Tuesday, July 21, 2015

On Perspective: Waking Up in the Middle of the Bed

I often get terrible migraines. The type of headache that make you feel like you're going to vomit, that make your eyes throb and your teeth hurt. These headaches can last for days at a time and leave you in fear that they might recur at a moments notice.

My migraines are triggered by many things: what I eat, how much I drink, what I drink, how much sleep I've gotten, whether or not my neck is out of alignment, and sometimes they strike for what seems like no reason at all. It starts out harmlessly enough - a slight tension in the neck and head, a flicker of light, an inexplicable feeling of dread. But soon my eyes begin to feel sore and heavy, my temples start to throb, my forehead (just above the sinuses) begins to feel thick and tight. The migraine has begun.

The problem is that I get headaches frequently - it's even become a bit of a joke with my friends. "Oh, sorry, I can't have that. Red food dye gives me migraines," I'll say as they roll their eyes. There's always a bit of a headache hidden behind my thick skull, so it's easy for me to mistake these regular headaches for an incoming migraine.

After so many years you would think I would know better. Unfortunately my body is constantly changing, what was once a trigger is no longer, and what is a trigger now may never have been a problem before. This causes a host of new problems when I find myself, say, in Korea experiencing a new culture and environment - a new climate, new diet, new physical demands on my body, new everything - each of these exciting new experiences have the potential to be a new trigger.

But this is where the durability of the human body and mind reasserts itself.

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I woke up in the middle of the bed. You know, there's a wrong side and a right side. The crab-ass in line at Starbucks woke up on the wrong side; the whistling jolly woman woke up on the right. But here I was, in the middle and not sure which way I would turn.

On one hand I had just awaken from an eleven hour migraine-induced slumber. My neck was tight, my head felt raw, and I was more than a little afraid to move. On the other hand, I was awake. I no longer felt tears running down my face from the pressure in my skull. It was a new day.

I stood up. This is always the first test. Does standing make the blood rush through your body re-establishing the throbbing, pounding pain? Today it didn't. Bathroom break. Back to the bed. Sit down. There. I had just stood up twice and sat down twice and the headache hadn't returned. Success.

The right side it is.

 A big breakfast followed by a delicious homemade latte left me the smiling fool walking to the bus. The world was clear, lacking the migraine haze, I was happy. 

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It's amazing to me how such pain can leave me feeling so happy the next day. It's as if my body attacks itself as a way of reminding me how fortunate I am. By crippling me and leaving me craving the merest of essentials (water, adequate food, sleep) it allows me to appreciate the rest of my experiences.

The migraine that I loathe, the pain that I hate, and the experiences that I could do without never cease to remind me of the beauty in the world. It sounds cliched and it probably is, but without those negative and awful experiences I wouldn't be as ready to marvel in the mundane.

I hate to say it, but sometimes I'm grateful for my migraines. They force me to remind myself to take care of my body, to release the tension and stress from my perspective, and to appreciate the world for what it is - a hard and relentless place where one can find beauty and pain. Happiness and stress.

We have the choice. We all have different problems, whether physical or mental, and we all struggle with them at times. But I've learned that I have two options: I can dwell on the negative and wish things were different, or I can allow for the bad things to happen and let them remind me of all of the good things. I can do my best to make sure that the migraines don't return, but at some point I will slip-up, something will happen that I don't expect, or my body will change again and I"ll have a host of new triggers to look out for. But I can be happy, even with all of that.

It all depends on which side of the bed I decide to roll onto when I wake up in the morning.


Sunday, July 12, 2015

Growing Pains

There's something about this city that fascinates me. Perhaps it's the sheer size and magnitude of the sprawling metropolis. Or maybe it's the densely packed population, the reality that there  is always someone on the streets, no matter when you find yourself there. But no, it's something else. For me, an expat situated on the outskirts of Busan, the most intriguing element of this city can be found in what I refer to as its growing pains.

It's easy to be drawn to the two most obvious elements of the city: the new and the old. The countless identical Lotte Apartment complexes, Lotte Department stores, Centum City, skyscrapers, and technology, sharply juxtaposed against the temples, traditional markets, and Buddhist sensibility of the culture. The old character weaves its way through the mind of the older generation, seeping into portions of the younger generations psyche, leaving strong indications that it might be lost within a few generations.

