Sunday, the fifth

Serious rainstorm.

We were up at 5am to leave an hour later for the USO where we caught a bus for Kangwha Island. It kept pouring and I thought the day would be miserable. The first stop, a fortress on the island, was just this side of a miserable experience. But, by the time we got to the next stop, Chondong temple, the rain had subsided a little and a thick mist had settled in over the wet. It lended an extra air of mystery and quiet to the temple environs, which set this visit apart from all of the other temple visits in the past. Traffic was light on the way home and we found ourselves drying off in the apartment at 3pm, which is where we’ve stayed the rest of the night. Homemade chocolate chip cookies for dinner, leftovers for dessert. We relaxed over green tea served by me, ceremony style.

I missed Lee for just a moment today. Thought of him while either I or others were packing up the knapsacks for the day trip. He had this great talent for making any amount of stuff fit into a specific space. Once he put his entire earthly belongings into my CRX, which included a full-size futon and frame. He is meticulous and not afraid to pack and re-pack. And so I missed his patient persistence, saw his face in my memory. There was a little bit of feeling found there too, a piece of him I still carry with me, I see. I don’t feel bad about it anymore like I once did. I like to think of him somewhere wrapped in a soft, warm blanket feeling happy in his life.

Monday the fifth, early

I was thinking after I uploaded the entry describing that guy humping my leg that I really shouldn’t have been so hard on myself. And I remembered back to that time, harder, and knew that at that moment I didn’t take any of the responsibility upon myself for the situation but rather, I just saw the guy as a creep and the whole weirdo incident as something that happened to me that was disgusting, but not something I needed to be an actor in, and certainly not something in which I had a role I should’ve played. That came later, when after having gotten the three women settled into those tiny chairs at Baskin&Robbins, I said guess what? I told the gruesome tale and Cris (Dave’s mom) starts in with, well why didn’t you…? (Fill in smack the guy, yell, shove, etc.) I found myself defending what I did do and then concluded I was horribly inadequate at being the strong woman. But really, when I take the time to examine the Baskin&Robbins scene, I see that she shouldn’t have put the responsibility on me to ward him off, you know? I mean, I’m not the one culpable here; I’m not the one who caused and perpetuated it…. Her words carry a lot of weight with me. I didn’t question them then - she’s a counselor for Tao’s sake! Why would I? But what she said really did a number on me and inspired an examination of the way I did react and a round self-berating thoughts for being unable to react in the best possible way in a pinch. That was just uncool.