Message in a Bottle

Inspired by my friend's play "Lost and Found" about various experiences and identity intersections of Korean adoptees.

Dear Korea,

My life journey over the past 30-some years has ranged from smooth, hill-less-ness, and straight, to meandering - wandering even - to seemingly impossible climbs and insurmountable walls. I've walked through parts of my life with relative ease. I've run into open arms sometimes and away from frightening arms other times. Sometimes I've even run from myself. I've crawled slowly through many complexities and over fragile ground. And I've even dragged myself through some of the sharpest of thorns, reaching desperately for something solid and stable to cling to. In some ways I have been given incredible opportunities to have new experiences and expand my life. In some ways I have felt slowed down, halted, and even stunned and hurt by painful and agonizing experiences and truths. It's been a long haul of glorious moments and many hurdles. In those moments that I am the most exhausted, the most miserable, and the most defeated, something wills me to continue to put one foot in front of the other and press on.

Returning to you has been one of the most, if not the most, significant experiences of my life so far. In the month and a half that encapsulates my preparation leading up to my return, the two week time period I was embraced by you, and the couple of weeks back in Minnesota, my entire being went through such a barrage of emotions it's hard to even be able to comprehend them. Some days I wonder how I am even still standing! Since I've been back I have searched and searched and tried to reconcile various components of who I was, who I am, and who I want to be all within the confines of understanding that at my core, there is you, Korea, and there always will be.

I cant step outside and take you in anytime I want to. I know practically nothing about you other than my body and my emotions yearn to once again touch your soil, breathe in your air, and be embraced by that which I consider to be my home home. Trying to figure out my place here when I constantly feel so displaced and trapped in that displacement is difficult. I try my best to do the things that remind me of you in ways that I know how - finding Korean community here, expanding on my research on identity intersections in Korean adoptees, eating and cooking Korean food, and never letting go of what it was like to be held within you for two weeks back in August when I felt truly at home. Yet, without actually being home home, I still feel such a gap - a gaping hole really.

It was on your soil I was born and it was to your soil I returned 32 years later, only to have to leave again. One day I will be back. I will come back to the land, the people, and the culture where I, for once in my life, felt whole and complete in all of my un-wholeness and incompleteness. I felt fully assembled in my disassembled ways. Parts of my life I have never been able to understand or even think about suddenly made sense in ways that I didn't and couldn't understand at the time, but in hindsight, what I do know is that my mind and my body knew where home home was. I knew where I was created and where I touched first. I constantly feel your pull and your presence in my life since returning to Minnesota, and it only grows stronger and stronger.

I had forgotten about you for so much of my life only because I never knew you. How could I remember something I never knew? But in not knowing you and in forgetting you, I never knew that part of who I was and have always been. Day after day, moment after moment, I continually forgot about my own self. Just as I was removed from Korea, Korea was also removed from me. I've spent the last couple of years slowly beginning to find my way back. I will spend the rest of my life continuing to find that confluence in me of the two rivers - the River Han in South Korea and the Mississippi River in Minnesota - and my life will never be separate from where it all began and what has always been a part of me.

Angry 4:30am Rant

It's 4:31am and I am angry.

I have made it through the extreme sadness, cant eat, cant get off the couch phase, and now I'm angry.

I am angry that for the 4th night in a row, you've been a part of my dreams where talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.

I am angry that unless I initiate some kind of contact, you probably never would.

I am angry that you tell me that you care about me. You tell me at least we're friends. Yet, I've never been treated like a friend by you.

I am angry with myself for giving too much, sharing too much, caring too much. I trusted you and gave you alot of my life and myself that I dont just give to anyone, and for what? A door slammed in my face without explanation.

I am angry that I have to be so upset by this.

I am angry that it was so easy for you to walk away and never turn around. Ever.

I am angry that I could be treated so disrespectfully.

I am angry because I feel violated in some pretty deep ways.

I am angry that I am so angry.

I am angry that much of my life now contains this unwashable residue from you. I cant do much of anything without being reminded.

I am angry because it feels like I'm not allowed to talk to you. Again. I thought our agreement was to not slam doors anymore.

