Notes from the flight:

[I had the great fortune to fly standby with upgrade at no extra charge.]

The year coming to a close. I am learned now; I return to Korea in full awareness of adulthood. When I arrived the first time I became child who could not read, nor write, and who was dependent on the care of others. Now I am grown again and return home. Return. With a confidence -- the knowledge -- I never had before. The knowledge it is that Asia is a part of me, undeniably....

I was lost. So lost. Now that I have finally mapped the topography, it is too late to complete the journey as planned. The sun has already dropped behind the ridge and I cannot go on as intended.

A pale blue sky greets me through the plexi-glass. Clouds of the Pacific below, a soft landing I’m sure they are. Since the summer solstice I have stood at the edge of the Washington coast regarding the emptiness to the west. I have braced myself against the wind and darkness of grey on a sandy beach. In the heat of swollen summer. Sleeping soundly at the edge, waves reaching to tickle sun-baked toes. Each time I looked toward home, contemplating the disorganization of feelings for it; wondering if it were even real, remembering that it was. Just two days ago I watched the light turn dusk to morning in Korea. Two days ago....

Now here and not either place; neither exist but as images from fantasy, memories from some other lives. Tearing the face of one place off to replace it with another. Hurts. Neither there nor there just here which is nowhere and anywhere and not my heart but it’s been such long hours that all I know is this. I long for both places but can’t see how I can continue on in either one. Suspended in this transition, blurring, and so painful it is. Blinding light and screams that go unheard. My head a cavern empty and large, echoes. Alone. Between realities so illusory at this meridian, at this midpoint in weight shifting from one life to the other and the whole of me is turned inside out. I think it is not wise to mix the two but am just now seeing that it is impossible not to bring fragments of one into the other.

I am two people connected not even at the heart, but maybe at the central nerve. Two lives: I want more than I can have and there is only one body. One body, one soul, two people. I want to stay home. How it was that I felt I could not return earlier, I do not know. How it was I didn’t, is not a mystery, however. Fear, desire, dead already. The grass is always greener -- I hate that idiom. I am a woman who knows too often what she wants, but knows not how to decide which to live without.

An endless placing of food. This is why these international pilots are so fat. Appetizer. Main Course. Two choices of dessert -- I could have both they said, but I am too full. Tea before me now. Fork. Spoon. Tablecloth over the tray. The chosen one, the peach tart, sits patiently at eleven o’clock. I am too full.

Awhile ago we were asked to close our window shades so that all might better see the movie playing on the monitor up at the front of the cabin. From my aisle seat, I could not reach over: I had to fold up my tray, lift the arm-rest cover, replace the tray there, unfasten my seat belt, step out of the foot rest and walk over to the window. Space. Two ovals of atmosphere for me and me alone. Space. I never knew I felt claustrophobic on airplanes until now when I do not. I recognize the feeling of comfort and along with it -- My god! they’ve just brought me Godiva chocolate. The tart sits untouched -- muscles releasing anxiety, the captive sorrow comes too, and the pressure behind my eyes. So dry they already are, I would need a cry but I am not alone.

There is always room for chocolate.

What I know is that pilots hear nothing. I’m riding in quiet, just the sound of wind rubbing by. Engines’ roar malignant only at the coach, the proletariat, level. Turbulence doesn’t bother me. I know what it is, I know it doesn’t destroy planes. It’s the sounds I hear, the minute changes in engine melody, or the clatter of something that sounds like it is supposed to be quiet. Up here in the penthouse, it does not interrupt; we all hear our thoughts just fine.