Category Archives: Fourth Phase

Commentary on Religion, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Poetry, Politics, Travel

Caverns Measureless to Man

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: CBE. Israel Trip meeting this morning. Mary, my physical therapist. Exercises. Exercising. Jet lag. A day per time zone. 15 time zones on MST. Oh. Israel. Hamas. Hezbollah. Iran. Palestinians. Two-state solution. The Pacific. The Atlantic. They Yellow Sea. The Sea of Japan. The Korean Peninsula. The Islands of Japan. The Rocky Mountains. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain. Conifer Mountain. The Night Sky. Darkness. The season of darkness. Samain. The Winter Solstice.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Night

One brief shining: Nash from the Schneider’s will include bagels, cream cheese, onion, tomatoes, and capers for us while we try to digest the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in Ashkelon and Gaza and Tel Aviv, and civilians both Palestinian and Israeli dying in their homes as we assess whether our trip to Jerusalem is as over as we all imagine it is.

 

So. The news continues to shock, dismay. Photographs of bodies, burned out cars, wrecked apartment buildings, fences, military vehicles. I continue to have double vision. With sorrow and grief for Israel, its promise and its failure, its dead. With sorrow and grief for Gaza and Palestine, people herded into narrow spaces, walled off, virtually imprisoned. No winners here. Only the eye of history scanning back and forth for that moment when things begin to change. Will this be it? I certainly hope so. For the dream that is a Jewish homeland. For the necessity that is a Palestinian state. For both to be true and friendly.

The enmeshed politics of the U.S., Iran, Russia, even Ukraine now threaded more deeply into the bloodied tapestry of the current Middle East. We support Israel. We support Hamas and the Palestinians. We support our Sunni brothers and sisters. We support our Shia brothers and sisters. We support. But support really means we are willing to kill those we don’t. Or, provide aid and comfort while our proxies do it for us. This part of the world is a nightmare for all who call it home and for all who have interests there. Yet for those who call it home it is just that. Home. I feel linked in sadness with all those who care for these troubled lands. All.

It is strange to have a personal stake in these events. But I do. A couple of weeks in Israel beginning on October 25th. Doubt it now. Meeting at CBE this morning with a representative of Keshet, the Israeli travel agency organizing the group part of the trip. Probably will start to unwind. I didn’t buy travel insurance so I’m not sure what the financial impact of a cancellation will be for me. Whether the airline will let me have a refund or a credit. Also strange to consider personal finances while people are dying. I need to, but it’s still strange.

Have to go get ready for the 8 am meeting at CBE. Our Keshet rep lives in Jerusalem so this will be first hand about what’s happening there. Keshet sent an e-mail to all of us yesterday outlining the financial commitments they’ve made to relief work as an organization. The needs are great and if you feel like donating there are many opportunities.

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Politics

Healing

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Sue Bradshaw. A quiet day. Discussing medical insurance with Julie Freshman. Alan. Tom. Diane. Joan. Marilyn. Irv. A bright blue Colorado morning. A cold night. Deep friendships. Agency. Loss of Agency. Contraction. Twins win! Baseball. Gabe. Ruth’s senior pictures. Songtan. My son. Osan. CBE. Ron. Rich. Jamie. Susan. Judy. Kate, always Kate.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The power of conversation

One brief shining: The smell of coffee comes up from the kitchen, the computer screen is blank waiting to be filled with today’s words sent from my mind to yours, and the heat pump rattles along squeezing hot air from the cooler air outside and pushing it inside.

 

Ah. The refreshing feel of a therapeutic conversation. Got off zoom with my buddy Tom and I feel cranked up and ready to go. The good morning time. MVP tonight. A day of friends and depth. I need it. As Tom and I discussed, feeling off center, not quite with it, in a malaise offers fertile ground for the Well of Sorrows to rise and become your whole consciousness. Saying that out loud to a friend who understands? Healing. Thanks, Tom, and in advance, all you MVP’ers. Especially Rich who is bringing the whole meal tonight. Cheese enchiladas and fixings. Yay, Rich.