I am angry because I let you in when I feel like I shouldnt have if it was going to turn out this way.

I am angry because I dont understand. I get that you dont know, or at least that's what you tell me, but I can still be angry about it.

I am angry that it still has to hurt this bad.

I am angry because you keep coming into my dreams. Sleeping is the one and only chance I have to escape my sadness, my frustration, my heartache, and my anger. You wont talk to me in real life, but you wake me up at 4:30am...

I am angry because I thought getting this out of me on here would make me feel better, but it just makes me feel more angry that it didnt.

A Prisoner in Silence

For the past two mornings I have woken up on my couch. I don't even remember falling asleep here the night before. My body is twisted and contorted in the blankets as part of me is crammed into one corner, part of me is dangling off the edge, and at least one limb is wedged down behind the cushions. As I lie there trying to piece together the events of my life that have led up to this moment this morning, it just comes across as a blur - an unbelievable blur. My apartment is silent except for the light breathing of my two slumbering cats, and the lazy hiss of the radiator. I've been waking up around 7am and the sleepy morning light that streams through the windows is both inviting to engage with the world out there, but also insistent that perhaps buried in my couch is the best place to be today.

In those first few moments of coming into awakened consciousness, I feel restless. I know my dreams have been filled with a sense of anxiety, uncertainty, pain and suffering. I cannot remember them when I wake up, but my body and my mind are tired in such a way that suggests a battle throughout the night with these sorts of things. As my senses slowly tune into all that is around me, still twisted and half buried in my couch, all I can feel is the absence, the silence, and the sorrow. Yes it is another day and another start, but it is painfully lacking what used to be. It wasn't a smooth transition. It was a violent jolt out of what once was into a dark abyss. I am desperately trying to cling to the sides - to anything that will keep me from falling. And all the while I keep repeating, "this is not my life."

I have spent most of the past two days watching the world through tear-filled eyes. It doesn't take much these days - a sound, a sight, a memory, a place, a subtle breeze - hell, even a crumb on the floor would probably make me lose it. As I am walking from moment to moment I become so overcome with emotion that I literally cannot breathe. My throat swells shut and I have to stop and literally gasp for air and try to calm down. I feel out of control of my body. It does what it does. I try and control my emotions and my thoughts. I expend so much energy each day trying to get through it without completely losing my composure. To say it is grueling would be an understatement. It's constant, persistent, nagging, abrasive, and refuses to give up its occupancy in my being. It makes me tired, yet I refuse to give up. I refuse to give into this fight for something that I believe in and know in my heart of hearts is true. What kind of a person would I be if I did that?

When I came home from Korea, I remember having similar battles with my body and my emotions. I was scared and felt completely out of my element. My life and the world that I knew was completely tossed upside down. In coming back, I had no choice but to make sense of it again. Try as I might, there was a void that could never be filled. And while it has ebbed and flowed since I've been back, I can still feel its presence or some left over pieces of it floating around - unable to be corralled. I gained a new perspective, many new perspectives, on my own life throughout that experience. As the emotions swirled, the thoughts jumbled and collided, and as my body broke down, I knew I had to find a way to heal.

The ability to use my voice, whether audibly or written, has been one of the most healing aspects of my various life journeys, including Korea. For the past couple of days I feel that I have not been able to use one of the my most therapeutic and necessary tools. Holding my words, my thoughts, my emotions in, with no release, is destructive and imprisoning. I'm held captive by my own silence. Let my voice be the flashlight. Let my voice be the ribbons tied to the trees so you can find your way home. Let my voice continue to speak of beautiful things that you know are true and you know are right within your heart and mine. Let my voice be heard in a way that you haven't heard it yet. Please...

Another Beginning to be Had

Finally, a curve in the road. I could finally see what lie ahead of me instead of staring into the back end of a maroon Toyota Scion. Brake lights on, brake lights off, brake lights on - sustained for about 7 seconds - brake lights off, brake lights flicker and blink momentarily - inch by inch we crawl forward.

