Category: Uncategorized

Yesterday, I took a same-day return trip to Chicago. Having traveled there by train for four times, I was not as curious and excited; instead, I was more worried about the classes I missed and the back pain caused by the long sedentary train ride. Taking a break from reviewing lecture slides on my laptop, I looked around and noticed people doing different activities and had various states of mood. Interestingly, from the things they were doing, their talking voices, facial expressions, and body gestures, I could almost take a guess on their purposes of traveling. Below are the three major moods I found among people around me upon my very sketchy observation.

Excitement

The two ladies who were seated several rows ahead of me were talking loudly about their travel plans for the following week in Chicago. The excitement in their voices was palpable, which reminded me of my first time to take a train to Chicago. It was the thanksgiving break two years ago, and I was traveling with four of my friends. We were so excited about the trip and were chattering along the way. And you know what, the train arrived on schedule that time! Actually we were so exhilarated and everything seemed like a novelty for us that we would not mind staying longer on the train.

Anxiety

Train rides, possibly the most old-fashioned form of transportation, could be enjoyable, as long as one has enough patience and nothing urgent to do because the train is often delayed, especially in snowy winters like now. Unfortunately I did not have as much patience this time because I had an important appointment at noon which I strongly didn’t want to miss because otherwise I would have to stay for an extra night and skip all classes of another day. The train moved at the painfully slow speed, and as the appointment time was approaching, I got more and more anxious but could do nothing about it. The guy sitting behind me made several phone calls to adjust the meeting time with his friends. His voice was filled with impatience and frustration. I felt deep sympathy and compassion for him, and myself.

Contentment, Tiredness and Boredom

On the returning train, there were fewer passionate travelers because most night train rides were “homeward bounds” for wanderers and students returning to schools.  Thus, the train had a quiet ambiance, mingled with occasional sounds of typing the keyboard, peaceful, almost imperceptible snores and whispers of people answering the phone. Feeling exhausted after the errands on foot in the afternoon and more than ten hours of train ride, I opened my laptop and started doing the readings for Wednesday’s class. It was almost midnight, and everyone on the train seemed lethargic after a long day, waiting in silent for the train to reach their destination.

I moved to Normal 13 years ago. Well technically, somewhere right next to Normal, Illinois. I stayed there for 3 years. We had a Normal police force, I spent hours in the Normal Public Library and I would have graduated from Normal Community High School had I not moved back to Korea.

But apart from a geographical definition, I don’t know where (or what) normal actually is. I don’t think any of us do, not really. In a way, we’re all trying to live somewhere next to normal, or at least close enough to normal to get by. We wander between our personal version of normality and a slightly more macroscopic vision of it, trying to find a place to be. The musical Next to Normal sheds light on the Goodman family as they explore the meaning of normality, both individually and as a family.

The first production of this musical I saw was the original Korean cast version about a year ago. The cast included some of the most veteran performers in Korean musical theater history, including one of my favorite music director-turned-performer Kolleen Park as Diana and Kyungju Nam as her husband. The show received mixed reviews from both the critics and the public, though it did return for a second run a few months later. It was a love it or hate it thing, with people becoming ardent fans of the actors and the piece itself or leaving the theater with nothing more than disappointment. I fell into the former category—I came away from it with many ‘feels.’

My favorite element of the show was how the stage was utilized—a minimalist set, with only the bare skeleton of a third story house transposing into a woman’s face. It served as an effective visual metaphor for the multiple layers that the musical moves between. In addition, the actors moving vertically up and down the stage instead of the traditional horizontal layout broke many of the conceptions I’d held about utilizing stage space. It was one of the few times I didn’t regret sitting on the second floor—watching Jaelim Choi (who has since become one of my favorite musical performers) belt out I’m Alive right in front of my eyes is an experience I’ll never forget.

The set in the Ann Arbor Civic Theater production that I watched today wasn’t as grandiose. Still, a small scaffold on stage with hanging backdrops of house elements actually fit in with the more intimate take on the piece. It was interesting how differently I responded to the show from a year ago; I reacted to different things, picked up different meanings and made previously nonexistent connections. Part of this was definitely the different production—language, scale, direction and so on—but most of it was how much I’d changed. I reacted strongly to Natalie’s character last year, especially during ‘Everything Else.’ Having just gone through the college application process with a burning desire to escape, everything else did go away for me during that song.

