LALATOWN LIFE

“I don’t even like scones and brownies.”

Of all the things I could have shouted at the end of a thirty-year marriage, apparently this was one of them.

Not money.
Not the house.
Not some grand philosophical statement about love and marriage.

Scones and brownies.

“I don’t even like them!”

And I meant it.

I like soft cake. Creamy cake. Cake with an unreasonable amount of cream inside. I like those sweet cakes from Mexican bakeries soaked with condensed milk. Are they healthy? Probably not. Will they send my blood sugar happily climbing toward the ceiling?

Probably.

But I like them.

I have never once thought, You know what I would really like to spend my own money on today? A brownie.

Same with scones.

I don’t hate them. That would require far more passion than I have for a scone.

I simply don’t care about them.

It is a personal preference. A tiny, completely ordinary fact about me.

And somehow, near the end of my marriage, this tiny fact became enormous.

Why would you bring peaches to someone who is allergic to peaches? Why would there always be berry jams around when I’m allergic to berries?

Those things weren’t really for me.

If you want them, eat them.

But please stop telling yourself they are for me.

That was the part that hurt.

Because when I sat quietly and looked back over my life, I realized something else too.

I have been loved very well.

My grandfather adored me so completely that I never had to wonder whether I was precious to him. My father loved me. There have been many people throughout my life who have been extraordinarily kind to me.

I have never lived a life without love.

But there has been another pattern running alongside it.

There have also been people for whom whatever I gave became the starting point for what else I could give.

A little more.

And a little more.

Until somehow I became the person who naturally liked what they liked, wanted what they wanted, and would take care of whatever needed taking care of.

Even family is not automatically exempt from this.

And somewhere along the way, I became very easy to assume.

No.

I like soft cake.

Creamy cake.

Ridiculously sweet cake.

I like what I like.

Yesterday morning started beautifully.

I took my dog for a walk. His morning poopy mission was successfully completed, which is always an excellent beginning to a day.

I put on earrings. I did my eyeliner. I made myself pretty and went out.

I had planned to drive a little farther to a Korean grocery store for rice, soy sauce, and green tea.

Then, while I was driving, I changed my mind.

Why?

Because I didn’t want to.

That was enough.

I could drive farther and save a little money, or I could go to the small Asian market nearby and make my day easier.

So I went nearby.

They had good rice.

They didn’t have Korean soy sauce, so I bought Japanese soy sauce instead.

It was delicious.

They had Japanese genmaicha too.

Also delicious.

Oh.

Other things can be good.

Other roads can work.

Maybe I don’t have to keep traveling the same road just because it is the road I know.

I liked that thought.

Then I went grocery shopping.

Everything was fine until I remembered a chai mix I had bought there recently. It was made by a local vendor, and I loved it, so I wanted another one.

I started looking.

Maybe here.

No.

Maybe this aisle.

No.

I went around again.

And again.

I returned to places I had already checked, just in case I had missed it.

Eventually, I gave up.

I came home.

I cut up a watermelon and thought, This might be my last watermelon of the summer. Please be good.

It tasted like sugar.

Perfect.

I made food for my dog. I made food for myself. I made jangjorim. I made beef soup. I made rice. I washed the dishes.

Everything was done.

Everything was fine.

And then I became unbelievably tired.

Not normal after-lunch sleepiness. I had eaten one boiled egg and a few pieces of cheese.

I lay down.

And disappeared for two or three hours.

When I woke up, I felt awful.

Not physically awful.

My mood was awful.

Heavy. Irritated. Sad.

And I had no idea why.

Later my sister called. Some of my LALATOWN objects had arrived at her place in Korea. We talked about them, and she began talking about what we could do differently with the next ones.

And suddenly I heard myself say:

“There aren’t any next ones.”

Not for her, anyway.

“The next things I order are for me. For my next home.”

Somehow ten little objects I had designed had begun to feel as though they might all naturally become gifts.

And I said no.

If you don’t like one, leave it alone.

Please take beautiful photographs for me. That is what I need right now.

But leave my share for me.

My gifts end here.

After the call, something finally clicked.

It wasn’t the chai.

It wasn’t my sister.

It wasn’t even the cooking.

My body remembered something before my mind did.

For years, grocery shopping had often meant hunting.

Early in my marriage, my spouse stopped coming grocery shopping with me. Instead, I would be given lists of things he wanted to eat, often from cookbooks.

Some ingredients were nearly impossible to find then.

There was no Amazon arriving at the door with every obscure ingredient imaginable.

So I searched.

I remember days when I went to five grocery stores.

Five.

I walked aisle after aisle, looking carefully, asking employees, checking again, driving to another store, and starting over.

Sometimes I still came home without the ingredient.

That kind of exhaustion had once been ordinary to me.

Yesterday, I walked around a grocery store searching for one little bag of chai, circling the same aisles again and again.

My mind knew I was simply looking for tea.

Apparently my body remembered something else.

It remembered searching.

Trying.

Finding.

Providing.

Coming home.

Cooking.

Cleaning.

And collapsing.

No wonder that exhaustion felt so familiar.

But there was one enormous difference.

Yesterday, I eventually stopped looking.

I came home without the chai.

The world did not end.

I bought Japanese soy sauce instead of Korean soy sauce.

It was delicious.

I went to the closer store.

I kept some of my own artwork for myself.

And this morning, I finally understood why I had felt so bad.

Maybe rebuilding a life isn’t always made of enormous decisions.

Sometimes it is choosing the closer grocery store.

Sometimes it is coming home without the thing you were looking for.

Sometimes it is saying, “No, that one is mine.”

And sometimes, after thirty years, it is finally shouting the ridiculous little truth that should never have been difficult to know in the first place:

I don’t even like scones and brownies.

I like soft cake.

Preferably with a ridiculous amount of cream.

And I think I’ll have that instead.

Welcome to my demanding little world.
Apparently, there will be cake.
The soft kind. With cream.