 

Tomorrow I begin P.T. at Berrigan P.T. in the Buchanan Rec Center in Evergreen. The first step on a way back from this back kerfuffle. Mr. Lee and the Korean orthopedist calmed down my flare but I need a plan for my back I can follow. P.T.’s a good start.

Today I call the Lutheran Spine Center. They’ll work up my back more thoroughly than my Korean folks did. What the Korean guy would have done eventually. Between the two, p.t. and the Spine Center, I’ll figure out a way to organize my workouts to make my back as strong as it can be.

There is, I know, a chance they’ll tell me not to go to Israel. Apparently long walks are not good for spinal stenosis. And Israel is one long walk after another. I’ll still go and stay at least through the conversion and the Jerusalem leg of the group trip. Might choose to come home then rather than complete the itinerary. We’ll see. This is why I hopped on this so fast after getting back. Want to give myself maximum options.

 

How bout that Matt Gaetz? He showed Amurica. What a petty, narrow-minded, weasel can do if he doesn’t get what he wants for Christmas. Oh, wait. This is the United States Congress. Right? Hard to identify. I suggest we put in a playground with a see-saw, a sandbox, and a slide. After all these are the people running the most powerful country on earth. They should have what they need to relieve the stress of it all.

Oh. And another aspect of this. Guess who Marjorie Tyler Greene’s only candidate for speaker is? Donald Trump. That’s right. The Donald, that old fraudster. Wonder if she plans to hire Rudy as his aide?

 

 

 

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain, Travel

More on the Well of Sorrows

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Retinal nerve stable. Pressures stable. Good glaucoma news. Dr. Repine. Driving Deer Creek Canyon Road on the way home. Flaming Aspen torches lighting the way. The way the Mountain Fall varies by altitude and terrain. Brooks Tavern. Not good, but familiar and at home. First workout. Training the body. Seeing Sue Bradshaw today for back consultation, a plan to stay healthy enough to travel. Well, healthy enough. The Measure of Our Age. An excellent book on aging in America. That colon. Still on duty after all these years.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow Mountain beneath me. The Sky above me.

One brief shining: Deer Creek Canyon Road winds up from the high Plains into the Foot Hills following Deer Creek and the steep Canyon walls it has cut over millions of years of spring Snow Melt, Monsoon Rains, and steady, steady work; along the banks of the Creek the Willows and the Dogwood reflect back the golden light of the Aspens during this one short season when the Canyon road is its own torch light parade.

 

Back to my workouts. At last. Boy am I detrained. Weak and lacking stamina. Felt good to get back at it. Early days and slow, modest gains but that’s how comebacks work. I’ve done them before. This was an unusually long stretch of dormancy occasioned in part by travel, by allowing it to be that way, by my back issues, then the cold, then coming home. To live healthfully I know I need to keep up cardio, resistance with a focus on my core, balance, and flexibility. Over the years I’ve done well at the first three, not so much on the flexibility and that caught up with me. Workouts are mood lifters, too, and not working out can allow dark moods to deepen. Not trivial at all. The best and cheapest medicine. Then, good food.

Going to see a nurse practitioner today to get some referrals for an orthopedist, p.t. Given my spinal stenosis I need a care plan. One I can use from here on out to keep my back quiet and allow good walking, traveling. Have mostly done this sort of work with personal trainers or on my own. Need some professional help this time.

 

Still in a subdued, though not dark place. Not yet recovered. Not wanting to pin my current state on the Korea trip. Am I too old for this sort of travel? No. But if not how can I make the whole process more manageable. The hip and back pain and the cold might be one offs, too. Find a workout and flexibility regimen that calms down the back and I’ll be ready to go again. Good thing since I leave for Israel on the 25th.

