Perfection A Deux

In "Swimming to Cambodia," Spalding Gray talks at length about what he calls a "perfect moment." Whatever he's doing, wherever he is (in this instance, in Asia filming "The Killing Fields"), he feels a need to have some type of positive closure, a moment when time seems to stop, everything falls into place, and all is right with his teeny tiny corner of the world.

Or something like that. It's been a while.

Then, he can go back to his dull, dreary life (I'm projecting) until the next perfect moment transcends all.

Or something like that.

At any rate, I've had two such moments over here in South Korea and, considerring everything else that can go wrong in a foreign land, I feel damn lucky to claim these two as my own.

The only thing that could possibly have made these moments perfecter is if I could click my heels together three times and have been immediately transported back to that glorious Emerald City By The Bay.

Sigh.

July 6th. I've been here less than 3 months, and I'm just leaving the town of GetMeTheHellOuttaThisCountry and looking for the city limits of MakeTheBestOutOfTheNextNineMonthsBub. In the eleven of so weeks since arriving in Korea, the number of other white folk I've seen can be counted on both hands, and the ones I've actually been able to corner and chat with on a few fingers.

I am far away from home. I am alone. And I am lonely.

I'm walking through Lotte Department Store in downtown Pusan and I notice four other Americans, all shopping together. As we pass, I smile and say hello, they do the same, and we all continue on our way.

And then it strikes me how often I've done this, and I decide to seize the day. I go back, introduce myself, and actually start talking with them. They're amazed that I'm the only Westerner at my school, and that I have no idea where any of the "American" hangouts are, or that I have no friends to hang out with.

I'm kind of amazed at this myself.

They draw me a map and take my phone number and, as the store closes and we walk outside, I'm literally bouncing in my steps, I'm that excited.

Gunshots.

No, not gunshots, not really (years of living in San Francisco's seedier neighborhoods takes its toll). More like thirty or forty paper bags full of air being popped in the lunchroom at, more or less, the same time. I look up into the sky and...

Fireworks. Lots of them. I stop to watch. Others do, too.

Soon, there are fifty, a hundred, more and more of us, all standing on a sidewalk in front of a department store in South Korea, watching fireworks light up a dark summer sky.

Click-click-click.

Nope. Still here.

January 5th. I wake up to snow. The first snowfall in Pusan in five or six years, and I can't get over it. I've never been experienced snowfall before.

Oh sure, I've been to the snow before, just like I've been to Disneyland before; but, it's the difference between going to Disneyland and then going back home, and going to bed in your own home and then waking up in the middle of Disneyland.

Probably.

Everywhere there's snow, and it looks great. Really neat. Way cool.

Yes, I'm easily impressed.

A dainty blanket of white is on the cars, the trees, the hills. Kids are throwing hard-packed balls of it, frumpy round men are being made out of it, and I just keep thinking, "This is so cool."

I head on out to the bus stop and, five or ten minutes later, I realize that the shoes I'm wearing, the socks that I'm wearing, the clothes I'm wearing simply aren't cut out for the snow.

But that's okay, 'cause I woke up in the middle of Snowyland (tm) today! And it's so cool!

I spend all day downtown. I check my e-mail, play on the Net, see a movie, and head for home just as it's getting dark.

My toes are numb. My fingers tingle. My nose is an icicle. Snowyland (tm) sucks.

There's a construction site near my home and, at night, a powerful security light is flicked on to help pedestrians see their way through the mess. It only throws a glowing fifty-foot circle over an area roughly the size of a football field but, you know, it's a nice thought.

Just as I enter this small lighted circle, it starts snowing again, gently, ever so gently.

I pause and look up into the sky. The snowflakes are caught by the light in such a way that it seems as if they just...appear out of the blackness. Above the lamp, nothing, a void. Under the lamp, however, within this tiny halo of light, the snowflakes are just suddenly there, their sole reason for blinking into existence seeming to be to float slowly down and settle on my face. Time slows and I am spellbound by the sight and feel of these tiny white fairies coming to me. They brush against my beard with delicate frigid fingers; they tease me with the barest whisper of an icy kiss upon my lips.

I close my eyes.

Click-click-click.

Nope.

I walk home in darkness.