Making the World

 

I can’t count how many times people have asked me to write a book.  To which I reply, “I sort of already have.”  So here is part of it: that blog I wrote for my family, a fellow adoptee, and a couple friends, as I set off to live in Korea.  Circumstances left me few options but to take an opportunity in the land of my birth, and so I found myself heading there at 45 — a lonely, somewhat broken, middle-aged woman.

It was 2009.  The year prior I’d never met another Korean adoptee.  I’d never entertained visiting the country of my birth or embarking on a birth family search.  I’d barely just revealed to my children my childhood abuse.  I was grieving the loss of the dance community I’d built, an unrequited love, and other losses. I knew nothing of the culture, the language, the history, or any of the controversy and activism surrounding how I and hundreds of thousands of other Korean children got sent to all corners of the globe.  I had woven myself an impenetrable cocoon and never ventured outside its protective shell. I was about as raw as one could be and not be institutionalized. I’d also never written a journal before and, though often awkward, it quickly became my solace, salvation, and — to my surprise — solace for others as well.

 

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Excerpt from book by Robecca Solnit

A crazy twist in my search, a couple documentaries, activism, art, and far too much introspection threatened to turn me into something I was not comfortable with.  At some point, writing for others forced me to think beyond myself, beyond the politics, and beyond identity to something I think is closer to the truth.  It was the most harrowing, wonderful thing that could ever happen to a person.

So below is the record of those times – of becoming woke, of being too woke, of going clear, of making peace with what is out of my hands and accepting what I’ve become.  I hope you enjoy reading it in it’s now chronological form, (next and previous posts are in red with an arrow at the bottom of each post) in all its glorious honest mess.

Much love,

Suki