By October. The kimchi crocks fermenting hard. Amazon this week. Sprint planning Tuesday. Two hours of meetings I could have been a Slack message.
Hana, 1, a small loud animal. She mostly eats rice and bananas. Jisoo FaceTimed Tuesday. We made doenjang jjigae together — me in Wallingford, her in Haeundae. Eleven thousand miles. The same soup.
Kabocha squash simmered in dashi-soy. The fall on the plate.
Drove to Bellevue Saturday. Karen was tired. I brought soft food. She ate.
The kimchi crock was bubbling. The fermentation was the fermentation.
I made coffee at seven. Hana ate cereal at seven-fifteen. Min wandered down at seven-twenty-five. James left for work at eight. The morning was the morning. The standard.
Therapy Tuesday with Dr. Kim. We talked about the parents — the two sets, the one living, the one gone, the one who became real after thirty years and the one who was real my whole life and is now gone. The work is the layered work.
A blog reader wrote about her own adoptee experience. We exchanged three emails this week.
The Capitol Hill apartment kitchen is small. We make it work.
Sprint review at Amazon Friday. Two hours. I could have been on a podcast.
Sunday farmers market on Wallingford Avenue. The kabocha at the Asian vendor's stall. The shishito peppers. The brokered conversation. We bought too much. We always do.
Jisoo sent a photo of the dol the kids did for our visit last summer. The photo went on the fridge.
My Korean is improving. Slowly. Painfully. Conversationally adequate now. I can argue about kimchi proportions in two languages, which is a milestone in any marriage between mother and daughter.
The shiso on the south fence is fragrant and unruly. I brushed past it taking the compost out and the smell stopped me. The smell is the country. The smell is Jisoo's apartment.
James and I had date night Friday. Indian restaurant on 45th. We ate too much. We sat in the car after talking about nothing for an hour. The marriage is the marriage.
Yoga Tuesday morning at the studio. The forward fold released something I had been carrying in the shoulder. The mat is the mat.
Reading at night. A novel by a Korean-American writer about a family in 1990s LA. I underlined four sentences. The underlining is the marking-of-the-territory of the soul.
Hana left a Lego on the kitchen floor. I stepped on it at two AM. Standard.
The newsletter went out Sunday morning. The opening sentence took an hour. The piece took five. The piece was what it needed to be.
I texted Jisoo a photo of the kimchi in the new onggi pot. She replied with the thumb-up emoji and a Korean-language critique. The duality is the gift.
The kimchi crock was bubbling Saturday morning when I checked. The bubbling is the right bubbling. The fermentation knew what it was doing.
David came over for Sunday dinner. He brought some tomatoes from the Bellevue garden.
I read a thread on the Korean Adoptee subreddit Saturday. Some posts brought up old anger. Most are people figuring it out in real time. We are not unique. We are a community.
I sat at the kitchen counter at six AM with a notebook and a cup of green tea. Writing time before the house wakes. The pre-light hour is the only writing hour I trust.
Rain on the porch all afternoon Saturday. The Wallingford rain is its own weather. I sat with a book and a tea and did not move for two hours.
The kabocha is for the weekend, for the slow afternoon, for the pot that gets its time. But the six AM hour — notebook open, house asleep, green tea cooling beside the page — that one I protect differently, and lately I’ve been swapping the tea for a cup made richer with this coffee syrup I keep in a small jar in the back of the fridge. It started as a way to make the morning feel a little more considered, a little more like a choice rather than a reflex. After a week of sprint planning, therapy, and eleven thousand miles of FaceTime soup, a small, deliberate sweetness in the first cup felt right.
Coffee Syrup
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 10 minutes | Total Time: 15 minutes | Servings: 16 (about 1 cup syrup)
Ingredients
- 1 cup strong brewed coffee
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Pinch of fine sea salt
Instructions
- Combine coffee and sugar. Pour the brewed coffee and sugar into a small saucepan. Stir briefly to begin dissolving the sugar.
- Simmer. Place the saucepan over medium heat and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is fully dissolved and the mixture has reduced slightly, about 8–10 minutes. Do not boil hard.
- Finish. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract and salt. Let cool for 5 minutes.
- Store. Pour into a clean glass jar or bottle. Cool completely before sealing. Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
- Use. Add 1–2 tablespoons to hot or iced coffee, stir into plain yogurt, drizzle over oatmeal, or mix into milk for a quick cafe-style drink.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 50 | Protein: 0g | Fat: 0g | Carbs: 13g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 10mg