I can't seem to find the right clip from "My Neighbors, the Yamadas," (so this one will have to do) but I remember there was a scene where the family was singing karaoke, and the mother had the biggest orange wedge smile on her face as she sang her heart out. It reminded me of my own mother, and how, when I was a little girl, my child eyes saw in her smile a half-slice of an orange; her eyes, little cheerful parentheses. I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world, even though she wasn't smiling like that often. I miss my family often even though I can't ever seem to go home.
Maybe I'm a product of growing up as a first generation Korean-American and not being able to completely fit in at home or outside of home. My parents seemed strange to me from a very young age, and, unprovoked by puberty, I felt literally torn apart by an overwhelming self-consciousness. When I was eight, every Wednesday for piano lessons, I had to wear the dreaded "CareBear Dress" made by my aunt; it had puffed sleeves, a huge yellow sash, and little Carebears floating on musical notes, and everywhere I walked, it screamed "weird asian kid". I don't know whether people actually saw me as the "weird asian kid" or if I just felt that way because being stuck in the middle of this and that is unstable. I had to create versions of "me" based upon what misleading responses my surroundings gave me. This is probably not unique to me, and so I wonder how others have coped with this. Please do send me a line if you're in the same boat in limbo. Years have passed, and I'm still in this boat.
Regardless, I find myself running away from the idea of home, but when I see things about families and the sort of warm fuzzy feelings that come from people happy to be together, it really just gets to me. So this natural state of simultaneously running away yet running towards seems to color every facet of my being. Where does one find a sense of home in all this?
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