reallyreally
At takeoff, I'm reading frank: sonnets by diane seuss, which, at halfway, I already know has become a mainstay of my personal canon. The man next to me peers over and asks, is that a book of poems? It's nice to see a young person reading these days. He is large, jovial, white American, around the age of my parents, with blurry tattoos on his sun-drenched arms. I nod politely and point to the hardcover wedged into his seatback pocket. What are you reading? He zigzags through a description of the plot, a historical thriller, and I make an offering: is it similar to a Dan Brown? He is delighted: Exactly—in fact, Brown almost was sued for veering too closely to this predecessor.
He introduces me to his wife, the Filipina woman sitting beside him. They are from North Carolina and we are on our way to Manila. With the clues I have, I tee up a read: North Carolina? I've been to Jacksonville...And he lights up. They've been living there for 25 years and he confirms my hunch: he is a retired marine. My instinct is to disengage at this point, but every other sentence out of his mouth surprises me.
Jim and his wife love Korean dramas. His favorite is Our Blues, and he especially loves the character who drives the truck. I do, too, and I love to do an impression of this character to make my parents laugh, but I don't tell him this. I tell him Jeju Island is my favorite place in the world and he tells me one of his dreams is to watch the haenyeo dive. Also to taste soybean paste hundreds of years old, fermenting in underground jars. He saw that once in a documentary. He describes things as really-really something, repeating the word into one rolling trill: it was reallyreally cool (the documentary), this is reallyreally good (the ssambap served on the plane). He mentions how much he admires a Korean TV personality—what's his name again, honey? turning to his wife—who lives in Manila and has done wonderful things in the trans community.
Jim was stationed in Pohang in the 80s and remembers the time fondly, though he was critical at the time of the military dictatorship. Looking at the flight map on the screen in front of him, he says, you know, it was always my wish to see Korea reunited. He says: I'm not a fan of the UN. It was the UN's fault that Korea was divided. Russia and the U.S. should have left and let the Korean people figure it out. They would have figured out how to reunite.
He turns to look at me then, and I tell him: I completely agree. I lift my sleeve and show him my tattoo of an undivided Korean peninsula. Oh that's nice, he says, and steers the conversation toward a new topic, completely oblivious, I think, of how much he moved me. I have never had a conversation like this with someone outside of my family or circles of a particular progressive caliber. I do my best to bridle my overwhelming tenderness for Jim and his wife, whose name I asked for twice but ultimately can't remember, who flung her arm across her husband to clutch my hand when we burst out laughing over something silly. They show me terrible photos on their phones of the cottage they just had built on her home island. One of my dreams, I tell them, is to have an outdoor kitchen like you have there.
I see them again at baggage claim. She is in a wheelchair. We smile hugely at each other and say, bye!