The bend in the road allowed me to see the snaking traffic as it coiled and slithered its way around the lanes of the freeway as they divided off into various directions - casting cars off to where? Home? Evening jobs? The gym? Out with friends? To nowhere? Perhaps ust to more road to travel for many purposes, or no purpose at all.

In a sea of taillights reaching - stretching - further than I could see, I let myself zone out into the music that coursed through the interior of my car. It allowed for a dissociative kind of retreat from the back of the Scion and the countless red lights sometimes swelling in luminosity - brake lights off, brake lights on, etc. The ambient tones of the music and the rumbling pacing beat of the bass offered a much welcomed auditory massage. I hate rush hour traffic.

As I was rounding the bend where 35W winds its way down to 94W, I remember glancing over at the Minneapolis skyline. The steam that rose from various buildings created a low lying cloud of sorts that blocked out the bottoms of the skyscrapers. It was a floating city, hovering silently next to the noise, the buzz, the sloppiness, and the impatience of rush hour traffic. My music seemed a fitting soundtrack to this floating city. The juxtaposition both visually and emotionally was alarming and jolting, yet, in that moment, it fit. It made sense. The effect seemed natural and familiar. The mismatch was one that only a smack back into reality could demolish. Otherwise, I am fairly certain I would have lived the rest of my life thinking Minneapolis was a floating city and the traffic was the sea of red that churned and coursed below its surface.

I was on my way to meet a friend I hadnt seen in some time. I was late. Only finding relief in that brief moment I glanced over at the skyline, I was annoyed by the traffic, my dirty windshield from the road spray, and the slower-than-snail's-pace that we were crawling. As my eyes shifted from the buildings back to the road, my phone rang. I answered. What happened next would mark one of the hugest significant changes in my life.

For the past several months I had been working extremely hard applying to PhD programs. This included taking the much dreaded GRE. In not a whole lot of time I dedicated my life it seems to writing personal statements, revising writing samples, filling out applications and dealing with frustrating technicalities, and gathering letters of recommendation. I shed more tears than I wanted to studying for the GRE. I wore out my brain and I wore out my body. I have been waiting for the last month to hear whether or not I would get into a program. I met with faculty in the departments I applied to. I still have more meetings yet to come. I researched and gathered as much information as possible. Most of all, I sent out as much positivity and hope to the Universe where I truly felt a door was open for me. If I was good enough, and this was really my time, I would be allowed to walk through.

Tonight around 6 o'clock, stuck in rush hour, and existing in a moment of surrealism, staring at the floating city wandering off into my music, and reality, watching in agonizing frustration the back of that Scion, I got a call. My primary application reviewer was on the other line. In all of the words he shared with me of my acceptance into the Family Social Science PhD program, all I remember are the following: "We all think you're terrific" and "We hope you will choose Family Social Science." There was something about February 19th, which I think is the welcome retreat and more about a letter I should be receiving in the near future.

My body was so overcome by excitement and joy. This acceptance means far more to me than just furthering my academic and professional pursuits. It signifies the beginnings of a new beginning. It's a prominent mark in my life journey and I honestly believe it is the Universe giving me an opportunity to begin - begin so many things. In those few minutes after the call, I traveled to the furthest quadrants of the world! I traveled back through almost 33 years of life and back again. The only thing keeping me in one piece was my seatbelt! If I didnt think I would cause the death of innocent drivers or even myself, I would have thrown on the emergency break, jumped out of my car, and sprinted through the lanes of traffic pounding on hoods, screaming, laughing, and crying. With my heart pounding, my body literally vibrating, my face numb, an ear to ear smile, and tears in my eyes, the phone calls rolled out.

2010 ended with a bang. 2011 has begun with an explosion! I still wait to hear from the School of Social Work about whether or not they will accept me into their PhD program. I should hear sometime in March. For the time being, I for sure know I have the option and opportunity to begin my studies in Family Social Science focusing on adoption research and the intersections of racial, ethnic, and cultural identities and GLBTQ identities. I am beyond excited to embark on this new adventure. Thank you to everyone who supported me and helped me in various ways. Thank you especially to those who had to put up with me during the process when I wasnt the most pleasant to be around. Your belief in me and encouragement has meant so much - much more than a thank you could ever convey. For now a thank you is what I have. Perhaps if I studied my GRE vocabulary more I would have a better selection of appreciative sentiments!