However, these two sides are not where you find the growing pains. Instead you can see these pains when you look up at the complex cobweb of countless electrical wires hanging low over the street - placed there from the necessity of supplying electricity and power to the surrounding buildings but ignoring the foresight of future growth and demands. What was once a clean set of two or three electrical lines has now become a heavy, unwieldy web of electrical power that is slowly succumbing to gravity and descending lower and lower to the streets.

The growing pains are seen in the perpendicular bend of the elderly ajummas spine from years spent toiling in the field as she hauls huge carts of recycling,picking up the trash thrown onto streets, moving the refuse from one spot to another.

You can see it in the strip malls where construction overstepped demand and left behind the tattered remains of closed storefronts. This reflection of an obstinate focus on growth, the demand for more - more buildings, more shops, more, more, more - makes you wonder when this aesthetic of utility and quantity will be replaced by the aesthetic of art and quality.

These are the growing pains of an ancient civilization that has suffered immensely but has managed to raise itself up from abject poverty and colonial rule to a force of capitalism, consumerism, and productivity in a very brief span of time.

The more time I spend immersed in this complex and captivating culture, the more that this complexity seems to be a reflection of my own inner struggles. The responsible consumer obsessed with repaying her student loans is synonymous with the new face of Korea. Consumerism, capitalism, utilitarianism - this is contrasted with a wholly different side of my personality. The lingering light of culture, art, and beauty within Busan captures my dream of living life for the sake of living - not dwelling on financial demands and hardships; enjoying my life for what it could be rather than paying for what it has been.

Busan is reaching a turning point. Soon its citizens will have to make a conscious choice between aesthetic purpose and capitalist progress. The massive construction of identical buildings, apartments, stores, and businesses is not sustainable. It seems to me that this city has lifted itself up and created a bustling landscape but that it now needs to focus on the future and what it wants to define itself as. An identity crisis is coming, what will it choose?

It seems that I too am being compelled to make a choice of this kind. How will I live my life? What kind of life will that be? The more time I spend away from that which is familiar is helpful, but I can only run for so long before I need to make a decision of my own.

All those who wander are not lost, but some of us are.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

friday morning

you wake up early to finish planning lessons for that day - you procrastinated a bit too much, even for you.
your bialetti wasn’t tight enough and your espresso sprayed all over your counter. the milk was too hot, the foam doesn’t sit right. you slipped in the shower and hit your funny bone on the towel rack. you can’t find your clothes and have no food for breakfast.

krispy kreme it is - you check your calendar. you realize that you’ll be on your period in india. you are glad you decided to go with the all women’s trekking agency. e-mail asking them for advice. look at pictures of the area. get excited again.
you left too early, your bus won’t be for another 15 minutes. more coffee it is. iced latte. tall. 고맙습니다, Starbucks lady. you sip it. you smile.

but wait, why is there such a large group of people waiting for the bus? you are one of the last ones on, there’s no room to stand. your laptop feels heavy. you try not to hit the elderly man in the face with your bag. the air conditioning is not on. no windows are opened. sweat begins to trickle down your spine.

gradually being pushed to the back of the bus. propelled as far back as possible. an ajumma smiles at you. you smile back, 안녕하세요. she pats her lap, asking for your bag. 고맙습니다, you hand it to her. now you can stand semi-comfortably.

the vice principal is calling the other teacher with you - where are you? explanations.
people gradually get off the bus. you have to fight forward when your stop is called. you almost get trapped, the door starts to close, you frantically push and squeeze forward. you hop out laughing now. you make eye contact with your colleague, he laughs too. he explains. too many people. more smiles.

rush into school, set up your laptop - lessons to plan, things to do! too much coffee, dehydrated. you jog upstairs to find water. everyone is in a circle laughing. good morning. the shy teacher turns to you and blurts out “plum!” she smiles and covers her face, embarrassed.

you enjoy the plum. you chitchat. you get water and slowly walk downstairs.

your lessons are almost done, time to print. but wait. your CoTeacher is back. lessons are all cancelled, she has a different plan for the students. you act disappointed, you are disappointed, but you smile and agree.

sometimes you wake up early, mess up your coffee, rush out the door only to be packed onto a bus with too many people. you are late to school, unprepared, and sweating profusely already. sometimes people greet you with a smile and an effort at conversation, they share their fruit and offer coffee. you realize everything worked out.

sometimes you are glad you wound up here, even after a terrible week.
sometimes Korea isn’t so bad, after all.