Over the Hills and Far Away

Driving around the city a few nights ago, I realized something I missed about my old country life in Korea. There was a time when I lived in a small farming village. Behind my apartment was a mountain I would traverse to get to my place of work. At dusk, the sun would gently sink into the rice paddies, nourishing the earth with its milky light. And then it would grow dark. Really dark. The gentle woods of the mountain took on the gnarled hedges of an ancient labyrinth. At first it felt like Mr. Hyde had cast a spell--I wonder why I just didn't take the bus. But in time I grew to trust the moonlight, and when the clouds came out, I put my faith in the mountain itself. I knew it would never betray my footsteps. Here in New York, I'm sure I've never felt quite as secure and sure-footed on the city's well-lit streets and concrete pavements, where all the cops stand guard to protect against the forces of darkness. Only in the country does the darkness empower.

A Time to Fall, A Time to Move On

With the autumn leaves scaling off at a quickening pace, I suppose it's only natural to find myself thinking about all the things I'm grateful for. Being HIV+ has not been without its positives. Perhaps one of the best things to have come about is that I find myself focused on the present. I take my medicines every morning and work out as often as I can. I enjoy the company of my family and friends. I try to learn something new about the world every day. I wonder about God and what heaven must be like. In short, I try to take care of myself physically, mentally and spiritually. But it's also apparent that I haven't evolved to the point where I am free of regrets. A lot has happened since I was deported from Korea for being HIV+. A huge tennis fan, I would have given anything to see Roger Federer and Pete Sampras playing their exhibition match in Seoul yesterday. I never got to take leisurely walks along the fantastic Cheonggye Stream that now runs through downtown (even though I surely earned the right to enjoy it after sitting in countless traffic delays because of construction on the waterway project.) I also never got to zip across the peninsula in the comfort of the KTX, the bullet train that's cut travel times in half and increased comfort levels at least a million-fold. I know some people will say that I have nothing to complain about as long as I've got my health. (My last t-cell count was 1399 and my viral load is still undetectable after three years.) So why is it I still long for the things that have been lost on the road of my past? I guess I've still got a long ways to go.

"I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me..."

I'm sitting here alone in my room, but not particularly lonely this cold autumn night. In fact, I'm feeling rather amazed as I hear Oscar Wilde, seated across the room from me with legs crossed, saying drolly, "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life." I put down the book I am reading, Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood, and find myself forced into humble agreement. I'm about one-third of the way finished, and acutely aware that I'm looking for any excuse to put this book down when I can because I don't think I can bear for it to end. Toru Watanabe is the main character. He and I are the same age, and we are both writing because it is the only way we can understand the things that have happened to us. Toru's life forever changed when his best friend in high school committed suicide--just as my life did when the Asia I loved blacked out of existence and slipped into a coma it would never wake up from. I actually first set eyes on this book nearly seven years ago. My best friend in Korea, Sung, had given it to me on my birthday. I think you would really like it, he said in the artless way he always spoke. Naturally, I put the thing aside and never got around to it. I don't know why I wandered into a bookstore at Penn Station last Thursday. Or why I should have suddenly remembered after all this time. But there it was. My hand trembled as I took it down from the shelf. I felt as if Sung was trying to tell me something--perhaps that we had been best friends for reasons we would never fully comprehend.