Allowing the well of sorrows to have its say without succumbing to the invitation. There is a strength in saying yes to feelings that are not warm and fuzzy. That help us reorient, motivate ourselves. Owning, for example, my role in my weakened state lets me find my role in reversing it. Or, feeling fragile, even frail motivates me to work on diet, exercise, contact with friends.

 

 

 

Asia, Commentary on Religion, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Korea, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

This and that

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: A pink Cumulus Cloud over Black Mountain. The start of a new Day. A new life resurrected from the 1/60th death of sleep. Each Day a full book in the library of life. The vast wing dedicated to each life. Yours. Mine. The Mule Deer and the Butterfly. Rain. Fall weather this week. My son and his sweet note. Gabe. The Rockie’s game that wasn’t. Twins playing last year’s winner of the World Series in the playoffs. House cleaning today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life, the wonder and the miracle

One brief shining: Small drops of Water hit my deck this morning, taking the Mouse trap outside to make  an offering to the Ravens, the dead mouse would not come out.

 

Yes. When I got back it was late September and the Mice had made a new incursion. When I went to get my electric Mouse trap out, I noticed a blinking red light. The sign of a killed Mouse. ? Sure enough, in the worst decision of its short life, this particular Mouse had chosen the Mouse trap as its home.

I don’t like killing mice. It makes me sad, feel guilty, puts me in a category of human behavior I never aspire to. Yet my team that came to help me clean a couple of years ago made me get over it. Too much of a health risk. And, I know. I know. Hamburgers. Bacon. Chicken wings. Who ever said contradiction was not a part of life? Even so.

 

Slept well the last two nights. Colon less vigilant. Yay. Jet lag waning, as it will. Perhaps today, maybe tomorrow I’ll shake free of Korea’s Sun and return to the one under which I now live. These transitions go unremembered after a journey is over. Their price part of the experience like airfare and taxis.

 

Fall in the Rockies. A distinctive time here, one I’m glad I didn’t miss. The bugling of the Elk Bull’s searching for mates. Hyperphagic Bears tipping over garbage cans, raiding cars, going into houses after a portion of the 20,000 calories a day they need before their long nap. The Aspen’s gold, muted this year, against the evergreen of the Lodgepoles. Signs for snowplowing, ads. The Mountain Lions hunting for the straggling Mule Deer, the startled Rabbit. Skies as blue and as pure as new born Fawns, reflected in Mountain Streams and Lakes. The weather becoming more unstable, veering between heat and cold, changing. Nights that go into the electric blanket zone. Days that feel warm in the sun, cold in the shade. All of us, humans and wild neighbors, making sure we’re ready for the cold season that follows.

 

If you read the NYT, you will find in this morning’s edition an article about Bishop Joseph Strickland: A Texas Bishop Takes on the Pope. It’s rare that I have a personal connection to any stories featuring Catholicism coming of good Protestant stock and about to become a Jew. In this case though. Paul Strickland, Joseph’s older brother, is and has been a close friend of mine for over thirty years. He’s one of the Ancient Brothers who meet by zoom each Sunday morning.

Paul and all of us Ancient Brothers have a very different take on the world than Joseph. Yet. Not a surprise that Joseph is articulate, strong, and determined. Like Paul. Not a surprise that Joseph has catalyzed others. Like Paul and the 10,000 Friends of the Maine Coast which prevented a huge LPG terminal from taking over the tiny Maine town in which he lives. Even folks in the news have families.

 

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Korea, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Not all the way back yet

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jet lag. That Korean stomach bug. Surviving still. High winds today. Bright blue Colorado Sky. Great Sol out and shining. My son, Seoah, Murdoch. Their big apartment. Songtan. The family practice doc. The orthopedist. Bongeunsa. Seoul. Jeoju. K-dramas. Gabe. The Rockies. The Ancient Brothers on savoring. Korea. Repine. Bradshaw. Derm. Recollecting Korea. Distances made real by the body’s unwillingness to leave one place for another. Breakfast at home this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Moments. This one.

