I arrived in Osaka en route to
Pusan on my 27th birthday, almost two months ago. I had flown from
Istanbul. I was burnt out, heart broken for having left my
girlfriend behind in Istanbul and I felt like my uselessness spread
out in all directions forever. I was being eaten inside out by
regret, self pity and doubt concerning all I was doing. I was
kicking myself for not saying bye to all my friends in Canada and
Istanbul but I had discovered that I was more inclined to run away,
rather than put on airs like I was actually doing something I wanted
to. Fueled more by a need to escape under the scrutiny of my shame,
I said a quick good bye to my sister at the airport in Toronto and
departed. I spent a week in paradiszical good humour on the
Mediterranean coast of Turkey. I had been reunited with my
girlfriend and we found a garden speckled by falling fruit
blossoms to spoil ourselves in a sensuous atmosphere of great food
and red wine conversation at a tree house pension. Again I
disappeared from there without giving old friends even so much as a
phone call of greeting.
The reason for my
communicative reluctance was that only four months before I had been
teaching in Istanbul. The thought of doing it all over again in
Korea made me weary. A year or so before that, I had said good bye
to friends and family and flew out of my bottled universe, out of
the sea it floated in, and into Istanbul. After a year I had
returned home invigorated with plans for making plans for the
future. In a couple of weeks I was broke and looking for work as an
english teeacher in TOronto. In the meantime I slept on my moms
couch with my ever loving sister and watched comfortably as the
vector that was my life wasted away into a pathetic limp french fry
on the end of a plastic fork.
Depressed and
desperate I jumped at the first opportunity suggested to me by a
friend from Istanbul. Come to Korea if you need a job. O.k., I said.
And I was gone before anyone knew it. I couldn't muster up the
strength to say good byes again and again. I justified my inability
in many ways but I still felt like an idiot. That week in Turkey up
and ended and I got on a plane drunk and sleepy, numbed to any idea
of good bye or missing you or caring where I was going. Someone was
supposed to meet me at the Pusan airport and I was going to try and
be there.
I arrived in Osaka en route to Pusan
almost two months ago...The challenge of learning about a new
culture which quite honestly I didn't care about was a bridge that
was approaching fast. My aspiring young dreams, born of some
unexplained spiritual craving, had occupied the last eight years of
my life. I had been questing for the blissful awareness of eternity
(experienced once before, by accident, as a pile of shit stinking in
the back of a chevrolet station wagon). The dreams though left me
stumbling blind and broke and still I clung tenuously to their
sinking walls. But, I had to put them on hold for awhile so I could
make some money and pay back those god forsaken loans which I had
accumulated in a typical bout of self indulgent anti utility at
University. The entire masquerade of revelatory revaluation of the
soul was unwrapped, chewed up and spit out in a matter of months
despite a Herculean will for postponing reality in favour of
transcending ones responsibility by diligently working out on the
couch.
I remember in one or another of these
work out sessions, blessed with the company of a likeminded
individual I sat up and pronounced, "You know, I just realized the
other day that all this shit on tv is really really SHIT! Isn't it?"
I felt as if the words had touched something beyond me. As if for
the first time language had successfuly traversed that crevass
between world and self and actually came to mean something. My
friend nodded in benevolent understanding and was thoughtful enough
to encourage me by saying, "I'd be proud to realize that shit on tv
is really shit." I looked at him and marvelled at my new
understanding but fearful of presuming too much and not seeing the
greater picture, I secretly questioned the point of being proud when
after all, if the shit wasn't shit so I could realize it as shit
then I would never have found myself in this moment of
enlightenment. Shit! I thought. It's part of the masterplan, it's
not a mountain at all, and I glanced sideways to suppress a little
grin. We flipped around the channels some more looking for something
to watch but it was too late anyways so I passed out.
It was this environment of love and security that I had left. A
freezer bursting with lasagna, ice cream, meat pies...cupboards
stuffed with soup, granola bars and kraft dinner and then there was
the cheese. The beautiful cheese. Old cheddar, havarti, swiss, blue
and to go with all of that red hot chili jelly, fine pickles, spicy
salamis. All gone, I stood in Osaka airport waiting for my
connecting flight. I stared out the wall of glass onto the airstrip.
i dipped my chopsticks into Ramyon (cousin to Mr. Noodles) and tried
to lift the wet wriggling stuff to my mouth. It might as well be
pubic hair for all the mourishment it gives you. I was reminded of
university and the black cloud of a government loan that had sealed
my fate. I wondered about the future...
Suddenly I'm
in my new apartment looking out over the scrapyard which is my
backyard. I've become quite fond of it and the alleyway that leads
me to and from every new day. It's Sunday, two months later and the
day is sunny, quiet and calm. I am alive and although I'm nearly as
ignorant as when I arrived in matters of language and culture (not
to mention logic) I have been able to send some money home towards
my loan. My job pays and my boss treats me well except when he's
beating me senseless on Saturdays with a podium used for spelling
bees. People have been real kind and have been showing me around.
Where to drink, what to eat...I'm going to the beach now. See ya
later.
Everybody. Here comes the Pusanic
phenomenon.cheers.
love and thanks to all,D. and
Uncle Nasty, Cathy and Jade, Willybach, the Camel, Annabel, sada.
Saban. Mikey, Mr. Tooth, Keith and Ryan, Brooks' and the boyz,
family, grandma and sister love, all the girls travellin around the
world, and Buddha who told me to"not let belief in the self be
compromised by what you are taught to believe."
A
special thanks to those caged birds who inspired me to start writing
after such a long time running.
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