#21 - Home
It’s changed quite a bit, what I think of when I think of home. For the longest time, living in Korea has carried an air of vacation to it. It’s been nearly 10 years of figuring out just how to make it work here, half impossible, half like it’s a big freebie up for grabs. When I left South Africa, I was really trying to leave. I had never thought traveling would be a skirmish. While still in Durban, I spent nights driving slowly round, trying to extend that feeling of movement and freedom as far as it would go. I respected the meekest speed limits, taking the long cut.
I’ve never doubted my choice to leave. I’ve for sure puzzled over what it is I’m doing here, but no second guessing what set me to moving away. It’s interesting to me then, why I’ve been feeling a bit of home sickness lately. As far as it goes, this is home. But having not seen my parents in 4 years, watching them age via poorly lit Whatsapp selfies, while the limbs of my nieces and nephews stretch out like they’re made of rubber, it’s been the asking end of the bargain. My brother and sister are an age I remember my parents being.
So I think of one home, while being in another.
It’s been kinda fun to see how my accent shape shifts depending on the situation. When I film myself I seem to pass for a citizen of nowhere really. I did some TV stuff a while back, and I unwittingly donned a US west coast twang. With my South African friends, every ‘a’ is doubled and ‘r’ dropped. Even my American fiancé has to double check she’s hearing me right sometimes.
I’m increasingly meeting, working and even thinking in Korean. Occasionally I wish for a clearer English corollary to some Korean word I lean on. I don’t get much better at the language, but I’m perfecting a mask of comprehension, a reassuring affirmation for the, uh, I would prefer to use the word 상대방, the person opposite me. Most of the time though, trying to make my point in Korean is like one of those dreams where you’re trying to run forward but everything feels steep and heavy. My version of that dream is set on my prep school cricket pitch, me white clad and padded, desperately trying to score a run.
Walking around talking to strangers I’m invariably asked where I come from. And when I reply, it’s always a surprise. No one takes it in stride. I look forward to being asked because I’ll get to be an anomaly in someone’s day. As I write this, it occurs to me that that’s often what I’m looking for too, when I shoot. An anomaly. Something out of step, odd where all else is quote quotidian. If I’m reading the room right, a lot of people I know feel this way. I suppose our difference is measured in what exactly each of us finds odd. By photographing what draws me, every image becomes something of a self portrait.
In one of my few recurring dreams I’m driving around my old neighbourhood in Durban, or at least some illogical version of it, pursuing some necessary but unspoken task. There’s a lot of back and forth, and a park on a hill that never existed. Driving down Saffron, Highdale, Sagewood. I grew up skateboarding in these streets, to my friends’ house, or to the older guy selling punk CDs. Now I drive down roads called Poeun, Wausan, World Cup, and they’re never in my dreams. That’s the funny thing about dreams I guess, how similar they are to memories.
