A Private Passion

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”

– Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad 

December, South Korea

Hyun wakes to the jarring noise of her alarm. It is a cold, gray morning, clouds hanging low. She sits up in bed heavy with sleep. She drags her hand across the fabric to smooth out the creases. They remind her of the wrinkles she spots in the outer corners of her eyes, and a surge of melancholy fills her.

She is fifty-four years old, beginning to confront the realities of aging and feel its weight in her bones. Hyun regards the relentless passage of time as complicated. She makes her way to the kitchen, where she assembles her husband’s lunchbox: a mound of hot rice with kimchi and cod roe. Usually she is tired, tempted by the warmth of the bed where her husband sleeps, but this morning, anticipation overpowers fatigue. 

Today, her children are coming home. 

The last time she saw them was more than six months ago, near the end of summer. In the early morning her husband had driven the family to the Incheon airport, where their children boarded a plane to the United States. They had stood by their designated departure gate, saying their goodbyes. She remembers the sadness that consumed her as she embraced her son and daughter, although she knew that they would be returning home soon, that they weren’t leaving the nest for good. After all, Amy was only nineteen, a sophomore in college. Her brother Jude was two years older, in his senior year.

“Be healthy, okay?” She had said to them. “Don’t eat too much greasy food and try to sleep early.” She and her husband stood by the iron railing, watching Amy and Jude wait in line to present their tickets to the officer at the gate. They remained until they couldn’t see their children anymore.

In the afternoon, she folds the remaining laundry and clears the kitchen sink of dishes. By four, she is in her car on the way to the airport. At a red light, she watches through the frosted windshield as passersby in scarves and coats cross the street, forcing their way against the raging wind.

The airport is busy, filled with chatter amongst families, rubber wheels moving across the marble floor, gate agents assisting people.

She sees Jude, tall, wearing a bulky padded jacket and black jeans. He peers at his phone, his dark hair longer than she recalls, frames his thin face. Amy stands next to him, a few heads shorter. Unlike her brother, she wears a bright blue puffer jacket and brown sweatpants. Amy notices her mom immediately, smiles and waves her hand in the air.

As Hyun approaches in a hurried pace, Amy extends her arms. “Hi mom.”

Compared to Amy, who is cheerful and eager to see her, Jude is quiet, aloof. He hadn’t always been this way; when he and Amy were younger, Jude had been the boisterous one, extroverted, while Amy resided in his shadow, barely speaking, and deprived of attention. Hyun doesn’t know when or how the change took place, but it was probably sometime when they were in high school. Hyun takes Amy’s suitcase and tries to take Jude’s but he pulls it away. “You don’t have to, mom.” 

In the car, Amy sits beside Hyun and talks about her past semester: her linguistics professor who never gave any homework, the new friends she made. Jude sits in the backseat, staring into his phone. 

Amy speaks of one of the clubs she has joined: the swim club. Keeping her gaze fixed on the road, Hyun listens as her daughter continues enthusiastically, conjuring up memories of the pool, the coach, an episode when she had forgotten her towel and had to walk back to her dorm wet and shivering.

Hyun, too, had once known the intimate charms of swimming in the same way. She had discovered her love for water accidentally at a time when she was lost: 1991, the year she graduated from college. She worked part-time at a local shop that sold women’s clothing. Everything was dull. There was nothing new, nothing exciting. Maybe life is not meant to be joyful, she had thought.

Then one day as she was leaving the gym after her cardio session, she saw the pool through the clear glass. She had routinely passed by it, not acknowledging it. But that day she stood in front of the glass, watching. A group of swimmers were wading through the water – long strokes across the lanes, bare arms above the surface, legs kicking.

That evening, she returned to the gym. This time, she entered the pool. In her swimsuit and cap, she walked to the edge of the pool, feeling naked, exposed although there was nobody to witness. She dipped her toes in the water. It was cold, unwelcoming.

But instead of leaving she sat down, plunging her legs into the water. She took a deep breath, then pushed herself off of the concrete edge. The water swallowed her body and she wrapped her arms around her torso, seeking warmth. Then she sank down a little deeper. With her ears underwater, she could hear only the steady beating of her heart.

