Day 85, June 9, 2020
Tonight's soundtrack: Prince, Loring Park Sessions 1977
The colors out in the yard tonight are various shades of green grass, leaves on the trees, and purple from the irises. We went on a walk in the late afternoon and passed the signs from yesterday afternoon's demonstration in Montague Center. Walking down to the conservation area we passed a group of puppies, a Korean woman and her friend, in the distance was a woman in a burka by the swimming area, and gathering of people lounging in the grass. The world is in someways the same, and in others it is still profoundly different.
I've been trying my best to stay attentive during a series of webinars I'm attending for work. It is hard. There is only so much I can tolerate of talking heads before I start to lose focus and start feeling nauseous. At least in meetings one can interact, but being a passive faceless audience member is too disjointed for me, and then I start multitasking, trying to answer email, run through the long list of tasks I have, and I guess that's when I start getting woozy. I found even the simplest emails were riddled with errors and I had to proofread them multiple times, probably from the strain of trying to block out the talking heads while trying to focus on the task at hand.
At some point I gave up, took Franklin outside. I didn't take him down to the river (yesterday he found something marvelous to roll in and that disrupted my day with the need for a dog bath), instead we stayed in the yard, checked the mail, fed knotweed to the chickens, then in a moment of inspiration I planted the perilla seeds that have been sitting in a jar on the kitchen counter since last year.
Perilla is one of those constants in my life, it makes me think of home. Growing up, we called them sesame leaves. I'm not sure why. It has such a distinct smell, and a bitter taste... something like licorice, which I wouldn't ordinarily gravitate towards, but someone told me recently that scents are the strongest connection to memory, and I guess that is true for perilla leaves. I ate them lightly battered and fried (their seed pods too), marinated and used to wrap rice, or just fresh as part of saam (fresh lettuces used to wrap rice, meat, kimchee, etc.). And in Korea I could taste it embedded in kimbap. Even if I don't eat it too much (there is a jar of marinated leaves in my fridge from two seasons ago), it is one of those things that make me feel grounded and in touch with my roots.
As a Korean, I have a challenging tenuous connection to my heritage. I grew up in a dichotomous existence, for much of my life living in a predominantly white suburb of Boston where I went to the public high school with one group of people, and then on weekends, was fully immersed with Koreans through the Korean church in Brookline, which at the time drew a large pool of Koreans from east of Worcester. My friend groups never mixed. I had crushes on girls from either group but they existed independently, I played football with each group, and was introduced to rock and roll by each (Chip played the neighborhood kids his sister's Queen album in the basement, and Charles introduced me to high definition metal cassette tapes and The Police). But the groups never met. And while there were similarities, there were some vast differences, and one of those differences was food, so perhaps that is why the smell of certain foods evoke such a connection.
I had, and still have only a very basic understanding of the Korean language, and particularly among first generation parents, that was a barrier, and for the kids who immigrated, they at least had that identity to fall back on. I don't think I grew up with an understanding that there was something I could latch onto. It was just an in-between space between whiteness and being Korean, neither of which felt wholly embracing of me, or embraceable by me. This was mostly before the age of hyphens, there was basically Bruce Lee, the extras in MASH, the Long Duk Dong characters of the age, oh and David Carradine in Kung-Fu. So there weren't a whole lot of role models out there.
I had, as do all kids, an intense desire to fit in. I thought if I could just wear the right clothes, use the right mannerisms (remember boys blowing their hair out of their eyes in an pose of exasperation?), be the right kind of cool, I would find acceptance with the white kids in my school, in my neighborhood. But I never really did. I had some great friends, people who embraced me as a whole individual, but that was relatively rare, and in groups I was mostly on the periphery. What I didn't realize at the time, was that with my Korean friends, I was never on the periphery by myself. I didn't feel that way, but the reality was that we were all on the periphery. We were all experiencing the disconnect, trying to figure out how we bridged cultures, what we rejected, what we would retain, what we would embrace.
It is a life-long struggle, I suppose. I have visions of how an hybrid culture could be expressed, through music in a pansori-style rock and roll band, through my unwritten novel about what happens to a shaman born into the contemporary diaspora, through a fusion cuisine at the dinner table. I don't quite have that dexterity yet... but I aspire to it.
