good weather, cute boys, and galleries –
a good day of many, 2021.
There is an art in cute boys and galleries. Taking them out on a Saturday with good weather, even aimlessly, ushers a satisfaction that solidifies good exhaustion to brag about on the Monday after.
Here are the dramatic details, brisk air with a summer sun, proof of climate change or a shy autumn. I changed my outfit at the last second. I was supposed to wear an olive trench with a cream pullover with a singed orange collar. Instead, I went with a gray hoodie with a dry black blazer, fast casual. It ended up being too warm, but it was the heat on that chilly day that brought a sense of fullness to the whole afternoon.
Here are the finer details. It’s been hard to call people friends here. I think it comes with being an expat. Too often, people come and go. You’re caught in a bubble of transients. And you live with it, learning to let people go as second nature.
Institutions are built as forms of gathering. Places with structure and discipline to make life a little easier. These places even impose friends, perhaps not the friends we’re looking for, but the friend we need in order to stay sane.
I’m picky about friends. It’s because I examine years in the number of new friends I’ve made, in articles of clothing that define me better, the ones I’ve learned to let go.
Life is short. So, I want to be doing the things I want to do with the people I like, and look good doing them.
As of November 1st, Korea has let go of some of its social distancing guidelines which I’ve personally enjoyed. There used to be a rule on public gatherings of four people. This rule originally allowed me to spend time with people more carefully, comfortably.
I find so much comfort in the act of one-on-one. Fifty-fifty. Equal playing fields. It allowed me to get to know people better, to ask everything without the quips of missed cues.
Tinder is not just a space for hookups. If anything, I’ve met people I call good friends now on Tinder.
I never understood couples who forbade their partners from being on Tinder. If we are afraid of our partners meeting other people, are we not stopping them from expanding thoughts and ideas? Allowing more leg-room for their traumas to feel less claustrophobic in existing anxieties and triggers? Wouldn’t we want more breathing space for the people that we love?
So we go elsewhere. We go to co-op tennis matches, bowling teams. Poetry readings, Reddit and Discord. We like bridges, ones connected directly from what we thought were remote interests to others. We listen to podcasts and watch vlogs we didn’t think we could watch from beginning to end. By the end of the day, we have multiple tabs open on our desktop, unread messages, an overwhelming sense that we are connected and want to disconnect immediately.
Together we saw Yosigo at Ground Seesaw, a cylindrical space that boasts slowness in the hustle and bustle of touristic Seochon.
Yosigo is a Spanish photographer, strangely popular in Seoul. Perhaps it’s because of the way he dramatically swings between minimalism and maximalism. Repeated handrails or windows on an apartment facade, bodies at a beach, the lonesome fade of a beach boardwalk sign in Miami. Such sights bring comfort in the time of COVID-19 when Koreans have been craving travel.
The exhibit waspacked. The space itself was only built for weekday visits. We pushed past people, squeezed in small corners to share a comment or two, a chance to catch our breath, and go back to the frenzy of camera shutters and Instagram poses.
We caught the exhibit just around sundown, so that when we made it to the rooftop terrace, our blushed cheeks were met with a deep chill, city lights.
All of a sudden, his wool coat was comforting to bump into, to be guided by the warmth of a voice that was sure of its speaker and a heart of relaxed gravitation.
Our banter was good. Wit was there. Dirty jokes were made. Childish ones, catty ones. It was good to get along with someone so well. We came prepared with good material, not a joke unfunny.
This went for our topics of varying degrees, ContraPoints, depression, love, AI, love, technology, dreams. Conversation was a lawn we landscaped to our own accord.
This mattered. A lot. Because I can’t count the number of times conversations have been so dull on this part of the world. Out of mannerisms, it’s so normal to say “hello” about three times before you get to the small talk in Korea. By then, I’ve already given up. For a country that runs on 빠리빠리 fuel I’m surprised the conversations aren’t a lot more interesting. But every once in a while, you get so lucky that life, once again, is worth living.
And one again, life will come back to a sense of that normalcy we all crave. Whether it be out of presidents or pandemics, mercury in retrograde or a bad break up, we reach a point where we enjoy things again, feel the air and have it carry us from place to place, person to person.