Hockey Ponds, Woods, and Monkey Bars

The house I grew up in is situated in a precarious place if you think about it. It's almost is if the very land it sits on exists only to provide the ground on which to support a house, a yard, and many many memories. The address is at the dead end of a residential street on a neighborhood that has been around since, I believe, sometime in the 40s. The long dirt driveway that descends into the cozy hollow where the house sits, surrounded by a small patch of forest that has lost its denseness and extensive land cover over the years, is actually owned by the city. As part of the easement with the property, we have permission to use it as a driveway - our only escape to the rest of the world, at least by vehicle.

Our backyard looks out upon a newer housing development that tore up the woods and poisoned the ground water with toxic chemicals that leaked out of metal barrels buried beneath the ground by a major corporation that built up on the land just a couple of blocks away. The street that winds its way through this newer neighborhood, created sometime in the early 90s, is lined with modern houses that went up in less than two weeks. Every third house repeats a similar design and color-scheme. It's drab and commercial - unexciting and a symbol of our desire for fast, new, material and cosmetic things. Our backyard still contains the monkey bars built by my father in the early 80s that now provide a secure structure and foundation for various vines to scale - twisting, turning, and hugging the wooden beams and metal bars as they continue to reach for what lies just beyond. Rising above the monkey bars and our crab apple tree, the old, white, stucco house rises higher than the other homes upon its throne as it sits on top of a small hill that used to provide hours of sledding fun in the winter for two little kids who were barely taller than the snowdrifts that accumulated back there.

Through our front yard, yet another newer housing development built during the late 80s/early 90s, depleted the large grassy hill that was the site of kite flying in the summer and sledding excursions in the winter. A holding pond stands between the limits of our front yard and this neighborhood. I grew up learning how to play hockey on this pond. During the winter, I remember waking up and peering out my window which had a nice bird's eye view of the pond. If I saw anyone up there, I was immediately out the door, my jacket barely on, dropping a trail of skate blade covers, hockey pucks, and mittens as I sprinted up to the pond to join in the fun. I would be on the pond from sun up to sun down. I can still hear the sounds of our skate blades scraping the smooth surface of the ice, carving out our existence and our memories. I still see the pucks racing across the ice slapping from stick to stick. The footbridge that one of the neighbors built across the pond is filled with boots, skate guards, extra sticks and pucks, and slowly accumulates more jackets and hats as we strip layers as our games pick up and we sweat more. The neighbors would plow the pond after a snowfall and would occasionally flood it so we had a smooth surface on which to play some massive neighborhood pick up games. The neighbors installed strong flood lights that would illuminate the pond through the night. Some of the best memories of my life have taken place on that pond. It was the central hub that not only brought together two neighborhoods, but also the friends and families of the residents of these two neighborhoods. Holidays oftentimes brought extended families and distant friends. It seems everyone found a place on that pond whether it was playing hockey, sledding down the hill between the houses, or warming themselves by the fires that we sometimes built on the frozen shores. As I've grown older and moved away, so have all of the kids that I played hockey with. Sometimes when I am visiting my mom, I will find myself gazing out of my old bedroom window at the old pond. Today it is desolate, dark, uncared for and as much as I am filled with the memories of yesterday, I am also filled with some sadness of my distant childhood memories.

I think about the places, spaces, and times that used to be home for me - the significance of their meaning and existence in my life then, and the memories I have of them today. Many times I long for the days when life seemed easy - get up and play hockey with the neighborhood all day, build forts in the woods in our backyard, fly kites on top of the grassy hill, and the variety of competitions we would have on the monkey bars. Life was carefree and easy. I didnt have to think, I just had to play. The only worrying I did about tomorrow was hoping that there'd be enough people on the pond to play hockey or that my neighbor friends would be home and able to come and play in the woods. Today life is far from a day-long hockey game or an awesome tree fort in the woods. What home and family has meant to me has never changed in definition besides all of the oftentimes challenging events that have taken place in my life. When I'm visiting my childhood home, where my mom still lives, I can see us in the cul-du-sac playing baseball or street hockey. I see all of us racing our bikes down the street. I still remember the one neighbor yelling at us all the time for tearing up his yard playing football. It was just the perfect yard for it. How could we not? I am still up on the pond playing hours of hockey. I am exploring the woods with my friends building tree forts and having Goonies (80s movie reference) adventures. I am still climbing all over our monkey bars with my friends - making our way to the top and shimmying out to the middle to sit talking about those important life topics that 13 year-olds find important.

