16: Unmoored, but hopeful

Anchor please

Good morning! Writing to you from my bed, sitting backwards, to limit the glare and soak my eyes in “partly sunny”. The forecast predicts 50(!) degrees today. I woke up, knowing this, feeling lighter and happier than I have all week.

Every Saturday, I throw on my running shoes and parka and go for a long walk by myself. I don’t look at Kakao Maps. Instead, my feet take me wherever they want to go. This morning I returned to Montmartre Park, a sprawling green space atop a tree-covered hill near my apartment. It’s designed with a French aesthetic and houses a few sculptures of Picasso, Van Gogh, and others. There are also bunnies in Montmartre Park. Yes, like real live furry bunnies. Just hopping around. It’s cold right now, so many are in a different, warmer location until it warms up, but there are still some nesting themselves in the bare shrubs and frozen grass.

My walk to the “Bunny Park” is one of my favorite things I do, in my new "home”. I put that in quotes because I have no idea what home feels like here, except the feeling of my immediate family. Everything is unfamiliar: the language, food, apartment, 7/11, the boys’ school.

Most nights I go to bed feeling drawn out and wavy. Do you know that feeling? When the day’s capsized you repeatedly, but you’re still alive and putting yourself to bed like everything’s okay, knowing you’ll do it all again in the morning? It’s an unfortunately familiar feeling circa March 2020 but I find there’s an edge now that I’m living in a new country. I feel unmoored. Rarely anchored, except in an embrace from one of my kids, listening to music, or while writing, Airpods in. Almost none of the old routines; including people, group worship, and family, exist in my immediate sphere anymore. I wonder what would happen if I sat down to really think about this; it may be too soon. I may not be ready, similar to going through old photos on my Google Photos last week.

Despite the bummer tone of that last paragraph, I feel hopeful. I woke up lighter. Spring is a long way away yet but these are the things making me happy right now:

• Potential for friendships. There are a couple leads I’m pursuing.

• Innisfree eye cream and this ampoule. Bananas good.

• Tabernacle Choir. Beethoven. Asgeir. The Temptations. Mariah Carey. I’m always shocked at how quickly music can alter mood.

• A national outlet consulting a local expert aka The Ringer quoting Meg Walter of The Hive Mind OF SALT LAKE CITY about RHOSLC

• Speaking of reality tv, The Bachelor. Michelle. Michelle is making me happy. What a gem.

• The IG account @Sharonsaysso raising 50 million dollars for medical debt

• In & Of Itself on Hulu. Watching tonight!

• Exceptional babysitters. We’ve found a pair of sisters that are beyond. They come every Saturday and I have to act cool and not cry when I’m saying thank you and goodbye. So many thoughts on this.

• Sharing my boys. Thank you for your sweet comments. It felt strange not having them more present on my IG so I changed that.

• Ear plugs and sleeping masks

• Wool socks

• Listening to podcasts in a hot bath (with peppermint essential oil!)

• Cute cafes everywhere

• Lots of other things, if I think hard enough about it

  What’s giving you hope? What is making you happy these days?

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  Thank you for reading Little Things, my newsletter about motherhood, creativity, self-care, and life in Korea. Subscribe below so you don’t miss one. I send them every Sunday morning 5a EST. I’m on Instagram at @koselicummings and @koswriter on Twitter.