Since Then

An Anticipated Thing

Though anticipated, it’s very tough to deal with in my mind. I’ve often trapped myself and all the mistakes used to be that I could’ve avoided, but I didn’t, so I deserve all this agony. Nevertheless, I need consolation impudently. I always want a shoulder to cry on. For me, this wretched world is too big to handle. Living in this world is so often beyond my capacity. (Written on 28 September, 2010)

I don’t remember exactly what made me write that. It must have been some harsh situation to me. I only conjecture that it was around that time when I recalled him. That night I wrote to Y in U.S.A, but I received nothing from him, though I eagerly desired for some friend-like words. I did want to keep any tricky situation away, and I just needed a tolerantly unconditional/unlimited embracer who was willing to protect all my absurdity at all times. Definitely Y was not the one and P, either. There’s only one in the world, I knew, whose concern for me being cherished all the time and react to me at any time, at any place. He’s the one, I knew, who has constantly loved me from the first time we’ve met. I couldn’t reject him anymore, but get back to hide in him.

It has passed another year.

Brit…

La Traviata

La Traviata/The Fallen Woman/The Woman Who Goes Astray

I don’t like it. I don’t mean that I don’t like Verdi’s opera. I just don’t like its naming, La Traviata. I don’t like the categorisation which drops Violetta (Marguerite Gautier in the novel) into one of fallen women. I’ve liked and pitied Marguerite since I first met her from Dumas’s novel in my teens. I think, however, she is absolutely different from me in every aspect. The only thing I share with Marguerite Gautier is too slim waist. Now mine is 21 inches though I’m an elder woman who has born two [grown up] children many years ago. If I tighten my waist with ‘corset or whatever’ as Scarlet O’Hara did, it would be much slimmer. I’ve never done that, though. I don’t like corsets.

The opera/novel was translated “춘희(椿姬)” in East Asia, which definitely Japanese did. The name “춘희(椿姬)” means ‘the girl of camellia’ which might’ve been brought from the title of its original story of Alexandre Dumas (fis), “The Lady of the Camellias” (French: La Dame aux camélias). I think it was childish/crude translation and I don’t like it, either.

My Korean name is 춘희(春熙), which has the same Korean letters with the opera’s translated title, even though the Chinese letters (春熙, mine) are different from the name’s (椿姬, the girl of camellia). The meaning of my name (春熙) is “spring brightens” or “bright spring”. Nevertheless, my nick name in younger years used to be “LaTraviata” or “Violetta”(the heroine) due to its same Korean letters with the work’s title.

Today I recall “Violetta and Alfredo” (or, “Marguerite Gautier and Armand Duval”), especially their desperate love which led to the end of the heroine’s tragic death. The young man’s pure love didn’t embrace (more properly, maybe, protect) the woman’s true love. He couldn’t remove her stigma of the fallen woman. It reminded me of several tragic loves such as Anna Karenina’s. In fact, Anna is more like me than Marguerite Gautier/Violetta.

My most favourite aria of Violetta’s is "E Strano!...Ah, fors'è lui"...Sempre libera" (Strangely…Ah, perhaps he’s the one…Always free), which requires high technique of coloratura. Now I’m listening to it through June Anderson’s voice, yet June is not my favourite Violetta.

Brit…

Struggle against the Meaningless

These days I'm struggling against the meaningless. Not searching for meaning, but making out meaning. In fact, it's nothing new for me to do it, since I've fought for meaning in my life all the time. All the meanings I’ve made have incessantly slipped away from me, though. Whenever I try to lock the meaning within my store, it gradually disappears as if melted or evaporated in the air. I’ve put my-made-meaning on every meaningless on which I thought it’s needed, nonetheless, there always left nothing. I think I'll have to do the same thing forever and ever, even though it sometimes gets tougher than usual and overwhelms me. Now my days are full of meaningless and I must give them some meaning, any meaning.

If I wouldn’t put the meaning on the meaningless, the Death will do it. Before the Death, all of us are going to hang out a white flag. Only death can put the real meaning on the meaningless, so we’re about to embrace the meaning that the death throws. We cannot not only conquer or defeat the death but also stand against it. If so, do we want to disturb its way and deter the process, then? Even if there’s hope or expectation to discourage the destination in my mind, it doesn’t reveal on the surface. Mine has just been in the realm of the subconscious, recognising as it can be. Even when I’m eager to die, I want to make out the meaning prior to the death. Perhaps do I expect the quasi-meaning I make before death could help me to be pompous in front of death?