One brief shining: I could tell you my fingers curve, strike the keys from long muscle memory, my feet crossed on the small foot rest, my back slumping in the Henry Miller, now upright again, as the folded, bathed neuronic miracle between my ears sends messages and has them spelled out here in pixels by the keyboard’s link to the computer screen, no prior knowledge of what I’m about to say necessary, write this word, then that one, they come down from the boss organ.

 

The unexplored regions of our own body. Have you seen your brain? Probably not. Yet, it works, anticipates, sees to fuel and motion and elimination and rest. All on behalf of… What?

That was weird. Two blackouts. A third. High winds can screw up the power lines. Even cause fires. After the fourth pulse off the generator kicked on. Going now just below where I sit. Its reassuring purr makes me feel taken care of. Glad I had Bear out in May to do the maintenance on it.

Before the blackouts, I planned to do a short disquisition on how the brain/mind sends messages without a conscious decision. That would be pretty slow, wouldn’t it? Let’s. OK. What’s next? See. That’s good. Where was I? We’d never get anything said or written if we had to will the words to come out. No, we talk. We write. And our brain/mind sees to the flow. And, oddly, the content.

 

Had to send Gabe the tickets to the game, hoping he can find someone to take him and a friend to the Rockie’s last game. This jet lagged, stomach bugged elder was not up to it. Hate doing that, but self-care comes first. Nothing serious. Disoriented and tired of my colon saving me from myself. Real tired. Will pass. Sooner rather than later, I hope.

 

I know. Sorry. A life full of the occasional woes these last few weeks. I try to document them and not over report, leave a trail so that if I want to know what happened right after Korea I’ll have enough recall it. Still, they’re not uplifting even though each one a part of this human experience.

That said, I’m not into uplifting anyhow come to think of it. Thoughtful. Sensitive. Emotional. Descriptive. Questioning. A bit of diatribing. Analysis. Fun. Yes. But uplifting for uplifting’s sake? God, no.

Gonna go slow today. Rest. Eat. Read. I will return to my former brightness when it happens and not before anyhow.

 

 

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Looking toward Korea

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Saturday gratefuls: The Harvest Moon. Mabon. Lake Superior on Michaelmas. Tom and Roxann. At Lutsen Lodge for dinner-with Goose chowder. Northern Minnesota. Missed. My son, Seoah, and Murdoch home from Chuseok in Okgwa. Alan and Joan. Jackie and Ronda. Life in the embrace of the Mountains. Jetlag. Jet planes. Time and movement. So much to do, so little energy to do it. A sign I saw. Ha. Nailed it. The drive to Evergreen. The Bread Lounge. Back in the Mountains, driving on Black Mountain and Brook Forest Drive. The world of an out of joint mind.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Waters of the Great Lake Superior

One brief shining: The curve of Black Mountain from south to west, a tight curve heading away from home toward Upper Maxwell Falls, early Fall Leaf peepers already up and at the trailhead, pushing past Brook Forest Inn and its beaten down Livery Barn, a left at the fish ladder for a jaunt past Lower Maxwell Falls, two cars only, on to the inevitable and perennial Road Work ahead, this time  work on our gas pipelines, orange safety jackets complementing the golden Aspen Leaves, after the sweeping curve comes Kate’s Creek, and finally Hwy 73 which rolls on into Evergreen.

 

Jet lag, which I pronounced almost gone yesterday afternoon, slipped back in over night. If it were a game of finally fitting the full face mask on straight, I’d have about a quarter turn to go. Looking to the side back towards Korea while wanting to see clearly now. But not quite able.

One of the debilitating effects of jet lag comes in its tugging at your mind, saying, Hey, Dude! Something’s not right. Must be you. Let’s see what we can dig up from the well of sorrows. This way lies madness. No, I’m not ready for assisted living. That fall? A reminder to be mindful on the stairs. Stop it. I can handle my own affairs. Damn it.

