Kitchen, 2022
Kitchen, 2022
Dinner, 2022
Swiss, 2023
Grace
When you go blind, it is only befitting to rage against the cruel reality. For the rest of your life, you have to live in unforgiving darkness. The entire world is against you. But when God tells you your grace is enough, something breaks down inside you. Something that you hold to be concrete and self-evident. It breaks down like tears running down your face. Though you lost your sight, it was only by the grace of God that you had witnessed the light of world. When the Creator says this is where it ends, you surrender. Though pain will never diminish, it is only by grace you saw the beauty and it was enough for a lifetime.
My Beauty, my Grace, my Light I miss you painfully.
She
It’s a wonder how I met her and how we lived together through thick and thin. She loved me wholeheartedly with everything she had. She cared for me like I was the only remaining warmth. She gave me everything. It was beyond what I could ask for. We lived through a cruel world together. We were a hell of a team. We survived and left with laughter smothering memories, but we managed to smile and found our own definition of victory. We were so desperate we couldn’t find the time to stare into each other’s eyes like it was a first time. So we believed love was but a fleeting daydream. All along it was what sustained us in those desperate and confusing times. It’s clear only when we look back and reminisce. Like listening to the music that we used to listened. It tells you. God was among us despite all that came in between us.
Mother Ocean
The most beautiful thing I saw in my life was the Ypao Beach on Guam. My dad went to Guam to work as a construction worker in 1984 when I was 4 years old. My mom, sister, and I lived together in Korea. My family’s dream was to reunited and live together. That day finally came 8 years later in 1992. It was one of the happiest days of my life living with my dad and moving to Guam, which back then we called it America. The next day we got there, the first thing we did was driving to the most popular beach on the island called Ypao Beach. We drove along the Ypao road and down to the beach where you can see a scenic view of the ocean. It was vast. It was full of bright colors and deep translucency. It was uplifting. It was overwhelming. It was beyond what my eyes could process.
Since then, Guam has been flooded with tourists probably looking for that same beauty of the ocean. Ypao Beach has lost that same luster and has been suffering from tourist activities. The corals are dying and the fish less abundant. Mother Ocean has been suffering. To a tourist, it still is a beautiful beach, but I saw its radiance when it was untouched by massive human interference. Whenever I went back and witness its degradation, it pained me. I wanted to pray for the healing of the ocean and stopping the tourists just for a while, but I couldn’t do that, because the entire livelihood of the island depends on the tourism industry. My family and friends they all depend on it one way or another.
COVID-19 happened. No flights are coming into Guam. The tourism industry is decimated. My family and friends lost their jobs and their businesses are shut down. But Mother Ocean can rest now. For the past 30 years, it provided for the people of Guam and the tourists. She can take a little break and heal.
Foolish, Aching, and Mess
itunes.apple.com/us/album/audition-the-fools-who-dream/1175664785
When I listen to this music, I’m transported back to Chicago. Michigan Ave., Millennium Park, the Museum, walking in blizzard, waiting in wind chill, loneliness, dreams, art school…
I could not find the justification for paying so much money for art education and the usefulness of artists in society. Yet i so desperately wanted to be a part of the world as an artist and my heart ached when the world seemed indifferent.
Had I heard this song in my Chicago years, I would have been proud of myself and proud of the things I thought meaningless and foolish.
Sing Street
Who didn’t dream about becoming a rockstar, meeting that dream girl, and perhaps venture out to the horizon? Well, here is a story of someone who not only dreamed about, but also acted on all the things he dreamed of. There is so much energy and fire in this movie. It’s like…I want to get out and do something. Something that’s entirely me and mine, not somebody else’s. Even just for once.
Rock n Roll is a risk. You risk being ridiculed.
07.12.
Children are so good at finding fun in every little thing. How can they be so completely happy! They are all born with such innate ability. It’s funny how people educate themselves to become serious and go to great lengths to entertain themselves.
The Handmaiden (아가씨)
The director Park Chan-Wook’s works have never been about emotional exploration. They are about intellectual exploration inciting forbidden emotions.
j.s.ahn 