For now I inhabit the middle ground. I listen and watch from the periphery. At some point, trying to fit in became exhausting and I rejected the endeavor. I decided to be independent, to disengage from the endeavor of belonging and focus on maintaining myself. It has been a hardening process, and left me somewhat disconnected from other people, and at times a bit lonely so that sometimes, when I see another Korean person out in the woods of Montague, I start to fumble over words and awkwardly introduce myself, ask where she lives, and say other things that would probably be interpreted as inappropriate or at least clumsy. But instead, I restrain myself, say hello, and smile at the Korean person and give a little nod of acknowledgement.
In this moment, there are so many conversations about race. It occupies at least the first part of every Zoom meeting and webinar. Even as we are united in our desire for change, it also highlights the differences, and I again inhabit a middle ground as an unidentifiable person of color. It is not the time to accentuate that or to plant a flag and declare my space. My role is is help people progress, to help build pathways forward. But sometimes it is tiring. A friend, Michelle, warned me to take care of myself. And I am trying. I am planting perilla instead of watching a webinar, I am looking forward to a day when I can nap when I want to, I am looking forward to a vacation where I sequester myself in the basement and record that solo album, start the novel, finish the book of poems, cook a bowl of naengmyeon on a really hot day.
Peace,
Leo
TIME: 2:00 p.m. EST
Sesame Leaves
The colors out in the yard tonight are various shades of green grass, leaves on the trees, and purple from the irises. We went on a walk in the late afternoon and passed the signs from yesterday afternoon's demonstration in Montague Center. Walking down to the conservation area we passed a group of puppies, a Korean woman and her friend, in the distance was a woman in a burka by the swimming area, and gathering of people lounging in the grass. The world is in someways the same, and in others it is still profoundly different.
I've been trying my best to stay attentive during a series of webinars I'm attending for work. It is hard. There is only so much I can tolerate of talking heads before I start to lose focus and start feeling nauseous. At least in meetings one can interact, but being a passive faceless audience member is too disjointed for me, and then I start multitasking, trying to answer email, run through the long list of tasks I have, and I guess that's when I start getting woozy. I found even the simplest emails were riddled with errors and I had to proofread them multiple times, probably from the strain of trying to block out the talking heads while trying to focus on the task at hand.At some point I gave up, took Franklin outside. I didn't take him down to the river (yesterday he found something marvelous to roll in and that disrupted my day with the need for a dog bath), instead we stayed in the yard, checked the mail, fed knotweed to the chickens, then in a moment of inspiration I planted the perilla seeds that have been sitting in a jar on the kitchen counter since last year.
Perilla is one of those constants in my life, it makes me think of home. Growing up, we called them sesame leaves. I'm not sure why. It has such a distinct smell, and a bitter taste... something like licorice, which I wouldn't ordinarily gravitate towards, but someone told me recently that scents are the strongest connection to memory, and I guess that is true for perilla leaves. I ate them lightly battered and fried (their seed pods too), marinated and used to wrap rice, or just fresh as part of saam (fresh lettuces used to wrap rice, meat, kimchee, etc.). And in Korea I could taste it embedded in kimbap. Even if I don't eat it too much (there is a jar of marinated leaves in my fridge from two seasons ago), it is one of those things that make me feel grounded and in touch with my roots.
As a Korean, I have a challenging tenuous connection to my heritage. I grew up in a dichotomous existence, for much of my life living in a predominantly white suburb of Boston where I went to the public high school with one group of people, and then on weekends, was fully immersed with Koreans through the Korean church in Brookline, which at the time drew a large pool of Koreans from east of Worcester. My friend groups never mixed. I had crushes on girls from either group but they existed independently, I played football with each group, and was introduced to rock and roll by each (Chip played the neighborhood kids his sister's Queen album in the basement, and Charles introduced me to high definition metal cassette tapes and The Police). But the groups never met. And while there were similarities, there were some vast differences, and one of those differences was food, so perhaps that is why the smell of certain foods evoke such a connection.