Of course, the well of sorrows has/is a reservoir of issues, concerns, doubts, infringements on agency. And, they’re not all bogus. That’s the trick of course. Oh, well. I may not be ready for assisted living now, and I’m not, but could it be out there in my future? Sure. Made a note to contact Jewish Family Services and get an elderly housing specialist up here for a consult.

Made an appointment with my doc to continue work on my back issues. Probably a referral to an orthopedist and a physical therapist. Also going to check out simple yoga and get back to a workout routine that got me to 76 without these problems. Act now or forever hold your peas. Something like that. Another appointment for my glaucoma check. Will hit Derm when I go to the family practice clinic. Have to get stuff in before I leave for Israel. See. I’m handling things. He said still looking off toward Korea.

 

 

 

Asia, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Korea, Shadow Mountain

Welcome Home!

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Friday gratefuls: My bed. My house. Shadow Mountain and Black Mountain in their Autumn finery. That Mule Deer Doe welcoming me home yesterday morning. Alan and Joan this morning. Jackie at 12:30. Airing out the house. Safeway. All the conveniences and comforts of home. My son and Seoah and Murdoch. Chuseok in Okgwa. Seoah’s family. Her home village. Body and soul in different locations. Jet lag. Getting back into the flow of my life.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Body and soul

One brief shining: Have you ever awakened and not been sure where you were, either in time or space, like coming out of a dream and thinking, oh I’ll head down to the Grilled Fish Shop this afternoon for lunch with Seoah, and shaking your head and saying no, silly, you’re on a plane headed back to the USA and it’s midnight back there in the land of the Morning Calm.

 

Slept 8 hours last night. 9 pm to 6 am. Jet lag still present and accounted for yet I’m adjusted to Shadow Mountain circadians so it won’t last too long. Still have that buzzy, jaggedy feeling that comes from having left a bit of my soul in Korea. It will wander home in the next few days, reunite. Have to take extra care right now. Fall risk higher when the head and the body don’t have the same reference points.

I remember our trip to China Kate, my son, and me. Late 1990’s. When we got back to the U.S. in Seattle and went through Customs and Immigration, the Immigration officer said, “Welcome, home!” Felt personal and very welcome. Yes. On Wednesday the Immigration guy said, “Welcome back.” A bit more desultory yet still good to here. Back in the U.S.A. As Dorothy so wisely said, “There’s no place like home.”

Realized we come home in gradually narrowing circles. I left Korea and Asia. Biggest circle including Shadow Mountain. When the plane hit U.S. airspace, that circle narrowed to the Western U.S. In Dallas the circle got smaller still encompassing a mostly north-south area with the Rocky Mountains dominate. When I arrived in Denver, the circle shrank again. At the Parking Spot where I picked up the Rav4 it became smaller still, contracting with each mile I drove, finding an intimate level when I turned right off 470 onto 285 to the stretch that leads toward Conifer, up the Front Range. The circle closed when the Rav4 hit my driveway, the garage door went up, and my house light came on to welcome me home. Welcome back, Charlie. It was 11 pm when I turned Herme back on for the first time in over a month.

Home is the same, yet changed. The material artifacts my stacks of books, the bed, the couch, Jerry’s big painting, the fireplace, the induction stove all the same yet the mental overlay I bring to them now includes the streets of Songtan, the Bongeunsa Temple, the Korea Art Frieze, a long and welcome time with my son and Seoah, the trip to Jeonju and the hanok houses, the fish market, Daniel and Diane, Senior and Jake, Sejong the Great’s palace and statue in Seoul. The smells of the barbecue places, the hotpot shops, kimchi. The Songtan Orthopedic clinic and the Family Care clinic.

This is true every time I leave home. The Korean instance being close to me now and markedly different from the life of Shadow Mountain. Yet after this morning’s breakfast with Joan and Alan I will return home changed, too. With the warmth of friendship, with new food digesting, a morning drive in the Mountains behind me. This is Heraclitus, you can’t step into the same river twice. Or, come to think of it, ichi-go, ichi-e, each moment is once in a lifetime. And you leave each moment changed.