Brit…

On and on

Can't let go, yet holding harm
Starts from that she really loves him,
Keep preparing farewell for.
Though it hurts him,
Can't let his toil die of loving her.

Brit...

Dream

Let her dream and stay beside her. Please be willing to play different roles in her dream at her whims. Maybe it’d be also your dream. The two are alike in absurdity. Their illusions seem to resemble with each other. She doesn’t know how to deal with the situation, yet or rather, she wants to do nothing.

Brit…(Written on 14 July)

Mixed up

Meeting's carried,
Mind's complicated,
Mood's contradicted,
Matter's coiled . . .

Moving forward [is it or not],
Mixed up, though.

Brit...

PS)
Self-rationalisation and self-persuasion seem to be like filling a bottomless vessel.

Q&A, and Q

Am I doing wrong? Apparently yes.
Am I going to hurt someone[s]? Probably yes.
Am I selfish? Doubtlessly Yes.
Do I have to stop it? Considerably yes.
Is there more yeses? Supposedly yes.

------------------------

Against all yeses, do you think it’s your destination?
Facing with all facts, can you stick to your own truth?
Despite all odds, are you willing to take stigmas outside?

Brit...

(To the world, ps.)
Whether appearing good or bad at the moment, it's me. I am as I was, though I seem to be different from before or changed or away from your expectation.

A Covered Thing for Years

She finally told him that. At the instance when it was popped out from her lips unwittingly, she felt embarrassed to herself. Is it better not to tell the truth, which she’s kept for years to herself? Absolutely yes! She’s had a mind to tell him the thing someday, but it has to be done after passing about twenty years & more. She spoke it too early, that is, it was not the right time to tell the truth. What for on earth did she unveil it? It would definitely hurt his heart as much as it broke her heart nine years ago. Did she want him to be in agony, the similar agony to hers, which had driven her to deadly despair for last ten years? Did she want to retaliate on him for something desperate in her mind? Probably no! Now she knows that he’s constantly loved her so much and loves her maybe much more than ten years ago. She’d be going to regret . . . better not tell him now.

Brit…
(Written on 21 June)

First Semester's Ending

This semester ends soon.

All my classes in this semester are over. I already ended two classes of Practical English (Comprehensive Reading) and a Basic English (Basic Grammar) class last Friday. Today the remaining PE class and the History of British Literature class have gotten out of my hands. Feeling empty inside, I was subsiding into the chair after the final class. I felt like fading away, and it’s just like something full inside me has been swept away.

This morning I was strangely upbeat as if being injected stimulant. I wondered why, because nothing had provoked or encouraged me. P said it might be due to the nice weather or becoming-to-end semester, but I didn’t think so. Today’s weather was really beautiful, a little bit hot, and besides, I’ve always loved my classes, yet there was something different which made me cheered up, though I couldn’t specify. Having been intoxicated with such mood, I vigorously gave my classes all over.

Anyway it’s gone now. The bubbles suddenly burst down with the ending of my final class. I said good-by to hundreds of bright eyes for the time being, since my seasonal classes will begin two weeks later. In the afternoon, then, I’ve been groggy more than for five hours with heavy eyelids. I have to shake myself off this submergence, though. There remains so much official work in front of me, such as examining of papers, giving of tests, marking and grading for my 240 students.

Brit…

A Fairy-tale

A Sad Fairy-tale of a Boy who loved a Butterfly

Once upon a time there was a boy who dearly loved a butterfly. They were enchanted with each other at first sight, forgot what/who and where they were, and desired the forbidden in and out of themselves. The butterfly longed to be with him though it mustn’t have done that. Their love couldn’t last, though. The boy thought the butterfly would belong to him forever but didn't know how delicate she was. He must’ve been attentive to his butterfly all the time, but gradually became negligent of his sincerity, and didn’t perceive her wings were hurt bit by bit. The butterfly couldn't stand it anymore, so she didn't stay around and flied away from him, fluttering her broken wings though the hurt would take a long time to heal. When she disappeared, the boy realised that he lost his dearest one. With despair he has searched for her with undiminished affection and wandered about in dreams of taking her back. Finally he found his dearest and cried out never-ending love for her. The butterfly, however, once she's gone, would never come back, for now she wants to belong to none. She’s free and could fly to anywhere in the air.

Brit…