The Woman on the Beach

Wednesday 29 July, 2015
(This is a revision of something I posted to my online group last week.)

Today I was walking alone on Gwanganli beach here in Busan. An angry storm was approaching and the wind was whipping my unruly hair across my face. Not exactly ideal beach conditions, but I wanted to feel the sand under my bare feet, and something about the grey smoke of the clouds swallowing up the tall buildings struck me as beautiful.

Usually this beach is like a little sandy sardine can, packed with little sandy beach sardines; the Korean ones wrapped like mummies to keep the sun from damaging their skin and the foreign ones hopping about in skimpy pieces of cloth stretched together, welcoming any and all skin damage as long as it looks bronze in the meantime. For a bit of shade, umbrellas plastered with advertisements can be rented for $10. To bob about in the water, $5 will get you a raft shaped like a bright yellow doughnut. On any given sunny day, this beach is a sea of umbrellas and yellow doughnuts, mummies, and brown, near-naked foreigners.

Not today.

Today, with the clouds threatening rain, the temperature suddenly dropping, and the wild winds making the idea of staking an umbrella in the sand impossible, this beach was nearly empty. Here and there dark silhouettes of figures could be seen searching the water's edge for washed up things of fancy. An elderly couple could be seen staring across the water, almost wondering where it all came from. But for the most part, it was empty.

I tied the laces of my hiking boots together, tossed them over my shoulder, and walked from one end of the beach to the other. I let the sting of the cold water snap my thoughts back into now each time a wave crashed in. My mind followed the pulse of the ocean- back and forth. Before and after. When he was here, now that he's not. Things we did together in this city, on this beach, and things I'm doing alone now in the same place. There are always the waves.  Today's waves looked turbulent, but I was experiencing them as gentle thoughts.

It's ok. I miss him and it's ok. We were here and it's ok.

I was experiencing deep gratitude for this moment of acceptance, knowing it's not always so. But at this very moment, walking along the beach with a storm coming and my boots strung across my shoulders, I felt ok. I felt purely capable of doing this. All of it.

Then I heard her.

She was at first woven in with the sound of a wave crashing, and then as the sea silenced itself for a moment, I heard her clearly. It was the familiar sound of sobbing- no, wailing- no, of a world being smashed to pieces.

There, sitting alone in the sand, facing the water, was a woman in her late 40s, perhaps. Korean. And crying into the sky like only we know. This was the sound of great loss.

I passed by her, trying to give her the space I know I needed when I fell to my knees in a public space and out came the animal sounds. I knew these animal sounds.

I walked past and thought of how nice it is that in my little Tribe of After, my little online group of writers and mourners and beautiful people who have experienced great loss, we learn to be present without fixing. We bear witness without consoling. We are simply here.

I thought of how this sobbing woman, with arms stretched out to the sea, doesn't need to be told that it's ok. Because it's not. She doesn't need to have someone stop her from crying and make her feel better. Because she may not for a long, long time. I thought of how the best thing I can do is witness her pain.

I thought about how my lack of Korean would keep me from trying to talk over her grief, anyway, and what a blessing that is. Because suddenly there I was, crouched next to her in the sand, sliding a special bracelet of mine around her wrist. I was patting my chest and in simple Korean saying, "알아요." (Arayo. I know.) "이 아파요." (ee ahpahyo. It hurts.) "남자 친구 주겄어요." (Namja chingu jugeosseoyo. My boyfriend died.)

I know.
It hurts.
My boyfriend died.

She held my hand and looked at me in a way I also recognized. The "how the fuck did this happen when everything was ok?" way. It was the confused and grief-stricken face of somebody cast into the after. I knew that face.

I held her hand and closed my eyes, and I summoned the help of my Tribe. I guess I prayed. I prayed for this woman, touched by hurt so big that she'd set her reserved cultural ways aside and cry so publicly. I have never seen this before in Korea.

I knew that face.

I stayed that way for no more than a minute, touched the top of her hand, then her shoulder, then continued walking down the beach.

A storm was coming. The sky was ready to rip open and show this city what loss feels like. Wash over us, me and this woman, her knees to her chest, wailing like an injured animal. Drench us. Pelt our faces with liquid grey.

We can take it. In fact, we may not even notice.