I was driving home from Korean class tonight, eating an apple, and I remembered how Gareth used to eat them. I remembered this and thought, "What if I'm the only one that knows this about him?" I mean, surely there are many people who know things about him that I don't. And there are many who know the same things I do. But I almost panicked for a moment that I may know something about him and it's trapped in me. It will die with me.
This inspired me to sit down and write the following list. 50 things to know about Gareth Lochhead, as inspired by his time in Korea from August 2012 until his death. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.
1. Gareth used to eat the entire apple but the stem. He even ate the "pips" (a word I hadn't heard until meeting him.) He said he learned to do this in the boy scouts.
2. Gareth loved the smell of CK1. He always asked, "Too much? Not enough? Is it ok?" after applying it. The smell of it will always remind me of him.
3. Gareth liked to drink Americanos with two shots. Sometimes he considered cutting back, but it never quite happened.
4. Gareth really wanted to run a 5K. He really, really wanted to. He'd run with me sometimes and I'd coach him along. He'd coach me with pushups afterwards. Once, he ran a distance of 5K with me without stopping, and even though it wasn't an actual race/event, I like to think he met his goal.
5. Gareth had a beat up old motorcycle that he got for free here from someone who was leaving his university. He bought it during the week and kept it a secret until I showed up on Friday after school. He loved riding that bike around the countryside just outside of Gyeongju.
6. He searched for months for replacement boots. They had to have Vibram soles. He finally found a pair he liked- Keens.
7. Gareth became interested in wearing different beaded and leather bracelets as well as a squared silver and black ring. He said he'd never get away with wearing such things back home (not sure I believe that) and often asked if I was sure it was ok that he wore such things. Absolutely!
8. One time we were driving on the highway and were about to approach the tollbooth where we'd be asked to hand over our ticket and pay. Gareth said he loved the look of tickets and had a collection of them as a kid. I pulled over on the highway before we reached the tollbooth and gave him my phone to take a picture of the ticket before we handed it over. He would talk about that for weeks- how amazing that was. How validated he felt.
9. Gareth always had his backpack with him. And he was prepared for most anything. In that backpack was: a notebook, several pens, a deck of cards, a poetry book, a small mat to sit upon if the ground was wet/dirty, tissues, wet-wipes, Halls menthol drops, and a small flashlight.
10. On his keychain was a Swiss Army knife, a Lego Man flashlight, and a piece of leather that I bought him in Jeonju.
11. He told me that he had a reoccurring dream/fantasy about growing all of his hair really long, shaving it all off, and then diving into a pool of water. "Is that weird?" he'd ask. "Kind of," I'd say, "but I love the way your brain works."
12. Gareth had lingering pain on the bottom right side of his back.
13. Sometimes he'd blow his nose into my sink by holding one nostril and letting the other one go. Gross, I know. I mean, really gross. But I always thought, "How important is it?" and it really wasn't. So, not the way I do it, but that was his way. So be it.
14. Gareth became really entertained by the game of Gin Rummy after I taught it to him and he'd often break out a deck of cards to play while our tea was steeping, while we waited for our order at a restaurant, while waiting to go into the movie theater, at a coffee shop. He loved it. "One more game?" he'd always ask. But, of course.
15. Gareth was a self-proclaimed kind of mad scientist. He knew he was bright and also a bit disorganized in some ways and often forgetful. Leaving the house at any time was always a bit of a production. He'd pat down his pockets multiple times and sometimes dart in and out of the place gathering things. Often his shoes were being laced in the elevator as we made our way down.
16. His favorite place in Korea was a small cemetery hidden in the hills behind his apartment in Jeondo (rural Gyeongsangnam-do). He'd go there alone as well as with me. It was a quiet thinking place for him and in that spot he always loved Korea.
17. His Korean was never that good but his Japanese was quite impressive.
18. Gareth was always on the hunt for belts that he found suitable, both in quality and in fashion. Mostly they had to be woven, colors that suited him, and the end had to be black. He had a brown leather one and a black leather one, too. But the two-tone grey one was the belt of all belts, in his opinion, matching his two-tone grey leather converse and paired with jeans, a grey collared shirt, and a black v-neck sweater. He was pleased.
19. He liked to go to art shows and say, "Crap. Crap. That one's crap. Crap. That one's crap." And then pause in front of one he liked and call me over to discuss it. We saw the paintings of my principal and were both really taken with them. They reminded him of New Zealand landscapes and he and my principal had a beautiful conversation about that.
20. Gareth had a grey cap, a navy cap, and a dark green cap and almost always wore one of them. They were just like the caps my Great Uncle Joe wore and I remember telling him how much the two of them would have bonded over the caps.
21. His favorite pair of sunglasses were purchased when he was teaching in Saudi. He was bummed because he rode an ATV on the sand there and they got scratched. A few months ago the earpiece broke off and he was pretty disappointed about that, too. He never found a suitable replacement.
22. "Cheese pizza" in Korean sounds like "Chee-jeuh pee-jeuh" and so, of course, we called in "Machu Picchu." He'd say, "Do you want me to pick up a machu picchu for dinner tonight?"
23. "Puck ewe bee cheese" is something else he'd say. You can figure that one out. Once, we said this back and forth to each other at a restaurant, getting a huge kick out of it each time until we realized we were being looked at with disdain by the restaurant owner.
24. Gareth's favorite colors were jewel tones: navy, emerald green, and burgundy.
25. He never considered getting a tattoo but was enamored with mine in a way that inspired comments every time he saw them and a couple of beautiful poems. He thought I was "bad ass" while being "girly" and I thought that was funny.
