Birthday Journal 2009.

Dec 16 2009 Pyeongtaek, South Korea.

I always write a journal on my birthday. Usually it’s the sort of reflective drivel I hope everyone writes; full of narcissistic lusting that life was as sweet as we can imagine to be. 

 I can be happy everyday of my life, but my birthday comes and I’m a glum little dude unable to find the daylight through the dark.   As you imagine, I’ve had plenty of ‘great’ birthdays i tried to enjoy. Emotionally, I only watched and interacted on them as through thick prison glass. Some were good though.

This year was different, not unlike last year, which also broke the pattern by failing 3 of my 5 birthday traditions. 

1.Write a song on my birthday.

2.Be on mainland north america

3.Write my Journal in pencil in a notebook and never share it.

4.See below.

I woke up this morning ...or rather, didn't sleep last night, and asked myself what I asked myself three or four days ago: Will I be sad on my birthday?

You - “what a sad stupid strange question to ask yourself...” 

Me-  Either way you look at it, your birthday comes and you finally consider if you actually like your life. A lot of people don’t. 

I totally dig my life, but I guess I’m always wanting more (pretend you didn’t hear that).

I thought about whether I'd be happy, like last year, or not.  The thinking of it got me thinking.

It’s really my choice.

I can set down daft feelings of being ‘unsatisfied’ or ‘wishing my life was different than it is’, and decide to NOT get all sad. That means no “God, I’m why am I still waiting for you to do ‘this’ or ‘that’.. Still waiting waiting sad waiting, where is it?!!!”.  It means no phrases that start with “I wish....”  

It’s tempting to use my crazy imagination to fantasize that I was Emperor of the Free World or some sort of miraculous end-of-days prophet that billions recognized as a great holy man.  I kind of love role-play and putting myself in other peoples shoes, and that can be a place to run, when I have things to deal with I don’t want to deal with. Stress enters, I leave. 

But last November I pressed a huge button I found hanging over my life. It was there all along and I guess the thing terrified me and to be honest the last thing I wanted to do was hit that button.  It was painted black in nail polish and so it looked like sticky death to me. Maybe.

If my outer world was like a tornado ripping apart towns and farmland, my inner-world was a Hurricane, sweeping up not only cows and farm hands that took too long to find cover, but oceans and cities. 

 I drove from Moose Jaw to LA and hit ‘RESET’ on my life.

I was done. Done complaining. Done dreaming. Done fighting. Done hiding. Done worrying about myself, done worrying about everyone else.

But you know this, no?

Well last year I went Jim Carey and enjoyed saying yes to happiness and fun in a Hawaiian winter with my baby bro (Willy the wise) visiting our mama.  I won’t tell you what I did, that one’s for me. It was a best-ist birthday.  But that reset button must have had more nail polish than I thought, because It took a bit of work to press it in all the way.

I spent most of this past year all alone, hermiting in the caves of california, complete with wifii.  I really needed it.  I loved it.  Imagine a living without a hurricane going on in your head and your heart. Thats how good it was, like a buddhist in tibet in some flick that makes our western lives look ridiculously busier than they ever should be.

The start of my RESET was that there was a lot of stuff I was doing to myself in my own choices that I had been blaming on God, Fate, and Others.

I had Jonny Rempel’s mom called me today and her and little koreans sang me happy birthday in korean. The funny part about that is that I am in korea, and they are in in Strathmore, Alberta.  I love life. Talking to my Jonathon was rich, guys like me and King David need them, maybe that’s why I have so many.

I decided that if God has given me  a choice in how I would feel about today, then my choice would be that it was be an awesome king-day without a gloomy moment.

I get taken out to dinner tonight by John and Ferial. They’ve taken me to many exquisite and superb restaurants. Right now though, I only feel like running off to McDonald's... I have few hours till they get off work... Plenty of time to google McDonald's and go on another Korean Birthday Adventure...

I’ve already been on a few today.  One involved me wandering out of the city into a village to meet up with a massive FIRE.  I think they thought I started it, because I’m white  (note: this was a “no-iPod” walk, quite different than the standard iPod walk).

I need to go and see how well I’ve learned how to read Korean, it is my birthday after all and I’m not going to spend it typing to you all day on the computer, I don’t care who you are.

Closing thought from, Kurt Cobain  that popped up on my gmail this morning: “Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.".   To prove how insensitive I can be, I’ll admit that when I read that, I didn’t go “awww”, I went “isn’t killing yourself with a shotgun also a waste of the person you are?” 

I guess it shows I have a ways to go yet.

But thats enough about me.

We Want To Join A Story

Let a story hit you, a second or so of solitude, and you have a life-moment.  You might enter the apartment and notice the lights left on, as you read the note on the door reminding you to shut them off. You’re too focused or too unfocused to lash yourself.  You ignore the call of computers and the 'webbing' because you desire a bit of space, and sit on the sofa.  There it is. 

The story gets to you as you stare out at the world you are in. You shut off all wishing and intentions enough to see it for the thing it is. Just your life in its present position. No more, no less. Nothing bad happened today, but you feel a longing to have that thing the characters in the story -like most stories- have. Resolution. Redemption. Purpose.

