Meri of LA-sung
Jewyo Rhii
Meri squats down and starts talking about America.
Apparently she lived there once, back in the day when people used to call LA Na-seong.
It’s kind of amazing how when she squats
There is no space between her legs and her chest.
Her forever unruly hair and her especially round forehead makes her head seem big.
But she can still curl herself up into a ball, airtight and private,
When she is getting ready to tell her story.
So, about Na-seong… Daddy.
Meri and Daddy.
They met again for the first time in 16 years when Meri turned 29.
May
What’s all this lumber? Is it a game board? A storyboard!
She keeps on touching all the lumber and junk covering the floor.
She articulates in Korean when she wants to be clear
And slurs in English when not
Meri is good at both tongues.
“LA,” she says as she pushes away a piece of wood
“On my first day there, I ate SHUL-LUNG-TANG” as she puts down some white clay.
I am ashamed of…
Daddy, a piece of memory, shame.
She supports up a skinny plank with her big head and hides her face.
She drops her head, stops her words
She looks about to cry, but she continues her story
September
The storyboard is now raised to the height of a table.
A big chunk of plaster dangling from her arms,
“So we rolled snowballs in our yard,” she says
Her sister’s teenage years, Ungdam soju flying out the window
Under the piano are the shattered of pieces of Meri’s mug that her mom threw
As she pushes up the pieces of lumber one by one
“Freedom,” says Meri. No frills, no pretensions,
“Freedom, freedom, freedom,” Meri says in a row
As if stringing them together because each is insignificant and small
December
Meri supports up a wooden piece that refuses to stay up with her knee.
Please don’t fall, please don’t fall
She asks over and over, repeating a spell
A pile of junk to one side,
This side is Mom, she says sheepishly.
The objets Meri collected to talk about Mom,
Mom who recently fell and got hurt.
Standing in front of the other side,
That looks like an island, a house being raised,
She rattles off names of people she used to know in Na-seong.
Mrs. Yang through Dad, Mr. Kim through Mom.
She knows how much money they used to make and owe.
Meri, 30 years of age. $300 for tutoring.
The dream of a road trip. Daddy’s goal of $30,000.
March
Meri’s romance, Daddy’s romance,
So similar but so different
Meri dances along
Some pieces of lumber weakly linked in a row.
Their insecurity and unrest are alike.
The performance draws you in with the squalor, the sadness,
the sounds of dragging, hitting, shaking,
Her words are sometimes deliberate, sometimes rushed, whispered.
The pieces that have practically become extensions of her own body,
The glorious end of the story she didn’t want to tell, the memory she didn’t want to unearth.
Meri is not the type to hold a grudge.
She is young and beautiful.
She said she was interested in objects connected to the body,
she said she didn’t know if she was ready to tell a personal story,
But she did it all in the past year. And she will do even better in the future.
Growing, rumbling, rattling
To Meri and to the work of Meri!