Crestone to Corée

Emmylou sings about blue memories stretching hundreds of miles like a cord pulled tight. Hundreds of miles have become thousands for us, and now, in death, what? Light years? Quantum leaps? (How far is an eternity?) The Green River Gorge becomes Crestone becomes quarantine time in South Korea, and I suppose, my “Boulder to Birmingham.”

I don’t know how you died. I’m only notified by your family that you did. So in your honor I scaled a snowy path up to a sandstone stupa—the proper container for a great teacher—in Crestone, Colorado. The receptacle can hold ashes and small bones of a body or religious relics, such as paper scrolls where mantras and bodhisattvas’ names are written. Crestone is believed to be an energy center, a spiritual vortex, like Sedona, or your Asheville, as you once believed. Tibetan prayer flags fluttered in the winter wind that day. A spring cusp sun burned through the clouds. You were everywhere. In South Korea, your gijesa would have been held last month—the anniversary of your death. I think of you as families trim the grasses on their ancestors’ gravesites and bow deeply. 

I call a mutual friend I have been too afraid to call. I don’t want to call her because I know once I do I will crack wide open and my heart will spill over like soured red wine. But when I do, my mouth freezes against the phone: important words marbleize in the back of my throat. In the past when I shattered, I wanted someone to help sweep me up, hug me, and say, “You just needed a little attention.”  Am I too old to throw a tantrum now? A question you would’ve been able to answer. 

In South Korea the burial mounds aren’t faced with stone. I think of separation. I think of The Stone of Unction in The Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus’ body was laid down and prepared for burial. I think of how the Russian pilgrims smeared their hot pink lipstick across its red marble face. They just wanted to kiss God. The closest they would ever come to a body. I remember standing apart, aloof, waiting to be invited first. Perhaps I still am. But in South Korea burial sites are unassuming grassy knolls that can be stumbled upon in the woods. Their religious artifacts are commonplace. Apples, kimchi, and bottles of Soju are left behind like a picnic basket for the afterlife. There is no formal separation between the living and the dead. 

I am failing. I have forgotten everything you taught me. I am not being present. I am not being brave. Instead of learning Hangul, I am re-learning French. Korea becomes Corée, not its native Daehanmingug. I avoid Buddhist temples, though they are bountiful and beautiful. I am afraid to walk in. Again, I am loitering around God like a drunk outside a liquor store. I am sending mixed messages to the multiverse, like your invented mudra of emotional inertia: a person holding up both hands—one beckoning, one halting. Come close, but not too close.

I don't know how you died. Your family only said there would be no service. On the Internet I found a two-sentence obituary published by the National Cremation Society. Your Facebook page was silent. For me, not knowing feels like a missing body. Your obituary felt like a crime. 

At the Wailing Wall in the Old City eight years ago, I tucked a folded prayer into a stone seam. Being very tall, pilgrims passed their notes to me so I could wedge them high on the wall. They would last longer there. On my petition, I listed the names of the most important people in my life: children, parents, and closest friends. My soul mates, my wound mates, my twin flame. Your name is written there.