I had, and still have only a very basic understanding of the Korean language, and particularly among first generation parents, that was a barrier, and for the kids who immigrated, they at least had that identity to fall back on. I don't think I grew up with an understanding that there was something I could latch onto. It was just an in-between space between whiteness and being Korean, neither of which felt wholly embracing of me, or embraceable by me. This was mostly before the age of hyphens, there was basically Bruce Lee, the extras in MASH, the Long Duk Dong characters of the age, oh and David Carradine in Kung-Fu. So there weren't a whole lot of role models out there.
I had, as do all kids, an intense desire to fit in. I thought if I could just wear the right clothes, use the right mannerisms (remember boys blowing their hair out of their eyes in an pose of exasperation?), be the right kind of cool, I would find acceptance with the white kids in my school, in my neighborhood. But I never really did. I had some great friends, people who embraced me as a whole individual, but that was relatively rare, and in groups I was mostly on the periphery. What I didn't realize at the time, was that with my Korean friends, I was never on the periphery by myself. I didn't feel that way, but the reality was that we were all on the periphery. We were all experiencing the disconnect, trying to figure out how we bridged cultures, what we rejected, what we would retain, what we would embrace.
It is a life-long struggle, I suppose. I have visions of how an hybrid culture could be expressed, through music in a pansori-style rock and roll band, through my unwritten novel about what happens to a shaman born into the contemporary diaspora, through a fusion cuisine at the dinner table. I don't quite have that dexterity yet... but I aspire to it.
For now I inhabit the middle ground. I listen and watch from the periphery. At some point, trying to fit in became exhausting and I rejected the endeavor. I decided to be independent, to disengage from the endeavor of belonging and focus on maintaining myself. It has been a hardening process, and left me somewhat disconnected from other people, and at times a bit lonely so that sometimes, when I see another Korean person out in the woods of Montague, I start to fumble over words and awkwardly introduce myself, ask where she lives, and say other things that would probably be interpreted as inappropriate or at least clumsy. But instead, I restrain myself, say hello, and smile at the Korean person and give a little nod of acknowledgement.
In this moment, there are so many conversations about race. It occupies at least the first part of every Zoom meeting and webinar. Even as we are united in our desire for change, it also highlights the differences, and I again inhabit a middle ground as an unidentifiable person of color. It is not the time to accentuate that or to plant a flag and declare my space. My role is is help people progress, to help build pathways forward. But sometimes it is tiring. A friend, Michelle, warned me to take care of myself. And I am trying. I am planting perilla instead of watching a webinar, I am looking forward to a day when I can nap when I want to, I am looking forward to a vacation where I sequester myself in the basement and record that solo album, start the novel, finish the book of poems, cook a bowl of naengmyeon on a really hot day.
Peace,
Leo
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| Franklin loves to eat corn on the cob. |
From Our Friends:
From Bob Barba:
Bob's poem "The Smell of Mice" is spotlighted today in the Straw Dog Writer's Guild's Pandemic Poetry and Prose: Writing in the Time of Corona page!From Linda McCarthy via SpeakOut:
As people nationwide demand systemic change and as campuses adapt to the impact of the pandemic, how can those of us working in the arena of higher education transform our institutions and learning environments?
From FandangoNow:
Stream The Hate U Give for free. Based on the novel by Angie Thomas. I haven't seen the movie yet, but the book is powerfully appropriate for the moment and works well in conjunction with Jeff Chang's We Got' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation.From Inside Higher Ed:
Instead of offering yet another special-focus course, institutions must fully integrate truly diverse and inclusive subject matter into survey and required courses, argues Christiane Warren. »
From Diverse Issues in Higher Education:
by Adriel A. Hilton
Over the past several weeks, an increasing number of White colleagues and friends have reached out to me inquiring how they can better support Black people. Specifically, they have asked where to donate monies, what to say to show support to their Black colleagues, and what books they should read. Of these, the latter has been among the most recurrent question I have been asked.
From Magna:
DATE: Thursday, June 18, 2020TIME: 2:00 p.m. EST
Our free Magna Online Seminar, The Role of Higher Education in Times of Crisis: Healing Strategies for Educators, is for academic leaders and faculty who are challenged with effective communication during a time of social unrest. This 60-minute online seminar will present you with direction to provide healing, helping, education, and engagement.
Today's Online Teaching Tips:
From BlackBoard:
Mastering the art and science of online learning is not only about managing the technologies. It is about developing your digital capability around these 6 core competency areas.
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