26. Once I painted my toenails because I knew I'd be seeing him. He noticed them and I said, "I painted these for you!" Seriously- he couldn't believe it. He was overjoyed like I had just given him a real gift.
27. He loved and was fascinated by American southern accents.
28. He practiced an American accent by saying "khaki-colored car keys" over and over, but never quite got it.
29. A friend introduced us to the song "What What (In the Butt)" which is wrong and hilarious and did I mention hilarious? From that day on, if one of us started the song, even if it was in mid-conversation about something else, the two of us had to finish it. We had to run through the whole chorus before getting back to the conversation like nothing happened.
30. Sometimes he'd talk in his sleep. Not all the time. But sometimes he would- very audibly.
31. Once in a blue moon he'd have nightmares so disturbing that he'd cry out in the night and wake up panicked and disoriented. Arms wrapped around him, gentle assurances that all was well, and lips pressed on the back of his head always got him back to sleep.
32. When he'd walk up a steep hill, only the tips of his toes would touch the ground and he'd make super-labored huffy-puffy sounds. It was cute.
33. He was a very bad driver. There. I said it. I never told him, but, holy cow. Let's just say that behind the wheel of a car was not his Zen place. Sorry, Gareth, but you know it's true.
34. His fingers were a bit meaty, like mine.
35. Gareth loved comedians Key & Peele as well as Louis C.K.
36. He said if/when he ever published a book he wanted to call it...and here's where I'm kicking myself because I can't remember...but the word "Ancestral" was part of it. Two words, I think.
37. Gareth was moved by all things ancient.
38. He had a character with a thick Australian accent who was quite crude and hilarious. That guy only showed up from time to time, but he always made me spit my tea or food out when laughing.
39. Gareth refused to read next to me in bed when I was reading because I once referred to it as "parallel reading" and that creeped him out in some way. He could read to me. Or I could read to him. But side by side reading going on was never going to happen. Funny.
40. Gareth was almost always late. Driving to Hadong? Plus 1-2 hours past his given time. Picking me up from the Gyeongju bus station? Maybe 10-20 minutes late. He absolutely hated this about himself, and I get that. So, I just factored it in. Again. "How important is it really?" Not really. Let the guy be late!
41. Sometimes he couldn't sleep for a day or two. Often this coincided with creative spurts of writing. Once when he was writing a play, I went to sleep at 11:30 pm and awoke at 9:00 in the morning to find a note on my pillow. "Gone to the office to print the play. Worked on it all night. Don't worry. It won't mess up our plans. We can still ride to the lake when I get back." Ride on the back of a motorcycle with a guy that got no sleep? No, thanks. I suggested nap for him/long run and coffee for me.
42. The play was called "Another Hand" and is about a son who comes home to Australia in after teaching in Japan to find the impending threat of the 2009 bush fires. The fires mirror the tension between the son and the father and in the end, after several long and late-night talks about these two characters, both characters are seen in a softer light and both, while flawed, are good men who really want to connect with each other. This was big on several levels, and I'm not sure Gareth ever realized it.
43. Gareth's first crush was Fiona Wilkinson. While he asked not to talk about past relationships, he mentioned her in a conversation about first crushes. He was in grade school, and it struck me as so sweet. Turns out she had no idea. I'm thrilled that I got to pass that along.
44. Gareth loved to get together with people here and play "sloshball"- or softball. He loved playing volleyball and also played soccer from time to time. But he hated board games. He tried to play them, but invariably he became really frustrated and had to walk away. He was also not a fan of the "white elephant" exchange system of gifts during Christmas.
45. Gareth's favorite breakfast was two eggs over easy on 1 piece of toast and a cup of tea. Pepper and salt.
46. Gareth liked to save plastic bags and also the twist-ties from bread bags. No idea what those were for, but if you ever needed one, he had one.
47. Gareth said he always wanted to be a paramedic. He'd been there when someone was injured before- a woman...was it a fall? Either way, he was angry that no one was speaking to her as the patient. The person who was hurting. He described how he spoke directly to her and helped to calm her, and I'm sure he was fabulous at doing so. He would have been really, really good at such a job had things worked out differently for him.
48. Gareth was very compassionate and loved to feel like he was helping someone in need. If he could help you get a job, he would. If he could give you tips about teaching, he'd do it. If he thought you were down and needed cheering up, he'd make you laugh. I think he recognized suffering in others and it gave him some relief of his own to be the one who was helping instead of being helped.
49. Gareth struggled with his own drinking, but constantly told me how much he admired me for being sober. He accompanied me to a 12-step roundup in Seoul last year and went to meetings with me during that weekend, telling someone (who told me recently) "I think I might be one of you." He stopped drinking for a year, just before we met, and talked about how angry it made him to go to a party and find soda as the only alternative to alcohol. He thought there should be good non-alcoholic drinks available. Tonic water with lemon or grapefruit. Something refreshing. A special drink. If we went to a restaurant together and nothing like this was available, he was incensed. He'd leave in search of something and come back with it. "You must have a decent drink," he'd say.
50. Gareth was a hopeless romantic. I have no doubt that he loved me deeply, and I'm thrilled to have found recent writings of his before he died that confirm how he felt and the special place I will have in his life. However, Gareth loved being in love as much as he loved me as an individual. He loved writing notes and poems. He loved buying flowers. He loved dancing barefoot in a moonlit room late at night. He loved placing a hand on my waist or at the base of my neck. Gareth loved finding little things to buy or planning a trip. He loved the act of being in love, and I'm so glad to have been the recipient of that.
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