Shall we dance
Writing is intimate. Sharing own writings with others is even worse. It all explains why this blog was destined to be stuck in words. All of these pieces of shit sometimes felt nothing more than the manifestation of excessive ego. I’ve been sharing things that I felt I had already ruminated on inside, or things that were at least close to being fully processed, hoping they would die down inside me once I put them into words out there. The former wasn’t that fun; for the latter one I could not shake off anxiety. Even then, I wanted to write and put it out there publicly, ideally to complete strangers, because I mentally missed that weird sense of security and freedom that being naked around strangers gave me, like when I went to hot springs in Japan. In theory, this was supposed to be my favorite public hot spring in my mind, but I failed at the moment I created this blog; it surely did serve my intention because I wanted to throw my words to the very people whom I swallowed my words in front of, to the people who misunderstood me and will do so no matter what I say or do (that’s almost everyone; that’s just how we all are). Sometimes I was fine with all the insecurities writing put on me, but sometimes I wasn’t, so my words were contaminated from the moment they were born. The more “I” wanted to be legible to the eyes of others, the worse the contamination was. At least I tried to contain some truth in them, though distorted, but still, closer to the truth than a lie.
Meanwhile, I found this poet and essayist. The first, and turned out to be the last, published book of her essays was titled “일기에도 거짓말을 쓰는 사람 (The One Who Tells Lies Even in Her Own Journal).” That sounded very familiar because it sounded like me (and probably same to you as well). With her, I’ll play devil’s advocate here. Words have every right to contain lies (by lies, I mean anything that has gaps with what we perceive as real, and anything that bridges those gaps). That’s just another dimension of reality; they constitute reality. It’s how we write scripts, make sense of, and attach meanings to the whole nonsensical mess we experience every day. (Later I learned that this is the assumption that sociologists stand upon when they go out interviewing people.) Saying and writing things that aren’t entirely true or are yet to be true, sometimes consciously or unconsciously hoping they become true, should not be a crime. That should be one legitimate reason why we write. Still, holding too much onto them would make me feel sick, so I had to stop using too many pretentious but also still somewhat truthful words as if I had been fine because being fine by now should make better sense plot-wise. And who decides what makes better sense anyway? I was just standing in the courtroom I made up in my mind, convicting myself and sentencing the plot I thought I was creating. That way, writing served the exact opposite purpose, so I stopped.
I found this poet on the internet, from an excerpt of her poetry. When I’m stuck in words (which is most of the time), I share songs, poetry, books, quotes, memes, paintings, and all forms of shit on the internet. It’s at least much more emotionally manageable than sharing my own. So I’ve been wiping tears with some stupid brilliant memes instead of journaling. It worked for me, because I never had enough energy to look straight at myself, and that shit can be the most unmanageable when most things in life are already quite unmanageable. Though I think it worked well enough to survive a semester. (did it?)
When I was thirteen years old or so, I changed my ringback tone to the song that I thought was most representative of my mood and identity and let it speak for me to everyone who called me. I decided to do a similar thing here this time. I came back to share this poem that got me into the poet, Cha Do-Ha. She passed away last year, but her words still speak. In her book of essays, she claimed that anyone who reads or writes essays possesses excessive ego. I think that's just how writing is by nature. Maybe it’s just a matter of how brazen you can be about it. The more I try to explain and make sense of it, somehow the uglier I feel about my ego. Still, there’s me not knowing what to do but to hold onto these sorts of non-truths. Now that I think of it, that’s also where the beauty and tragedy of writing lie. Amidst it all, my words will betray me in the last mile delivery. So this time, I am not even trying. Instead I let her words speak for me. I could not be brazen enough, or brave enough, like her.
English Translation follows. Translation is my own.
쉘 위 댄스 - 차도하 (1999-2023)
빛을 죽이고 돌아가는 길에 나는 자주 넘어졌다 보이지 않았기에 만져야 했는데 더듬어도 가늠되지 않는 사물들, 손이었다가 나무였다가 벽이었다가 문이고 절벽인 사물들을 만나면 이리저리 부딪히다 넘어지는 수밖에 없었다
온 세상에 빛이 없었으므로 모두가 나처럼 이리저리 부딪히고 굴러다녔다
먼저 눈멀어본 적 있는 자들이나
눈이 없는 동물들과 식물들은 고요히 웃었을까
함부로 가늠하지 않기
빛이 없어진 후로 나는 그런 것을 배웠으므로
상상 속의 웃음이 멎었다
그렇지만 어둠 속에서도 춤을 추는 사람은 춤을 출 것 이다
손을 뻗는 자리가 막혀 있고 발을 디딘 곳이 푹 꺼져도
이런 것은 상상해도 좋지
부드러워진 상처처럼
아프고 사랑스럽지
빛이 있으라, 빛이 있으라 ……
중얼거리는 사내의 손을 잡고
없어도 돼요
나는 춤을 추기 시작했다
누군가 넘어질 것 같을 땐 맞잡은 손에 힘을 줬다
따듯한 피 냄새가 났다
따듯한 젖 냄새 같기도 한
Shall we dance - Cha Do-Ha (1999-2023)
On the way back after killing the lights I often fell I couldn’t see so I had to touch stuffs that can’t be measured by tracing, when faced with things that was a hand, a tree, a wall, a door, a cliff, I could do nothing but bumping around here and there and falling
There was no light in the entire world so everyone bumped around and rolled about
Would those who have been blinded already, the animals and plants without eyes have serenely smiled?
Not measuring things carelessly
After the lights were gone I learned such things
Laughs in the imagination ceased
Nevertheless people who dance in the darkness will dance
Even if the space to reach their hands is blocked and the place to land their feet has sunk
It’s fine to imagine these things
Like a softened wound
Hurting and lovely
Let there be light, let there be light……
Grabbing the hand of a murmuring guy
Said we can do without it
I started to dance
When someone was about to fall I tightened our clasped hands
Smelled warm blood
Like warm breast milk