As I listened to my father, this eccentric independent who time and again had pushed his chips, and those of others, into the middle of life’s betting table and never looked back, I saw hovering before me the union of Umma, who wanted security, and Appa, who wanted freedom. And those two forces at odds inside myself. Finally, my parents asked me whether I could sleep now, and I said yes and hung up the phone.
My mother, who was all things to me, died some months after that late-night conversation, when her illness reached its logical and extreme conclusion. Her death was horrific and destroyed our family in the configuration we knew it. But in some ways the end of her was the beginning of mending, between Arthur and me especially. Once she was gone, I saw how much he had loved her and put her above all others, and how she had been his lodestar. I watched him move in his life with that void, and I realized how he needed her in ways unique to him.
As I started my way in the world again, this time singular and a satellite moving alone in space, a monad, not a dyad, slowly painting again and supporting myself in my new, alone life—I still felt the most comfortable and seen when I was uncategorizable, when I deflected labels and saw myself as made up of many aspects, like a shiny mosaic, visible to some people at one angle and to others at another, when no one but me could calculate my worth.
Whenever I was at a loss in the studio, I cleared the easel and made a self-portrait. There were so many I painted. Me with the bloodred horizon in the background. Me in a small square, defiant. At some point in the course of making the portrait, I looked into the mirror so long I could no longer recognize the genetics, history, culture, and place that made me, me. I was simply lines and shapes, light and darkness—like anyone else. The human categorizations fell away—jawline sneakily square, the eyes the writers of so many books have lazily described as almond-shaped, though they look nothing like the nut; the black hair that once a girl in Texas asked to touch to see how dry and coarse; and for a second, my fundamental self, the thing that didn’t need things and existed already full and whole inside, came into focus. Happiness needs a quest, and in that quest to become visible and matter to others, I had lost appearing and mattering to myself. In my life, I had tried to be a great daughter, a great student, a great wife, an American, a Korean, even a great artist—and through these pursuits, I had always chased an ought, forgetting to revel in what I actually already was.
The lesson of art turned out to be the same as the lesson of love, and my practice taught me to let my representations—my golems—go out into the world and enjoy their own lives. Instead of hiding behind the eye that had been trained to act out of trauma and fear, I could use it to squeeze what I believed was the truth out of myself; then, whatever happened afterward did not matter. In other words, I began to do what Umma had been afraid to with me: to let things have their own lives.
I like to remember that night long ago not as the one when I learned Nate’s news that broke me for a moment, but a night in which much love was shown me. I still own the silver heart Lorraine gave me, which was not supposed to represent hers or even some promise I would find love again, but was rather a symbol and reminder I had a strong heart, too. It was the night in which I had found myself suddenly, midway in the journey of my life, in the dark and alone. When I had reached for my parents’ succor, which I could never quit, they had not let me down. After all the box-checking I had engaged in, when it could be argued that I had failed, they told me they had seen me, and in doing so just wanted me to be happy.
In my mother’s absence, it’s easier to see how much I got from my father beyond his square jawline, after all these years of thinking I was simply Umma. It’s his zest for life, his openness to risk and danger, his passion to pursue a dream and throw everything else out the window that remains. He is my father, so he wishes the best for me: someone with spirit and responsibility. In the end, who knew I would find that person in myself?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Back when I was in art school, one afternoon a week all the students, beginner to advanced, broke from their regular projects to convene around a portrait model. At the breaks, I’d walk the semicircle of easels holding wet paintings, marveling at how each told a different story, even though we were all describing the same subject in the same pose at the same time. By virtue of where we stood in relation to the sitter, the touch of our hand, the materials we chose, our philosophical and stylistic bents—our diverging perspectives were made clear on canvas.
Other people lived through the same events I did in this book—9/11, a college education, my family, and even my marriage—but this memoir describes only my perspective. It is the culmination of my background, my position in space and time, my philosophy, acquired and then shaped. I tried, in my way, to make art of it.
Many tremendous people around me understood this and worked tirelessly to bring to bear the perspective of one Asian female.
First, an enormous thanks to my agent, Albert Lee, and my editor, Hana Park. You are the Korean American Dream Team everyone told me I should never expect, and yet, here we are.
To Priscilla Painton and Mindy Marqués Gonzalez, for championing this book from day one; to Amanda Mulholland, Tyanni Niles, Shannon Hennessey, Jackie Seow, Tzipora Baitch, Jessica Chin, Jane Elias, and Jeff Miller at Simon & Schuster, as well as Jessica Rios, Lily Dolin, Laurie-Maude Chenard, Harry Sherer, and Sam Solomons at UTA for overall excellence; and to everyone who worked behind the scenes—my immense gratitude.
For their generous insights, thanks go to early readers Amy Armijo, Jennifer Del Medico Kenney, Kimberly Elkins, Valerie Hegarty, Kristin Künc, Andrea Somberg, and Rachel Yoder. Thank you to Sofija Stefanovic, Jane Lee (the most sensitive grammarian I know), Diana Goetsch for instructive conversations, Vanessa Wills for a logic consult, and Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren, who ran an early excerpt for Joyland magazine. Thank you to the esteemed authors who supported this book by reading and blurbing. A painter without an MFA in either art or writing, getting read by the likes of you. How lucky I am.
When you are experiencing mental health chaos, the last thing you are doing is making art. To the mental health providers who supported me as I made sense of and managed a challenging illness, thank you for scooting me in the direction of healing. To my friends, for tending to me when I’ve been in chaos, for your thrilling enthusiasm when I’m soaring—my love and appreciation.
I must thank my family, who’ve been my earliest and favorite subject, especially my father, who knew it was important to me to write what I knew.
And finally, to my husband of spirit and responsibility, C., I owe so much.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© JACK SOROKIN
HYESEUNG SONG is a first-generation Korean American writer and painter. She lives and works in New York City.
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Hyeseung-Song
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NOTES
Part I: A Magical-Sounding Place
“Hyeseung-a, gongju.” Princess: most Korean following the Revised Romanization.
Part III: The Smartest Girl
and if that were frailty, then I was frail: construction following George Eliot, Middlemarch (London: Penguin Classics, 2011): 481.
Part IV: The Enlightened of the World
Less than fifteen percent: Princeton University Common Data set for 2001–2002, https://registrar.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf136/files/2019-02/common_cds2001.pdf; and, Liam O’Connor, “A Brief History of Princeton Admissions,” The Daily Princetonian, June 25, 2020.
Part VI: Philosophy
John Adams wrote: L. H. Butterfield and Marc Friedlaender, eds. Adams Family Correspondence. Vol. 3. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1973), 341–343.
“perpetual sense”: Virginia Woolf. Mrs. Dalloway. (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1925), 8.