But this time around, I found myself crying as Diana sang of missing the mountains, missing a life and a self she had known before. During the past year, I’d developed a fear that I might someday sing that song, feel that emotion. While thinking about the future, I I’d developed a fear of regret, constantly questioning whether I’m making the right choices that I will not regret later. Dan’s character was more fully realized for me as well, especially towards the end of the second half when we see how Diana’s illness has affected him. That shift in perspective didn’t work for me the first time around, mostly because of the scale and the different cultural context.

I wonder how I’ll view Next to Normal in 30 years. Perhaps I’d be a mother (hopefully a happier one than Diana) by then? The shows, books, music and other media we come into contact evolve with us as we change; at the same time, they remind us of who we used to be. Whether something is ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ well-staged or well-written or ‘crappy,’ this kind of personal connection is what really makes a piece special.

As a graduating senior, I’ve been thinking a lot about how long I’ve been a student. By now I’ve been a student for the majority of my life and longer than just about anything I can remember! To think that it’s been seventeen years since walking into that kindergarten class where I’d learn to read and dominate at nap time (a skill I never really appreciated until college), is bizarre. Aside from my paste-dripping art and the Mother’s Day concert, my greatest accomplishment was finding a best friend–I knew I had to be friends with the guy bringing Jurassic Park Velociraptor toys that fought in the style of Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots to show and tell.

Of course, what I hadn’t known at the time was that my friendship with him was going to last with me these seventeen years. Yes, even though he’s going to Michigan State.

Back during childhood, making a friend was about as easy as asking a kid at Chuck E. Cheese, “wanna be my friend?” and losing a friend was as simple as his parents picking him up. Friendship wasn’t a big deal in those days, you made them and lost them and that was okay. Back in those days when you still thought you could be friends with anybody at the drop of a hat it didn’t matter because the world was full of friends to play with and love, even if that was only a temporary arrangement.

I’ve found that in the grown-up-world, friends are equally easy to lose but maybe not so easy to meet. Not everyone will like you, and sometimes it can be hard to see why anyone would. Sometimes the friends you have don’t feel like friends at all, and you realize that you’ve let people drift away even though they used to mean the world to you. So a friendship that’s lasted seventeen years? Yeah, that’s pretty damn important.

I believe that time is the most valuable currency that anyone can possess, because unlike money, you have a finite number of seconds–of heartbeats–and you can only lose them, never get them back. That’s why spending your time on something is such a valuable thing, and the most rewarding thing I’ve ever spent my time on and in this case, the majority of my life, is my friendship with my best friend. Having him at a time when I didn’t have any other friends, always having someone who’s support and understanding I could count on, has made him one of the most important people in my life. And that’s why I wanted to write about friendship as an art in the first place, because I think it really is. Not just in that it’s beautiful and important, but because like all art, it takes time and it develops into what it is.

All friendships are unique, there’s not necessarily a template that every relationship should follow. Poems can be sonnets or stream of consciousness, just as a relationship can be unlabeled or defined. However, what is it that causes us to label specific relationships as friendships? If you ask someone what friendship means to them, you might get a different answer than what you yourself might give. Some focus on loyalty, others on love. To some people it’s about someone to hang out with or talk to and the list goes on and on. For me, the most important thing in any relationship on any level is communication. Clear and honest communication is the vital nourishment that will allow a relationship to grow, and that growing is important! A seventeen year friendship didn’t happen in a day, it happened over the course of seventeen years. People change and relationships change, and if those changes can be accepted then the friendship can continue to expand. Resisting that change can result in regret, resentment, and ultimately stagnation.

Communication might be the foundation for any relationship, but I think that friendship requires a bit more nuance–understanding. I can’t really imagine being able to really call someone that wasn’t capable of understanding me (or at least making the effort to, given that I’m of a habit to babble incomprehensibly) a friend. Not necessarily just in the sense of being able comprehend, but also being able to be accepting and supportive of that understanding. By which I mean being accepting and supportive of me as who I am and who I’m growing to become. A friend that is willing to put that into a relationship is someone you can really build something special with, a real work of art.

Even though I don’t get to see my best friend often since he’s over at East Lansing where my Wolverine feet fear to tread, when I’m talking to him over the phone and he calls me “brother,” I can still feel the full weight of seventeen years of love.