You wish your life was like a story, a book, a movie. At any stage along the way you could bolster and solace yourself by knowing there is a purpose and resolution coming, indeed. You hold back the usual regimen of aims, ambitions, and emotional energy thrown out at the plans and hopes for your life, used to excuse the vain content of each numbered day to your thinking brain.  A sadness skulks inside your emotional boundary.  Time to jump up and put away your coat and shrug it off. Things are heading somewhere, you tell yourself.

I think one of the reasons a worldview like Christianity grabs my ear and heart in tandem, is that it collects the oddly drab and indefinable moments of our aspirational days and sets them into the storyline of a comedy.  There the characters never fail to face cruelties and conflicts, yet the resolution to such striving is set into the machine already.  In the Christian worldview, history spreads out on that great canvas called time progressing to its deliberate end. Each of us have our meaning therein.  In that space our in-betweens and irksome realities of the ‘now’  hold a tempo. They can be sorted into plot-points in a sequence purposed to entail the significance and redemption we often covet.

We want to join a story, 

and the prophets say we are part of a story.

 In a life-moment you expect they are right.

Korean December II: John's Genius

John Trammell knows where he is, on the ground, at all times.

he doesn't get lost like mere mortal men. Over a week with him winding down back alleys and weaving through crowds, if he says "we are two blocks east of where ___ is located" then you know its true. We all say "no john" and then he is right. we knew it.  I should add that Subways don't count, and Ferial is the one who you rely on is any subway situation, also, she is great at reading Korean.

That said,

John wanted us all, last week, to go to a resturant in Seoul he schemed off an article in the New York Times, and some of us naysayers  were skeptical about it being worth the price... it was the best food, almost ever ever. Surely will be the best meal we'll have here, and every bite was a dream sequence.

The place is called  Chamsutgol, where their star dish is  galbi (beef short rib), they bring you the raw meat to cook on your table top grill, and here they provide real sutbul (wood charcoal) -- a real treat as it adds a smoky flavor. One of the signature dishes we had here is the galbitang (stewed beef ribs), but you'd better arrive early because they only make 40 orders of it per day. 

One of the best places i'll ever eat in my life, thank you John the Genius,  this experience is up there with Greg Bowcock taking us to House of Nanking in San Francisco.

Last night we found a great sushi place John took us to and insisted we must try, after he did a bit research and got a hunch about it. It's the first one John and Ferial have been able to stomach here. Apparently Korean sushi is very very different than the Japanese style we enjoy in the Americas, and it is not a good difference to lovers of the other style.  We found a winner though, and it was worth the cash John spent on it. 

Thanks John, that was sooo good.

I think the place was called Marie and Mare, or something like that (next to Mr. Pizza, who’s slogan is “Love for Women!”) It is good, so...next time you’re in Pyeongtaek, you know where to go to curb your need for good Sushi.

Korean December

How to get by in Korea: have friends there that help you get by.

This week marks the end of my time in Korea as a tourist, bumping around Pyeongtaek and Seoul with the Trammells, The Majzoubs, and King Rempel.

I was supposed to leave at 5:40 Sunday evening, but alas, The Creech strikes again, adventure emerges.

A lunch with some key people, an made impression, and then the offer... 

Now I’m staying for a month or so.

I get to spend the next weeks coming here in Korea, spending a bunch of time on my Masters Thesis Project toward my MFA at AAU, soaking up the culture, and spending dear time with friends.  Part Hermit, Part Student, Part Tourist, Part Friend, Part Facebook Junkie.  All good things, maybe.

I get to spend a few days living with Jonny Random himself ( he is Bill Gates, Billy Graham, and Bill Cosby mixed together) before he returns to the Great White North, which you can bet is full of heaven-minded time, much appreciation of his genius, and fellowship par excellence .

I took a long walk on Sunday and almost missed the house church at the Trammell’s because I got terribly lost in some rice fields. They live on the edge of this mega-city-thing, so you can walk under an overpass and into some fields. I didn’t think I could get lost, now I know I can. Humble Pie eaten. Tastes so good... Not. I blame having inspiring music on my iPod, thanks for nothing Steve Jobs you wonderful man... or.. thanks for everything. yes.

Allow me to break down my time thus far: Great Restaurants, Friends, hugs, New Friends, Busses, Trains, Taxi Cabs, Subways, Markets, standing about and chatting with Muhi as John and the girls shopped till they dropped. These are the things dreams are made of.

Also, I ran into the only Korean I know in Korea, by chance, turning a corner in Seoul. A city-area of 25 million peeps, in a country of 48 million. 

We pass through an alley way and Sang-Don of Fender Hall is there in the flesh!  He notices the ever-tall John Trammell, and we meet him and his fiance. How cool is life?

I love getting to see how my friends are living overseas, to see their little community, their place of work, their spiritual and social lives, not to mention their Kindles.

Kindles are awesome. I’m seriously considering one, just to make use of the mountain of PDF books I own on my computer that I would never want to read on my computer screen. Death to eyes! ...maybe I’ll wait for the money to start rolling in.