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Published: April 8th 2006
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I almost stayed in tonight. The wind finds a way of seeping under your skin here, like Lethbridge, bleeding into your peace of mind. It is difficult to be comfortable enough to be introspective when you are cold under your skin. My late night walks have become a time for reflection and walking meditation. But, like a monk in training, I persevered the astringent air and took to the road- baby steps. First I intended to see if I could make it to the bank, 3 blocks away. Then we’ll see how the ol’ legs are feeling.
But, like has become the tradition on my late evening jaunts, my legs took over any intentions I may or may not have had to explore. With Miguel Migs breathing his hypnotic rhythm into my ears, my pace quickened and I was flowing with the stream aside me, through the pulse of the city, until the air no longer felt like an inconvenience, and I was no longer aware of the Yellow dust that was burning my eyes. And suddenly, like a dream, I was standing in front of a fountain, a lion’s head smirking eerily in the iridescent light, water flowing smoothly,
City and water
Central Park, Bundang unassumingly, out of his mouth. He was hidden in a little corner, near one of the ponds. A sign stood beside the stone, something mysterious, something profound (probably “do not through your change in the fountain” or something equally as important), masked in the unfamiliar geometry of hangul script. I stood there, partially stunned, considering for a moment taking a picture of the text and questioning my elementary students the next day as to it’s meaning, and then reconsidering for fear of destroying the already crumbling awe I feel in the presence of the unfamiliar.
Somehow I ended up here, like the nights before. Somehow, among the bright intrusive lights of an Oriental city, I had once again found solace. The smell of pine needles and moss, and the romantic softening from the lines of purple flowers glowing alongside the cobblestone pathway, has freed me once again from the oppressive feeling that only being trapped within an ever expansive city, can give. And suddenly, amid the proverbial smell of mountain (ha! Hill maybe) air, I felt that wonderful feeling of unsubstantiated fear. That same fear I felt months before I left home, alone on the side of the mountain,
deep in the Kananaskis range, the bear mace I almost bought at the corner store still sitting on the shelf weighing on my mind, taking a break from the exhausting march up the side of the cliff I had just endured, suddenly realizing I was in perfect position to be eaten alive by a grizzly. Memories of my Wild Grammatology class coming in a flowing mass of deliberations…why is it that we fear the wild? Am I not of the wilderness myself?
Back to Bundang. I recognize the frustration of not feeling utterly in the moment, and I search the area for a path. A literal path, and a metaphoric one, out of my obtuseness of sense. And there it is, right in front of me, a worn (as if any path in a place so long civilize as this would be anything but worn) trail leading its winding way up the side of the mountain. Shaking my head yet again at the notion that this is a “mountain”, Korean style, I procede into the artificial light provided generously from the lampposts every 15 meters or so.
It is a romantic walk, without a shadow of a doubt.
bridge and cityscape
Central Park, Bundang I realize, as I think about this, that I have grown already since I arrived here. I do not ache for companionship as I notice the potential romance of the situation. On the contrary, I am suddenly grateful for the peace I feel in solitude, up in the hills in the middle of the city. I am alone. I am here for myself, and I am happy.
The path veers off in several different directions. Couples pass, all adorned in their nighttime workout gear, always walking with an extreme vertical on their swinging arms. They look, they smile, and they continue on their way, waiting a few feet I’m sure before they begin to analyze my strange presence in the hills at night. Why am I not at the bar on a Friday night, enjoying Cass and friendly white camaraderie? I smile to myself. It is nice to surprise people.
I take a turn in the road at a fork at the top and find myself suddenly bathed in light in the center of a clearing. There is a circle of trees surrounding the clearing, and a bench positioned just below the lamppost (straight out of C.S. Lewis,
Lion
the stone pillar so much it is as if he himself designed this hermitage on the hill). I sit down and rest my aching legs. I didn’t notice just how sore they were, or how tired I had become. I was running on the adrenaline of curiosity. Nothing like it. The trees around me are all incredibly thin and I think to myself that it is a wonder they stand up at all- all of their proximity to each other just enough that they all flowed together in the wind without ever touching a branch. Each tree is peppered with sprigs of green. I look up into the trees, away from the lights that sparkle through the tress from the city that surrounds me, and I breathe slowly. I need to climb inside this moment, climb outside of the city. I wish deeply I could literally float up into the canopy above. But as the wind picks up, and the trees begin to move more dramatically, I forget that I am stationed on the bench, on the ground, and I feel as I am moving, end everything around me is like water- fluid.
Whoa. I look back down, The city is still
A romantic path
laced in purple there. The couples walking are still meters away from me at the intersections. The pathways are still. They hold their possibilities, their own mysteries, but they are constant. There is a city around me waiting to be discovered. And then I see it, the Canadian paradigm stares me straight in the face. Here, there is city around me. At all times…always. In Canada I am inside the paradigm- how to find oneself within the wilderness. How to domesticate the wild spaces that exist all around us. Here the wild is neatly contained within concrete and an urbane population. And I have not yet found my place. It is in this moment I realize what I struggling with. It is not to be somewhere else- as I said to Erin the other night, I could live anywhere- it is the struggle with finding the wild.
“The human desire for wildness is strong and deep, because we feel so distant from that source and its unconscious movements in our bodies and minds” - Alison Hawthorne Deming
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