Yesterday, I awoke with some neck pain. It was unfortunate (and humorous!). This was the one night I slept with the hotel pillow. Usually, I stuff my New Yorker (which you can get for $6!!!) tote bag with miscellaneous clothes to have the tan fabric balloon into a voluminous shape. It’s not the most comfortable, but it has—and will==do. (Reminder: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Let’s not hustle backwards!!!). The pain has been searing and encompassing, like an invisible brace of immobility. All the tendons and muscles and other tissue (I’m sure Jordan could give the proper names) constrict and contract and produce stiff glances. I’ve been told this will last a week, so I was in the car today.
What to index? What to do?
I’ve been in one static position for most of the day. One bag of flaming hot Cheeto flavored popcorn is now a crumpled plastic heap in our trash (my stomach did not like the deadly dyes). I’ve snacked, and I’ve stared, and I’ve knocked on a door of a stranger to ask to use the restroom. Most of all though, I’ve been reading and watching.
In light of some lore (which all have some relation to love), I shall share the books and media I’ve sprinkled into the trip (many are 10% finished—perhaps in total, they can combine to be one finished book):
Past Lives (A24 Film): I cried while watching this today, though I don’t know how much that reveals because I can cry a lot, especially when watching what seems to be real. Decisions, relationships, and all the possibilities of life are difficult to comment on, as it’s hard to observe anything we are in the midst of, to have foresight in the ongoing, especially at this age. But two things stuck, and I wrote down the dialogue. For context, the movie is about Nora, a woman who immigrated from Korea at age 12, and Hae Sung, her childhood sweetheart from her hometown, and her current husband Arthur. Hae Sung and Nora have bouts of on and off contact, despite obvious chemistry, and the movie’s climax is when Hae Sung visits Nora in New York for a “vacation.” Disguised as a love triangle (though it’s not), Past Lives is really about the ways life could have “happened” to us and the moments we confront that vastness.
Dialogue #1 that I like:
Arthur: I mean, think about it. Our story is just so boring. We met at an artist residency, slept together because we both happened to be single, realized we both live in NY so we move in together to save money on rent, get married so you can get a green card—
Nora: Sounds so romantic.
Arthur: That’s what I’m saying. I’m the guy you leave in the story when your ex-lover is going to take you away…What if you met another artist at residency? What if there was another writer from NY who read all the same books you had and watched all the same movies and could give you useful notes on your plays and listen to you complain about your rehearsals?
Nora: That’s not how life works.
Arthur: Yeah, but wouldn’t you be laying here with him?
Nora: This is my life and I’m living it with you.
Nora is curt, while Arthur is admittedly (and understandably) anxious, maybe jealous, and upset over Hae Sung’s visit. Nora later adds that Arthur is forgetting the part where she loves him. Some of the time, I can be like Arthur, wondering and wandering in uncertainties and false realities, and then for the rest of these moments, I’m Nora. More decisive and definitive, I guess. I don’t know—I don’t think this scene is meant for us to unravel all the reasons why we are here in this exact moment today. I think it’s about frame control. How wonderful it is that it was Arthur at that residency and that they did read the same books and like the same movies and that they both envisioned a life full of writing and partnership. The default is easy to dismiss because it’s here, it’s happening. But that doesn’t make it any less are and precious.
Dialogue #2 that I like:
Hae Young: But the truth I learned here is, you had to leave because you’re you. And the reason I liked you is because you are you. And who you are is someone who leaves.
Nora: I think there was something in our past lives. Otherwise, why would we be here together now? But in this life, we don’t have the In-Yun to be that kind of person to each other. Because now, finally, we’re in the same city for the first time in twenty years…
Hae Young: We’re sitting here with your husband. In this life, you and Arthur are that kind of In-Yun to each other. You two have the 8,000 layers of In-Yun to each other. To Arthur, you’re someone who stays.
In-Yun is a Korean word for means fate that connects people. The layers of serendipity that allow two people to be in each other’s lives, no matter how brief. This scene is quite piercing because we can hold love for people but relinquish them in our lives, and this truth feels unnatural and unsettling. Shouldn’t love be enough to bind two people, like an invisible thread that wounds us up and together? But it’s not, and circumstance must support. That’s scary to reckon with and accept, but perhaps it makes it all the easier to internalize that everything happens for a reason because there’s a reason that some things did not work out while other things did.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (book): This is a canonical piece, deemed one of the most influential bodies of work in the 19th century. And I can see why. Each page invokes a spiritual calling, and the book is gripping as it is grueling. This was written for a white audience, beckoning the middle class to act and revolt against slavery. Thus, Stowe’s framing—the use of “you” and “reader”—construct an invisible barrier between the story—which is all about slavery—and the audience—who is construed as above and beyond these happenings. This is subtle, but it is clear, and the appeals to God and values convince us that slavery is a moral sin, and that is worth no economic price.
The Gospel of J. Edward Hoover (book): Written by one of my professors in spring quarter, this book explores how religion was embedded into the national security state. Recently, I’ve been curious about how religion and its deep underpinnings in the US have been amiss to me. Maybe it’s one of those things that are so obvious—but so private—that it obscures truth, or at least a complete one. Maybe religion is comparable to water in David Foster Wallace’s speech. Religion is the thing that’s around us, to such an extent that we can’t even recognize what exactly it is. Nonetheless, this book is great. I’m really into religious studies, and I’m excited to learn more about the domain.
Political Order and Decay (book): A polisci classic, this book follows how our democracy has become what it is in the last 200 years. Dense but comprehensive, Fukuyama creates an overarching narrative of how democracy can be sustained. I like this book a lot. It feels like getting down the fundamentals of how this world that I know came to be, and I imagine it was a herculean undertaking to write this and synthesize many, many piece-meal theories.
I’m in the car for the next day, too. So off to the races to read,
Victoria