Slowly, she began moving her arms and legs, then used them to propel her forward. She focused on her own shadow cast on the tiled floor as she progressed across the lane. She was alone with herself, detached from the world. The water was calming, cocooning her like a protective sheath as she floated, free from her weight.

She returned the next week. She was a shy person by nature, sensitive to the gaze of others. But in the water, she was liberated, her movements without restraint. Her spark for swimming amounted to only a brief affair. Her visits to the pool gradually waned from once a week to once a month. By the end of the year, she got married and had children soon afterward, devoting herself fully to them and resuming the life that was expected of her.  

With her children back home, the days are lively in the house again. Hyun prepares menus for each meal: one day, boiling kimchi stew made with the kimchi her mother had sent from Ulsan, another day grilled fish bought fresh from the morning market. She always makes sure to cook the rice thoroughly, overly soft so that it is easily digestible. During the day, she takes her children shopping and to the bookstore, and at night when her husband returns from work they sit in the living room together reading and drinking tea. They re-establish a sense of normalcy that Hyun had ached for and she is temporarily released from her growing sense of loneliness and worthlessness. Now her days are structured by the meals she prepares, the car rides she gives her children. She feels useful, being of service to her family. 

But she is familiar with the nature of time, that all things must one day come to an end. The new semester is approaching, another session of goodbyes awaiting them. The night before their appointed departure, she stands with a mug of tea in her hands as her children pack their suitcases, occasionally asking her of the whereabouts of a certain misplaced item – a pair of jeans still in the wash, the hair straightener in the bathroom cabinet.

Watching them, she is filled with dread; she sent them off away from home before, and had spent long periods without their company. But this time, the pain stings like an open wound on her skin, freshly bleeding. 

She hugs them at the airport again, watches with her husband as they disappear into the gated entryway, a routine she now anticipates but still cannot grow used to.

That night, at the dinner table, her husband sits in front of her, drawing a spoonful of stew to his mouth. She feels empty. She expects this spell to vanish on its own. It’s a matter of time, she tells herself. I just miss them too much right now, that’s all. It’ll be okay. But soon, her numbness invades her. 

On a particularly clear, pleasant day, she remains in bed, unable to move. A magpie cruises across the pale blue sky, its white feathers spread out wide, almost as if to boast to the world of its liberty  – she watches it through the window. The bird sails further westward, disappearing from her sight, and she becomes sharply aware of her own paralysis. She consults her husband on the phone. It is a Tuesday morning and he is at work.

“Go for a walk.”

But she is certain that she cannot move; she is confined to the bed, her body paralyzed by her mind, physically defeated by something invisible and she finds it absurd to justify why she is incapable of moving.

“You need to go out and exercise to feel better.”

But she cannot imagine feeling better, or feeling anything at all. She feels nothing.

“Yes, I’ll do that. Don’t worry.”

“I’ll see you tonight.”

She sinks further into the mattress, her limbs twice their weight, anchoring her to the bed. The room becomes a prison, the door guarded by no one yet she is unable to leave. Then on her vanity chair where she normally sits to put on her lotion, she sees the swimsuit that Amy has given her, black with two purple lines running down the sides.  

Standing in front of her mirror, she examines herself. The polyester material of the one-piece is tight against her skin, bringing to life the contours of her body. She hadn’t observed herself so critically at twenty-three. But now, she is acutely aware of her slightly protruding belly and the fleshiness of her thighs, yet is emboldened by this sight. She needs to leave the house now or else the spell might return, leaving her bedridden again. 

The nearest communal pool is only a ten minute drive. In the locker room, Hyun is subjected to the conversation of three women, who are unabashedly naked and speak loudly as they change into their clothes. The women gossip and laugh, their voices colliding, echoing in the narrow space.

Hyun closes the locker and enters the pool area. The air is damp, smells of chlorine and sweaty feet.

She enters an unoccupied lane, descending into the water at once. The cold takes her in instantly. And almost as if her body remembers the day decades ago when she had given herself to the water and possessed its peace, she surrenders herself completely.