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Korea, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Agency

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Thursday gratefuls: My own bed. Stop now the journey has ended. 21 hours from Incheon to Shadow Mountain. Reasonably smooth. No real hiccups. Korea. The USA. The Rocky Mountains. The Mountains of Korea. Just realized I have no immediate family in the U.S. Gabe and Ruth, yes. Grandchildren. That woman who helped me open my snack on the plane to Denver. Incheon. Dallas. Denver. The Parking Spot. Home by Rav4. Up Shadow Mountain Drive for the first time in over a month. Getting mail today. Breakfast at Aspen Perks.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: 8,800 feet

One brief shining: Lost my light LL Bean coat somewhere in the Dallas Airport, left only with the t-shirt on my back, having packed everything else in the blue plastic bin for storage in Songtan, refused to buy a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt even though I wouldn’t get back until after 9 pm, found a zipup sweatshirt at a store in the Denver Airport, liked it, and wanted the warmth so I bought it only to realize that the color I liked and the fact that it zipped up on the left meant it was a woman’s sweat shirt.

 

On returning home. Realized I returned to Shadow Mountain agency when I left Joe and Seoah behind at the airport in Incheon. I love them to pieces and get the same back, yet to them I’m also an old man with a bad back, a lingering cold, a certain frailty that needs to be accommodated, accounted for. I am an old man. I do have a bad back and that damned cold wouldn’t go away. All true. I’ll even cop to a certain amount of frailty, at least from their mid-forties perspective. Yet I experienced this time with them a slow and quiet unintentional leaning into their love, their care. I liked it, appreciated being looked after, considered. Seductive and in the end, at least for now, not the side of our relationship I want to nurture.

It was an unusual trip. The episode with my back put me in a need to rest, to consider how much I could handle mode. And just as the orthopedist and Mr. Lee got me back to regular exercise and much, much reduced back pain we all got that cold. They both had it and recovered. I had it and it lingered, then became a sinus infection. Meant I spent more time than I wanted dealing with acute health care issues, then reckoning for the chronic nature of my back issues.

The net result of all this was that I presented as a needy old man for significant chunks of time. And, I was. However, in the Shadow Mountain context I would have handled all this with my own health care team. Made the appointments, followed up. But in Korea, I couldn’t due to the language barrier. That meant Seoah had to take charge of much of the detail oriented side. And I’m glad she did.

Not sure what I’m trying to say here. I loved being with my two favorite people and their dog. I loved being loved by them in practical ways. Yet I’m also my own guy, leading his own life on Shadow Mountain. Guess I want both at the same time. Seem incompatible. The future though?

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Health, Korea, Travel

The Last Day

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Fall and the Harvest Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: American Airlines 280, Incheon to Dallas. My son and Seoah going with me to the airport. Shuttle from Osan. Packing, almost finished. Checking my bag. Airports. Jet planes. Tom in Seattle. Going home. It’s time. Back to Shadow Mountain. CBE. Regular exercise. Flu/RSV/Covid boosters. Passports. Immigration and customs.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Standing upright in the world

One brief shining: A light rain fell, the air was warm, my son, Seoah, and I stood at the traffic light on Songtan-ro, the green walking man flashed on, we crossed only to find Senior, our other companion for the evening standing there, having walked from the base in the rain.

 

After Temple Bongeunsa and the Korea Frieze there was the cold. That got us all and occasioned a lot of weariness. It took me a long time to recover only to discover at the end that I had a sinus infection. Taking the last meds for that today. The result of the cold? I stopped my exercise which had been gradually strengthening my core and giving me regular shots of endorphins. Just too sick to do it. The result of the long recovery arc and the back pain has made the end of the journey less pleasant than I would have hoped. Too tired.

Did not stop us from going to Jeonju or doing screen golf and having a wonderful evening with Diane and Daniel. In Jeonju we saw the hanok village built around the turn of the last century. Wandered around for half a day. Seoah got  her fortune told. She’ll live to 158 and come into a large sum of money in her late seventies. May it be so. We also had bibimbap, a signature Korean dish which originated in Jeonjeu. Rice and vegetables. A sunny side up egg on top.

