But before THAT, let me start off with, not our usual sponsor of "This Is Why I'm Here" but a new, additional sponsor called "WTF?!"
The first installment was found up the street from my school. It is purported to be a sign for a gym that may or may not still be there. Yes, that's who you think it is.
This is part of signage for a different English school. Not sure what they're teaching but here's the zoom of the text that is pictured in the poster...
"In the course of an orgy..."
Most of you may not know this but I sold my house in Fullerton last month. I thought I'd keep it while I was here but I realized I am just not cut out to be a homeowner....not just yet. I felt tied down the minute I bought that house. So, once my mom told me that she got into a senior residential community where some of her friends were also living, we discussed selling the house. My mom, ever practical, suggested that I keep it so that I will have a home to come back to and because becoming a homeowner again may be difficult. I understood where she was coming from but, personally, it was a burden in every way. The only reason to keep would have been so that my mom would feel more secure or always have a place to move back to if she didn't wind up liking her new apartment. My mom, ever supportive, told me to do whatever made me feel less burdened.
My mom LOVED her trees and vegetable garden at the house and it was more like her home than mine because she took care of it and felt comfortable in it. So it was with a good amount of trepidation that I pulled the trigger and sold the house. Why would anyone want to move from a spacious, three bedroom house, with a nice yard, into a single-bedroom apartment? There was that niggling in the back of my mind even though my mom insisted that her new apartment was quite spacious with a living room larger than the one my Fullerton house had. She even noted that it was a relief that she didn't have to spend the better part of her day tending to the trees and the garden. The lady doth protest too much, I thought. In a way, I felt like I was evicting my own mother just so I didn't have to deal with the responsibility of being a homeowner. I tried to compartmentalize these thoughts so I wouldn't pull my hair out.
Then, last week, my mom called to tell me that dad visited her in two dreams within one week. She likes to update me anytime dad comes to "visit" but whenever she says that, it always creeps me out. I tend to be a skeptic when it comes to paranormal events or unexplained phenomenon, even though I've had my fair share of personal experiences with it. But, to my mom, having my dad "visit" her in her dreams is so commonplace that her tone tends to be sort of nonchalant when she tells me about it; like she's recounting what she had for lunch that day. Some of you know of my mom's experiences leading up to my father's last days as well as those she had after he left. That is why I put stock in this.
So the first dream consisted of my mom being at her new apartment when a mutual friend of hers and dad's came to knock on the door. Their friend beckoned her to follow because dad was wanted her to meet him at a local restaurant/bar around the corner (dad liked a good brewskie). My mom noted it was strange that he didn't come to get her himself or just walk in as he usually did at the Fullerton house. When she arrived, my dad was sitting alone at a table. She sat across from him and asked what he was doing there. He then referred to two bundles next to him: one was a dress for my mom and another was a dress for me. He told her to SEND this dress to me. My mom described it as multi-colored, shimmery, beautiful, and in a traditional Korean style - not quite like a hanbok but still kinda old school-y. I wanted to ask her what she thought the significance of the dresses were but she continued talking. She told me she was so curious even in her dream that she asked dad why he hadn't just come to her apartment directly. He didn't answer her.
In the next dream that occurred a few nights later, she and dad went to the Fullerton house that I just sold. The new owners were there to welcome them in and set a table for them (the new owners are also Korean). My dad had no problem walking into that house and making himself at home but he still didn't say a word to my mom, even as they sat to nibble on the food that the new owners prepared for them. My mom was noting to him the new owners' furniture and what they had done with the our old space but my dad remained silent and just ate the food set in the living room. My mom considered this very strange because he carried over the silence from the previous dream even though, typically, he would converse with her.
The first thing I thought was, "Dad doesn't like that my mom moved." From the other end of the phone came, "I don't think your dad really likes that I moved." My heart sank. Oh god, what's wrong with her place? Is it dangerous there? Why doesn't he like it?! Should she find another place? Did I screw over both my parents, one living, one deceased?
I know, guilty conscious much?
After I calmed down, my mom began to say that she thinks he just isn't used to the idea of the new place. I reminded her that when we first moved into the Fullerton house, he had no problem visiting her there from day one. From the dreams she had when we first moved into that house, he just came over, sat himself down, asked for food, watched TV, mowed the lawn, fixed anything broken, and pretty much did the things he would have done had he been alive. He never went back to the old, old house in Anaheim where we had lived for 25 years. She had no explanation after I made that point. She said she was sure he'd eventually come inside the apartment but I am sure she noticed the worry in my voice.
My dad doesn't visit me that often. When he does, we're just doing mundane things. But he frequents my mom's dreams and, when he does, is the focus of them while often telling her to convey messages, thoughts, or items to me, which she does (again, creeps me out). But he was eerily silent in his visitations with her since the move, aside from the gift of dresses. I don't know what to think nor do I want to give it any more credence than being mere manifestations of my mom's own doubts about moving and my high-anxiety about doing right by her. But, again, too many things have happened for me to think this is JUST a product of her imagination or random neurons firing. Am now waiting for my mom to call and tell me he finally stepped foot inside her apartment even if it's just to give her a hard time about it. Anything. As long as he goes inside. Am gonna be on edge about this one for a bit. Forgive the silly superstitious side of me.
On a lighter note (much lighter!), I was walking home alone from school recently and thinking about my friends back home. Joanna was heading to Cali for a visit and I knew they'd all be getting together for dinner. I then began to envision everyone's faces, individually, and imagined seeing them cracking up due to various reasons/jokes/circumstances. About halfway home, as I was going through the rolodex of laughing faces, I realized I was grinning like an idiot, for no reason than just thinking about my friends laughing. The sounds and expressions of those faces made me feel exponentially happier than any of the following things, in no particular order:
1. the first sip of vanilla mocha coffee of the day
2. puppies and corresponding puppy breath (i know, right?!)
3. rain
4. getting packages from home
5. sleeping-in (what? what? what?!)
6. finishing a good book
7. spicy bbq pork
8. getting hugs and cute notes from my students
9. reading about abused animals finding good homes
10. all the contents of cuteoverload.com, failblog.org, and highexpectationsasianfather.tumblr.com COMBINED
11. thinking about the 1997 wales choir tour (huge highlight of my life)
12. giving someone a much-deserved verbal/written beat-down
13. finishing another chapter of writing
14. brutus
15. hearing that "rurouni kenshin" was going to be made into a live-action movie
16. the legendary yaki ramen in morioka, japan
17. things that are super cute just because they are proportionally smaller than their normal-sized counterparts (glares at richard)
18. figuring things out on my own
19. songs so good that i listen to it on repeat all day
20. cheese (usually in some burrito format)
I wore that silly, inspired grin all the way home. I wish I could be there to hear them laugh communally, in person. Better yet, to be the reason for some of that laughter in one way or another. But I hope they now know that just the memory of their faces all screwed-up in merriment makes me incredibly happy. So much so that, this past Friday night, I took on the project of printing out some of my favorite photos and putting them up on my wall a la scrap-booking style. Here's the result. Some will recognize themselves in these:
Just keep laughing. It will only make me happy.
