This is the Kos newsletter: warm email notes from your friend in Seoul. Finding the simple joy in parenthood, bodies, spirituality, creativity, beauty, and living abroad. Sound like your jam? Subscribe below for weekly notes.
This afternoon I traipsed up to the playground pushing our dusty black stroller overladen with scooters, truck sand toys, stomp rocket paraphernalia, one giant pogo stick, and still steaming bags of Kirkland Signature butter popcorn. There wasn’t even a kid in the stroller—literally just crap. Our youngest is three now and doesn’t need to ride in a stroller unless we’re traveling internationally. I keep it for the rush I feel pushing it uphill, barely balancing 14 pieces of metal playground equipment.
The sun was out. It was 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Practically summer. 3/6 of us were, in fact, wearing shorts. Two of my kids wore water shoes. Within five minutes of arrival, we’d scattered generic popcorn to every corner of the once-spotless park. My six-year-old took off his shoes, Tarzan shouted into the oblivion and threw himself headfirst down the spiraling twisty slide. My toddler got air on the seesaw and screamed with delight. My oldest two launched stomp rockets into the bare treetops above us.
Heaven to one person might feel like hell to another. Playground mayhem is my heaven. It’s the dream I never knew I had until I became a mother in Brooklyn and fell into a daily rhythm of mornings and afternoons at the park. It was our social life, our outside reprieve from our one-bedroom apartment, and honestly, a necessity for an energetic toddler who never stopped running and an extroverted stay-at-home mother. Between the stranger chats, dose of sunny vitamin D, and baby squeals, daily neighborhood playground time helped me re-emerge from postpartum depression.
I’ll never get a mom medal for most prepared, most organized, or most super. But what I do get is an intense inner sense of satisfaction watching my kids run wild and free at our local public park. The feeling is akin to being sixteen, driving at night with your friends, munching on fries and Frosties, listening to music—except I’m a 35 year old mom of four thousands of miles from my hometown Wendy’s.
Maybe my kids will forget the hundreds of hours they’ve spent at parks. Maybe not. Maybe all that schlepping crap to the park, just showing up at the park, meant something. I know I’ll never forget. The sunshine. The whoops. The bare toes. The sticky faces orange or red or blue with popsicle dribble. Nursing a baby at the foot of the swingset while a stranger offers to push my kid on the swing. Sandbox tag, monkey bars, metal slides, and plastic look-outs. The smell of dirt. Red faces. Goldfish crackers. (So many Goldfish crackers.) Conversations with friends weaving in and out of boo boo’s, snacktime, sharing drama, and whining. Emergency “nature potties”. Conversations that changed my life, pushed me, made me laugh. Made me cry. The conversation was always the best part.
Even if I do feel a mess as a Westerner in Seoul, the playground is my home. I feel comfortable there. I know that place and I know who I am and where I stand in that hallowed ground. We can call it hallowed, right? Since there are so few places dedicated only to children, public parks and playgrounds are holy places. Sometimes tiring, sometimes too loud, but always tender. Always there for every child, for any parent and caregiver., in any weather. A gathering place for home-makers and caretakers and hanging teens and the tired elderly and the youngest among us. God bless the playgrounds that bring us all together in one messy bunch.
Some Links
My friend Alisha just started a newsletter sharing about being a first-time foster parent. Cannot wait for this.
Warren Buffet has activewear swag? I can’t even begin to tell you how I found this out on the internet one night. But it was delightful.
Studying human computer interaction and found this course and this book helpful. (Heard about the course through Writers of Silicon Valley Ep. 2 with Sophie Tahran at Spotify.)
My podcast is sleepy quiet. I’ve been busy on some projects. Sorry for the listeners waiting!
Saw a line of a 800+ people waiting for PCR tests today. Here’s a look at Omnicron in South Korea.
Places to donate to the front lines in Ukraine.
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