Senior, Jake, my son, and Seoah drove golf balls into an soft projection screen. A delivery guy brought pizza and hot wings, a bottle of Coke. The game went on.

Later that evening we had supper with Daniel and Diane, a young couple who have built up a large food distribution company that serves all of Korea. Fun to talk with them and hear their interpretation of things Korean.

Daniel talked about middle school in Korea. I went to public school from 8 to 3 pm. Then, I went to a tutor from 4 to 9 pm. Five days a week. On summer break Korean students see the time off public school as a time to race ahead so do the whole tutoring thing from 9 am to 9 pm. Sounded exhausting to me.

In between visits to Seoul, screen golf, Jeonju, and meals with friends I saw the neighborhood, the dong, here in Songtan. A valuable and persistent lesson in ordinary Korean life.

Today I leave. Feeling wistful about leaving my son and Seoah, Murdoch behind while excited to sleep in my own bed, enjoy my usual rounds of lunches and breakfasts, get back to caring for myself.

The physical difficulty I’ve had on this trip does make me wonder if I need to modify my expectations, my habits while on the road. I’m not 60 anymore.

My son and Seoahs

Asia, Family, Fourth Phase, Friends, Korea, Travel, World History

Friends

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Fall and the  Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: This trip. Daniel and Diane. Their gift of special teas. Our meal together last night. Walking in the Songtan night, a cool breeze just warm enough weather. Screen golf. Jake and Senior. A good Sunday. Those asteroid pieces return home. Amazing. Trump’s followers offer violence. Not amazing. Mini-class reunion in Alexandria on Saturday. High school. College.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Friends

One brief shining: Thwack, thwack, thwack the screen catches the golf bowl and lets it dribble down to the gutter where it reenters the queue as Joe sets into his stance, knees bent, concentration shaping his face, an arcing gentle swing and thwack again for 286 yards, right down the middle of the fairway.

 

Screen golf has a lot of adherents in Korea. Cheaper than any golf course it still allows for using the full range of clubs.  18 holes of one simulated course or another. Driving from a tee has no difference from IRL golf. The irons a bit different since there is no forgiving soil underneath the ball. But close enough. Putting on the other hand. Difficult to do well in this environment.

My son, Jake his friend from Georgia, Senior, my son’s top non-com, and Seoah, dressed in her Malbon outfit played yesterday. I sat in the bleachers and enjoyed the show. The screen and various cameras offer a lot of data. When Joe drove, for instance, the ball hit the screen which then shifted to a scene featuring his ball as it flew off the t. Apex 47 yards. Swing speed. Spot on the club where he struck the ball. Finally, the ball lands. Fairway, 286 yards. Time for the next golfer.

There are bunkers, water hazards, penalty areas, and out of bounds spots in forested areas. Jake and my son played even golf to the very end, finishing in a tie after 18 holes. Jake, due to more consistent play was the MVP according to the computer.

Inclement weather. Too hot. Too cold. All drive golfers with an itch to play this game which can become an obsession to screen golf. It’s far from a perfect simulacrum of playing outside, but more than close enough to make it a challenge and an opportunity to learn, sharpen your game. Lots of spots to play, too.

A nap after screen golf. Then Diane and Daniel came. They were the folks we met at the Noryangjin fish market a few weeks ago. Daniel and my son served together in 2015-2016. Daniel the Korean interpreter between Korean Air Force folks and my son’s squad. He interpreted for me when I performed my son and Seoah’s wedding ceremony in 2016. They brought me some Korean teas in a lovely wooden box.

Over dinner we talked about Korean culture. I wondered where the competitive nature of Korean schools originated. Diane said it came from a time when Korea felt it had no natural resources other than its people. Doing your best in school was good for Korea and good for you. A lot more to unpack from that conversation.