I begin like this. 

Right foot, left foot, and then again until I get to you. You who are at the end of the hallway, eyes darkened in the shade and hands outstretched, clapping and clapping and clapping and clapping. You who are calling me to you. 

A red bandana on my infant head, the Californian sun turning everything fuzzy. I call out your name–the only name you had allowed yourself since my beginning–엄마. 

 

I am not a writer. These are my dreams and my memories and my wishes. I wish I knew what I was. Or know. I wish I could tell you.

 

They tell me I think of home often. And I guess I do. I think of my sister, my mom, and I at the end of the world together. Barefoot and warm. Our sheets powdery and heavy with our wet hair and baby lotion.

 

How do I go home? Will my mom drive me there? Will I sit in the back of her white Sienna watching the lights, the trees, the cars, the people blur? Will I go alone? What will I see when I get there? Will I see a warm dish of pork ribs or Fourth of July fireworks? Are our sheets drying in the afternoon sun? 그리고 만약 내가 집에 간다면, 나는 어떻게 변할 것인가?

 

It was my second day in Korea. And I remember seeing 엄마 dozing off on the balcony. I can see her head slipping, and nodding, slowly. I’m laying on the living room floor behind the sliding doors listening to the sound of the children laughing in the playground beneath us. Time is still for a moment, when she is asleep. And I can see the lines in her face, the wisps of colored and greyed hair blowing gently in the wind. Her worn hands tucked under her arms. 

 

I wondered if this was what rest was. There’s music playing somewhere in the distance. 

 

I imagined turning into a small child, crawling onto her lap. I imagined her stirring, just slightly. Then she drapes one arm around me and pulls me closer, as she falls back asleep. I imagine the warm breeze on my cheek. I imagine this is the warmest and the safest place in the world that I had always been running away from. I imagine that this, is what forgiveness feels like. 

 

솔직히 말하자면 아직도 이해가 안 가는게 너무 많다. 

내 꿈은 언어가 없다. 가끔 나는 그꿈들이 말하는 것을 이해하지만, 때때로 나는 이해하지 못한다. 

꿈속에서, 내가 사랑하는 모든 사람들이 집에 있고, 나는 그들을 보러 가는 길이다.