For me, becoming an adult was not an easy transition. Rather, it has been full of many challenges, difficulties, and pain. Of course there have been many positives as well. I certainly dont mean to paint such a dreary picture, but, something happened along the way that jolted me away from those fun, carefree childhood memories. People left my life. For many years through adolescence into early adulthood, I felt like my life was comprised only of people leaving, relationships ending, and people I thought I knew becoming strangers to me. Worst of all, I think I became estranged from my own self. The past 6 years or so have marked a journey of self re-discovery for me. I've worked hard to connect my childhood with my adulthood by filling in the gaps of those missing lonely years. The path is unfamiliar and sometimes feels too challenging to continue on, but, every moment of every day, I continue to put one foot in front of the other. Each step I take I am discovering something new about myself - or perhaps I am reacquainting myself with parts of me I forgot or left behind long ago.

I was reading my friend's blog the other day and she had posted a poem by Veronica A. Shoffstall. One of the lines in there really stuck out to me and I wanted to share it here:

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

As I continue down my life path, I have come to realize that no matter how much I want someone to bring me flowers, no one ever will. I will say I dont pride myself on my green thumb or interior design abilities, but I also know I have barely tried. As I begin this new calender year and this new year in my life with 33 fast approaching, I commit to myself to hone in on my gardening and design skills. Even if it's sloppy and the flowers don't grow right away or choke each other out, I will continue to try. I promise to not clutter my soul with old habits and thought patterns because life and people in my life are good. I am good. I deserve to tend my own garden and to choose my own wall-hanginings. I will try to live my life on that old hockey pond and in our woods - places that not only remind me of home, but ARE home. And it is in my home where my garden exists and continues to grow. Now, it's time to water.

Home Is Where I Am

I have come to realize that home is not a structure. It's not a house that makes a home, it's me that makes home. We are taught and socialized to understand our home as our house or some material structure in which all of those we consider family can share space and where our belongings can be, or something along those lines. And for some, this is home. For me, one thing that Korea taught me is that home is much more of a state of being than it is a house, a geographic location, or anything that is tangible.

While the house I grew up in has very much been my home, my true sense of home there belongs to the spaces between the paint splotches that are still on the floor in our basement where my dad's studio used to be. I still smell the beer on my dad's breath and can see that Special Export bottle sitting on the counter. I hear the classical music as it finds its way into every corner of that studio. And there's my dad, painting in his yellow and blue coach's hoody. My sense of home is in my old room remembering the plastic/vinyl shades that were in there when I was little and the way they sounded as they were being drawn at night when my parents would tuck my sister and me into bed and the feeling of love and security that even the sounds of shades being drawn evoked in me. Home is also the sound the shades made as they were being opened by my mom when she came to wake us up in the mornings when sleep still consumed my body and with heavy eyes that couldn't stay open, I retreated further into my warm blankets as the first light of a new morning came streaming into the room. These memories, even today with the paint blotches covered up, blinds instead of shades, and how I feel when I remember this make home for me.

Photography has also offered a sense of home for me in that I am truly out of my body and literally in with nature. This is the only thing that is truly meditative. When I can be outside standing in a stream, perched precariously on a rock wall, or laying in the dirt, grass, or snow trying to capture that perfect shot, everything fades away except for what I see in my viewfinder. And, it's not so much the physical pieces of the composition, although obviously that's there too, but it's the feeling, the smell, the emotion, the taste in the air, and the sounds that are abundantly present in every shot I take. Photography is such a sensory experience for me unlike anything else I have experienced. My mind and my body are at ease and things make sense without having to think about anything. The world in my photography realm is perfect and I feel completely whole and completely at peace. I am at home.

