On my first trip to Korea as a child, what I was most excited about was Tteokguk. I knew the rice cake soup my mom made for me came from this country, and I imagined getting to eat it every day. From the moment we arrived and jumped into our first taxi, I sank right into … Continue reading The Sacred Work of Celebrating Seollal
Here I am in my first pair of glasses that were made with more than one kind of nose bridge in mind. I didn't expect to feel emotional about it. For the longest time, I thought glasses always slid down my nose because I was clumsy, or because my face sweat more than others. I … Continue reading When the Frames Finally Fit
She stood next to me, towering over me. My legs swung back and forth from the playground bench, trying to stay in rhythm with the nearby slap-slap sound of a jump rope smacking the blacktop, again and again. She told us she was going to be a model. I believed she would be and easily … Continue reading Once Blind to Beauty, Now Stunned by all I See
Originally written for Coalesce Magazine I spent a season avoiding my Bible when I was in college. It wouldn’t be the first time I avoided my Bible, or God, for that matter. That long season of avoidance felt like the dark early evenings of Winter and persistent static in my hair. My soul had become … Continue reading The Tender Side of Conflict
She scurried over to the rice cooker and opened it. Using a rice paddle to scoop out a few grains of day-old rice with her right hand, she then picked them off of the paddle with her left, squishing them together between her slender thumb and forefinger. I watched her move quickly and silently, her … Continue reading The Destiny in Our Daydreams
