Time Machine

Time Machine

The October wind howls through the panes of the windows of my home here in the suburbs of Chicago, eerily whistling across my heart.

LIke a time machine, it transports me to that time I slept over at my sister's place in downtown Chicago,

where the wind echoed through the corridors of the cement high-rise buildings in the Loop,

cocooning me in the womb of its comforting sounds.

Next, it envelops me, landing me in the middle of the Tibetan plateau in Western China,

where the winds dance around and through the rugged mountains and vast fields dotted by yaks and colorful Tibetans

and I can voraciously take in the magnificent scenery and the thin air permeating the high altitudes and the company of the nomadic Tibetans -- all gifted from above.

It plants me in the center of Kyoto in February 2003, where I am generously greeted by my Japanese friends and am traipsing around the major sites and temples

in this beautiful city, with trays of Okonomiyaki and fried oyster balls in both of my hands.

It then whirls me back to my time in graduate school in Washington D.C.,

where the wind silently travelled through the brick colonial-style buildings at Georgetown,

invoking scents of students doing laundry on a fall day, reminding me of my mother's own laundry days during my childhood.

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It transports me to the place of my birth,

bringing me back to that time in 2002 when I strutted down the streets of Gangnam --past all the neon signs and glittering lights and karaoke bars and hagwons (tutoring centers) and nightclubs --

bundled up in thick scarves and white faux-fur winter coat. I was so excited to be a 22-year old

out of college and hurriedly on my way to meet a friend in Myongdeong.

Or to my travels outside of Seoul, where I ambled around a traditional folk village with a friend

whilst ravenously scarfing down cotton candy and sweet potatoes bought from a street vendor in the village,

or visited Kyungju, where mounts of historic temples are hounded by screaming school-age children on their winter breaks, hungry for photo-ops with their friends and teachers.

It channels me to the places in my memory, when I perennially wandered through the parks behind the vertiginious apartment buildings as a wide-eyed 10- year old, lost in my own thoughts...

It takes me to that time where I gathered with some neighborhood friends on the steps of the concrete in front of the apartment complex where I grew up in Seoul, where it all began --

"I found out I'm moving to the U.S. with my family...my dad's job was transferred there to New Jersey..." I proudly exclaim.

"Oh yeah? New juh-sey...Where is that?" The boy next door says, making fun of the name of my destination-to-be.

"It's in the Northeast U.S., near New York..." I reply, shyly.

Then it struck me - my 10-year old self - that this place, "New Juh-sey," is really far, far from any place I had known all my life in my sheltered existence in South Korea.

Rebirth.

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As a way of coming around full-circle, the wind carries me to the Empire State in 2010, where it wildly circulates

through the alleys behind and between NYC sky-scrapers during the cold months of winter, catching tourists and natives unawares during the four-month chapter of the blistering winter in the region.

It, though, has brought my wandering and searching heart finally home, even if it means I have to withstand the freezing temperatures --

a miracle even for a nomad like me.