: : Expatriate
Wa 和 - on maintaining group harmony, peace:
equal proportions of intense desires to please and fears of displeasing,
which prompts careful consideration, curating
every step taken
every word spoken
into a field of ambiguity
A process of self-erosion
underneath awareness
slow,
subtle,
layer upon layer
disappearing
erasure,
missing,
until you are left with stripped, infertile ground
as you fade in color and substance,
your image shifting out of focus
as you become pliant,
excessively susceptible to the environment which shapes
you, yourself
blurring,
fading at the edges,
what was once transparent has been shrouded
like the evolution of memory:
a person you have not seen for a long time
and when you can imagine nothing more than the outline
of their featureless face
but in momentary heartbeat flashes of clarity —
the mental click as a transient, past vision resurfaces -
and is buried as suddenly as it rose.
But it is you there.
Still.
Expatriate Video Still. Digital Photo. E Schalk.
: : Enclosure
April 2011
From susceptible childhood,
he had always
lived behind the web of
the perimeter’s eternal fence
At twenty-six, I,
however
came to live inside the base
surrounded by
razor wire
the endless traveling spirals in their speeding
trajectory,
end over end,
vacuum coils ensnaring potential energy,
galvanized
in materiality
but not in action,
a reflective, openwork matrix
which allows vision,
but denies being,
outward.
Within the base,
I felt as
an insect ensnared in a web,
claustrophobic —
captive —
while he perceived
— only —
the compound’s protection.
A fundamental chasm of vision:
the security of holding in
and
the insecurity of keeping out.
July 2013
South Korea’s plum rain season,
blankets of pregnant droplets
glistened as brightly as the fruit’s violet-black skin,
camouflaging Incheon’s ragged coastline
as crystal ribbons descended the bus windows
the highway pulling away from a previous life.
Gunmetal haze blended
the Yellow Sea’s horizon
into the slate sky
an impenetrable monochrome, leaving
no distinction between
earth and space.
But for a brief moment
the atmospheric citadel broke
revealing the stilted hut of a North outpost,
that sheltered a mounted Type 73
and its invisible gunner.
And as before,
razor wire rushed past,
framing our view outward.
DMZ (Demilitarized Zone, border of North and South Korea.) Digital Photo. E Schalk.
: : (Identity) Membrane
Explaining you are American when you’re assumed to be European
Being told, “this is how we do things in America”
Having strangers stare into your eyes, asking if they are blue or green
Facing negative stereotypes and discrimination for being a small person
Learning to toast your glass underneath because of your foreigner status
Changing your speech to be more direct, your personality more assertive
Changing your speech to be more circumventing, your personality more passive
Being chastised for apologizing too much
Constantly being asked, “When are you leaving Japan?”
Naturally laughing louder and more easily in public
Trying not to notice when the neighbors run inside whenever you leave the house
Trying to get into the front right car door and realizing this is the passenger side
Facing the wrong direction while using a traditional toilet and ending up with wet shoes
Being told you color palette is too minimal
Being told your artwork is too large and brash
Being yelled at to speak up and find your voice
Being told you are your sensei’s most brilliant Japanese language student
Being completely overlooked in a crowd
Driving home through protestors shouting, “Yankee Go Home!”
And wanting to go home,
but having no idea where
(or if)
it exists.
: : (be)coming to know
I had fashioned for myself a menagerie of paper birds — fragile, perhaps, but not in transparent frailty — these creatures of my sleeping visions, recurring, bearing messages from a writer to a recipient who were no longer in existence.
Unfurled and unfolding, the faceted creases gave way to voids exclaiming through silence, to splintered thoughts caught within the most vulnerable parts of memory, to those words that were never uttered through breath but continue to resound as long as as breath continues.
These remaining creases became creators of form: the skeleton of a being’s structure and the cartography of passageways outward. Their anguish in indelibility was relieved through acceptance; it was not in coming to understand but rather seeing what needed to be left behind…
… and only then…
my flight no longer became contingent
on the will of the wind.
Landing. Digital Photo. E Schalk.