I remember being in college. I lived in the dorms my first year. Our beds were lofted and actually quite close to the ceiling as a result of poor measurement by my roommate's family who built the lofts. My first year of college in the beginning was pretty intense emotionally. And while my dorm room was certainly not home, what was home for me was a small patch of glow in the dark stars I had put on the ceiling just above my head. I would fall asleep every night looking at those stars listening to some relaxing music - ambient synthesizers, slow soft piano, low rumbling percussion - that carried my body away. In those brief moments before sleep consumed my body, looking at those plastic stars, and being overtaken by the beautiful music in my headphones, I was home.

As has been previously mentioned in some of my blogs, the night sky has always had a very significant meaning in my life. The night sky is my home. I could lay for hours and just lose myself in its awesomeness and mystery. The stars, the distant galaxies, the planets, the dark spaces between, and all of the questions and ponderings that I have sent up there to wander around until the next time I can visit - these all make up a feeling of home for me. Combining stargazing and photography, which I try and do often, creates the ultimate experience of closeness, completeness, and wholeness within myself.

Biking and running have also fostered a sense of home for me. It's not so much the act of doing it or even how I feel in terms of working out my body, but it's more in the tuning into the sound of my bike as the tires hum on the pavement, the clicks of the gears and movement of the chain, the turning over of the pedals, and the sound of the wind as my body and bike slice through. With running it's about the sounds of my feet hitting the pavement and the different sounds and pitches that change as I run through a sandy patch, a puddle, or crunch through the snow. It's the ability to cycle through my thoughts and my emotions from a place of objectivity, of feeling secure with myself, and of knowing that no matter what, things will be alright. Perhaps it's the endorphins that aid in this kind of thinking, feeling, and being, but I also think it's the result of being truly one with myself.

Feeling the pull and the draw of my body to my home home in Korea as I prepared for the trip, feeling the tug of the Yellow Sea as it willed me to stay while on the beach in Jeju, and feeling such emptiness for not only the land, but also the state of feeling whole and complete in Korea, taught me that home for me is a state of being and the sensory experiences that bring about memories and emotions that seem to fill in the holes in my life if even for only a moment. While the moments can be brief and fleeting, I take comfort in knowing that wherever I am, I can always go home.

My Many Birthdays

August 6, 2010, I learn finally who Lee, ChoHee was as I visit the orphanage in Seoul where I spent the first six and a half months of my life. A few weeks after my return, I continue to learn more about my Korean name. When I was at the orphanage, I was told that the orphanage named me, however, upon further review of my file by some friends who read and speak Korean and who know more than I do about what certain things in files mean, it appears that my birth family named me. Lee, ChoHee, my name of origin. I am fascinated!

October 5, 2010, I was driving home from a friend's Korean dance and drum studio after having an amazing home cooked Korean meal and sharing a night of conversation and food with friends new and old. It struck me as I was heading south on Cretin Ave., a usual route home for me, that tonight was my last night of being what is now my former legal name - a name I had had for 32 years. I felt sad. As much as I am and have not been that person for a while now, it was and always will be a significant part of my identity. It was the second name I was given in my life when I arrived in Minnesota.

October 6, 2010, approximately 10:45am, I, Shawyn Lee, am born at the Ramsey County Courthouse. It was a quick and painless delivery and many were witness to this glorious day! Although I have lived as Shawyn for the past 2 years and 2 months, I finally was able to have my name legally changed. Now, I wait for the official court documents to arrive and then I can begin changing my name on my ids, bank accounts, insurance, etc. Shawyn is the third name I have had - a name that I intentionally gave to myself as I felt it is an accurate and complete representation of who I am in terms of gender identity and expression and in terms of my Korean identity.

October 6, 2010, I also celebrate a year of being alcohol free. A year ago, after not even being able to finish a Mich Ultra by the river on a late fall night, I didnt even realize that would be my last drink. I think a few days or a week later, I made the decision to remain alcohol free for the rest of my life. Here's to year 1!

I hope the rest of 2010 is full of good things and wonderful surprises...like maybe somehow legally procuring a massive amount of money!