the first and the last card....

It is brutally cold here in NY. Rushing home with a full devices for the whether and white breadth, I found a BD card from much colder place, Finland, in my mailbox. The card from the severe whether to the other warmed up my heart immediately. The sender is Orvokki, my dearest friend, who moved in Finland one and half year ago. Surprisingly, we just exchanged emails in the late afternoon today. She mentioned that she had sent the card. Here we go! Right, we were connected. She is coming back to the city in February after her adventure in Finland. Though her parents were immigrants from Finland, she had here relatives around her and she spoke the language, for her, it seemed to be harder to get into the social loop than she had expected. She often wrote to me that people there were too shy and reserved. Since she left NY, she has been sending many cards, which nowadays is unusual way to communicate. To find her letter s and cards from a bundle of bills and to see her hand writing letters always brought joy and touched my heart. Sometimes, I opened it right away and read through in front of the mailbox, before I even opened my door. So, no more her fragrance in the mail box, yet I will have her back! Tonight, the coldest night of the year, the first card to cerebrate my BD was delivered and it will become the last card from the cold country, Finland.

Depature from Familiarity

Even in a small Island called Manhattan whose size is only 6000 ha., still, for everybody, there would be some places or streets that mean something special with full of memories, I assume. In my case, they are the streets, Irving Place and 26th street between 10th and 11th. From Irving Place, I shall say that my life has started, which I talked about in the former article. Then, my life has got elaborated from 26th street where my gallery is located. Since the beginning of last year, I have been working in a full-time schedule up until now. In rainy, snowy, hot and humid, windy, cloudy or bitterly cold days, this familiar look of the street has always welcomed me. No matter how the state of my mind has been, when I make a left at the corner of 26th st on10th Avenue, exposing myself to the winds from the Hudson River, I have felt good. As somebody who was new to the gallery work, there has been always something to learn. People who I had known before then or people whom I got to know after are working somewhere on 26th street. I felt at home. Two weeks ago, however, I made my decision to leave the gallery and the street soon. Being in a gallery IS quite work, which is definitely heavier than it looks. Especially, since the gallery is not a big like Gagosian and I am the only employee, I’ve had to cope with almost every aspect of gallery business from installation, administrative work, handling the artworks, to the sales. It was fun, but I started wondering if this was really what I wanted to do. Since my graduation from the University, I have been running, taking any job opportunities that came along without inspecting. An assistant of a great curator and the gallery, many involvements of art related projects here and there, a reviewer, a sort of dealer…I was extremely lucky, but now I am a little overloaded and overwhelmed. Though I am scared, the time has come to think on what I could do or how I could situate myself in the art world. Departure from the familiar place is not always easy, I have to say. I will miss the street where I felt home. I will miss all the memories, good and bad, that I had. I will miss people who are there and people whom I met. Once in a while, however, an orbital adjustment on life is necessary. That is a law of nature and I am in the cycle of evolvement without exception. Once the old door is closed, the new winds will blow. Now, I wonder which streets would be the next to be special in the city and I am excited about unknown.

Once my mom left NY,

the real winter hit the city. I feel cold outside and inside. In about 5 years, how many times have I seen her off or has she seen me off? Quite a lot, yet I am never be able to get used to it. Part of me is happy to be independent here, but part of me is unhappy about the fact that I left her alone. Two extreme feelings in my heart are never integrated, rather torture me. Especially when I see in my eyes her getting old, losing a sense of sharpness, which she used to have when she was working, I feel as if my heart is tore up. She is my only family and she brought me up alone. She is an adorable human being who loves me and loves helping people out. I saw her struggling to make our living without showing her emotions to anybody. She just ran, ran and ran. Now she is alone. It is sometimes too emotional to think and I look up the sky, “Why?” "I wish I had had siblings." " I wish my parents had never got divorced." Those unrealistic wishes begin to rise up within myself, though I know that my thoughts are irrelevant to my reality. Then, I shake my head to let my thoughts go. Accepting my reality, then I made my decision to separate myself from her, in order to build up my life. However, once in a while, the question hangs down to my head; was my choice was really right? A day like today, which is below 0 out, makes me be pensive and I miss her.

a snow fairy

Once upon a time, there was a snow fairy who made the world all sparkling white, and brought a sense of innocence to everybody from the youth to the elderly. This sounds romantic, doesn't it? Well, I might be the one in the modern time, as I tend to attract snow wherever I travel in winter. (My case was not as romantic as the real fairy's story.) My mother and I went to Santa Fe to spend the holidays. Holding a tour book and printed papers listed places to visit, we were excited about this unknown land and planned going to the desserts, some ancient Indian sites and spiritual places. After 3 days, yet, a big snowstorm hit the town, which continued for 3 days. It was the biggest one for 50 years. The accumulation of the snow reached 30" or more. We stayed in a mountain and all the surrounded mountains became completely white and looked like a Christmas cake covered by sugar coat. We felt bewitched in what our eyes looked at and what we heard in falling snow. Putting the tour guide book aside, we enjoyed making a few snowmen, which were soon cover up by more snow, jumping on the accumulated snow, looking at the snow crystals, and riding a sled. However, for some people, it was an absolutely disaster. The roads to the town and the highways there were all shut down. The newspaper wasn’t delivered for a few days. People who were supposed to stay at the lodge could not make it and people who were supposed to leave had to postpone their departures. People working there ended up staying at the lodge without the way to go home and of course we were snowed up in the mountain. Even just by walking in the property, I fell on my buttocks for 3 times, seeing fireworks in my head. I saw one lady broken her wrist who was taken to a hospital. This big snow reminded me of when I went to Athens with my ex. We were in Athens a couple of winter ago, and we had a big snow, which never had happened for 100 years. In fact, we caught the moment of snowing at a cafe in the highest hill there and we were the only customers. (Though the relationship with him didnÅft work out, it was the romantic moment in the entire time with him.) Everybody in Athens has never seen snow (unless he or she was over 100 years old). People were out on the streets to photograph the snowfalls and all the cars were either stuck or spinning around. My ex, a dj, had a gig that night, but not many people showed up, as they could not move. Anyhow, I have this big-snow-for-xx years' experience more. Although we could not use the guide book for Santa Fe, the snow was a gift from the sky for us fo sure. Sometimes, we all need to have a break from an ordinary, which the snow enables us to do. Whether people agree on me or not, I am the fairy snow and I love it.