshine on the steps...
My last flight of stairs brought me from the darkness of the subways to the brightness of the day in only a few seconds. Though the time was miniscule, the sound I heard in that last second was radiating... “Hi, Adventure Korea?”
My tired brain looked to my left very slowly but still with a jerk of surprise. My mouth and voice reacted in a similar fashion and actually guffawed at this stranger who spoke such heaven, “Ah... yeah! Ahh... you’ve got to be kidding me! You’re not? You’re still here? You’re still here?!” My head rolled around with my mind as I tried to wrap my thoughts around me making the trip, the bus, the destiny. I simply reacted with what brain space I had left, and followed this adorable Korean guys’ inquiry as to my name, then directions to Bus B, which waited for me like a beacon on a newfound shore. I got on with the vague realization as to where I actually was and what I was really in for. I was simply happy to be there, to have been waited for, to be appeased by fate for once in my life.
I blindly sat down in the first vacant seat to my left, a direction I always taken since I was young, for reasons I can only call minor OCD. Thank God for it, because I sat down next to a wonderful woman who, little did I know, was about to change my life, and (maybe) I hers. ‘Kindred spirits’ is what Anne of Green Gables would have called it, like minds is strictly Platonic. Whatever it was about our two souls, we were drawn to meet each other, to learn from each other. (Well, more so I was, given the events that had so recently occurred and kicked my ass.) Anyways, we talked about everything and as we hiked up the mountain we joked about everything, and as we surveyed the town and hotel and restaurants, we enjoyed everything. Conclusively, we had fun. Our light-hearted banter and insightful conversation was so easy-going that I had to remind myself that we had only just met. That we hadn’t known each other for years. That this woman was eleven years older than me and that we shouldn’t have anything in common. Yet did. And why? Why did we get along so well? How could our generation gap seem so small when I was also seated next to two girls my same age yet a world apart? Why was this woman so wonderful?
The answer I came up with was very simple, so simple I’m sure you’ve already guessed, but I have to write it anyways for my own record: this woman was KIND. That’s it, that’s all. Nothing fascinating or extremely deep. She as sweet, nice, kind and full of love. She was also insecure, yet beautiful because she was so. Her heart was so pure that not even swine flu could touch it. She was honestly an angel. Because I had never met an angel, I did not know how to see one at first. I didn’t really look at her for the first hour or so, because I was self-interested and also because I was still a bit tipsy, tired and loopy off of Xanax. But after that first hour or so, I started to really see her for what she was, a Godsend. I was meant to meet her, to feel her love which emanated from the core of her being. And from that I was supposed to capture it and allow it blend with my own views of love and living. As that light grew inside me, just sitting next to her, I knew all of these things and more. And then I had a thought, of something I remembered from long ago. An embroidery which hung on the wall of my parents’ living room, directly as you walked in, but also position so that if you feel asleep on the couch, it was the first thing you saw when you woke up, it read:
“Love wasn’t put in your heart to stay, Love isn’t love until you give it away.”
I thought about this for a long while during this wonderful lady’s conversation, and then I thought about it after she left my presence. I had always assumed that this saying meant that I had to give my whole heart to something, that it was gone once I gave it and that I could never get it back. Even though I had lost it, I would always be able to remember it, and therefore love that I had given it. Love the love so to say. Yet now, in this moment of introspection under a florescent light, I began to see what this saying truly meant, what I had missed all these years....Instead of thinking of love as some light to be given and burnt out, I should have thought of it as a light that grows with the more love it finds and then even more with the more love it gives. That is, when I find love inside people as fantastic as this woman, rare angels of this world; I should not so much harness it as TRANSFER it. I should allow it to consume me, but then emanate it from my being and allow others to be consumed as well, much like a virus of the heart, or ‘Love Flu’. It is a rarity in this world today, and I feel so blessed, so lucky to have been able to find a human with such angelic qualities. I had no idea when I signed up for the trip, nor when I made my way to Uijeongbu, nor during the journey to Seoul and up those six flights of stairs and marathon to the bus that I’d find something so over powering and life changing as kindness and love. No idea. The beauty in this whole situation is very much ineffable to myself, but I do know that I can feel it and that it is there. Love is there, and that is the only comfort I need or anyone for that matter. In the words of the greats, “All you need is love” and you “get what you give”. Give love and you’ll be the happiest person on the planet, and/or “across the universe”. Give love and you can make it through anything. Give love and you’ll find the greatest treasure known to man. Thus, this happenstance of a weekend, this occurrence of pure luck, has taught me the only thing that matters, and that is love, give love.
