By Angela Hur Illustration by Noah Dempewolf
Movie pitch: After a failed relationship, a sassy girl and her fun-loving gal-pals climb aboard a love boat cruising the Caribbean. Nautical and naughty hijinks ensue. Reality: The day after my breakup, I get on a boat headed for Alaska with my sassy mom, her fun-loving gal-pal and 200 other elder Koreans. Drinking and gambling, senior citizen style, ensue.
It used to be easier getting out of relationships. Time markers like graduation or the season finale of a favorite show signaled an easy expiration date. A summer apart allowed the necessary separation, and the lack of narrative escalation emphasized the emotional stasis. But I’m no longer in school. So I moved the few things I had out of the Bay Area, where my ventures in both relationship and city had been a sublet anyway, and asked my mother to take me along on her Alaskan cruise. I had hoped the chilly sea and lack of Internet would help me sever ties and ice my wound.
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As expected, I was the only twenty-something in the Korean contingent. Also expected, I was asked if I was married. Repeatedly. And although I thought I’d be embarking on a mother-daughter bonding trip, Mom ran around with her widow girlfriend having a blast while I stared into the vastness of the ocean pondering my insignificance and romantic ineptitude.
For the first couple days, we shot north at a fast clip surrounded by nothing but water and more water. I medicated myself with cocktails. As we slipped through the fjords, I circled the deck, watching the dusky sky reflected off the glassy water. When the boat surged ahead at night, the ocean churned below, frothing at the surface. Who knew there’d be so much visual metaphor for my broken psyche? As my mother instructed me to do, I tried to dump my negativity into the sea. In our wake, we left shuddering waves that rippled forever on out. While I sailed my sadness to the horizon, my mother giggled over her winnings at nickel slots.
Once we sailed further up north, everyone emerged from the cabins and dining halls in order to stand on deck and gaze at the mighty glaciers, which truth be told, were not as sublime as I’d imagined. Don’t get me wrong, the vista was impressive, and all that nature stuff is pretty damn wonderful, but it was difficult to retain that sense of grandeur when absolute strangers would drill me about my marital status.
Although there were 3,000 other people onboard, our Korean tour group did everything together and so we became like family, subject to internal criticism and speculation. I was a visible target, and an elderly couple even debated my physical worth in front of me. “She is not pretty,” said the woman, and her husband countered, “She is pretty.”
Understandably, for elderly Koreans, an unmarried woman of my age is more alarming than the ever-shrinking glaciers. After all, what did this spell for the future, our progeny? Spinster daughters languishing in loneliness! Polar bears scrambling to stay atop cracking ice floes! One was the greater fear and tragedy. The other was kind of funny. And so the tribal leaders of our community in exile granted me their wisdom.
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One woman advised me to find a mediocre but nice guy, telling me that men needed to be trained like puppies on a leash. “I’m an educated woman, I’d like to have meaningful conversation, but a smart husband is tiresome. So I found a comfortable, quiet guy who lets me do what I want.”
Another woman informed me that her friend married a guy who died, then died, and then died again. I thought Rasputin was Russian, but upon more careful translation, I realized she meant her friend had been lucky to marry three great men, but unlucky to bury them in quick succession. “Every person has a different fate, and for a woman, so much of that destiny is determined by the man she meets.”
On the boat, we were this gaggle of anonymous Asians that hunkered down at the blackjack tables or crowded the sauna or allowed cuts in the buffet line to a fellow countryman. But when the ship docked, and we Koreans climbed aboard our day-tour buses, we became something else. The squabbling continued, of course. Whenever I passed the beauty judge couple: Is not pretty! Is too! But a greater intimacy was created as well. I became a secondary guide and translator, a shooter of pictures and hunter of bathrooms. I was the dutiful de facto daughter.
Behind me on the bus, a hand tapped my shoulder. The old gentleman behind me then said, “Young lady, do you want this candy?” He was the lone male escort to three ladies, and I later learned that the other husbands in their clique had passed away, creating this new dynamic where one dude trailed behind three lively girls.
The faces became more individual, and I was able to pick out whose visage I wanted to acquire some day. The history and suffering they endured during war and immigration and living didn’t need to be explained. What I wanted to know from one woman was how she retained a smile on her face while she dozed on our train ride up the snowy mountain pass.
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I studied her lovely smile, lipsticked in red, wondering what the old lady with her tightly permed grey hair was dreaming as we climbed higher onto wintry terrain. This was the dangerous pass where those hoping to strike it rich carried a yearlong supply of provisions on their backs, requiring multiple trips as they trudged over the mountain into the Yukon.
My thoughts turned from roiling waters of uncertainty, the desperate cry of “Where the hell is my true love?” that fuels so many lame rom-coms, to the thick piles of hushed serenity that allow us to appreciate the view, or simply close our eyes and wait for another moment in which to open them.
I’d like to insert a quote of Yoda granny wisdom here, but instead of opening her mouth to speak, the woman with the smile shoved another piece of candy in my hand, gripped my fingers and, well, smiled. And it was more than enough. I wasn’t wondering anymore who’d I’d end up with, but how I’d end up myself. And lucky for me, I’d found her! She was the one I wanted and hoped to have enough patience to become. Even if her grin was simply a muscle reflex and nothing more.
Of course, it took a bit longer than a seven-day cruise with my mother and a bunch of Koreans to get over my break-up. But it was a good start, and the glaciers are still there, beautiful and glorious, despite the dread and worry and onslaught of time. And here I am, scrambling to get back on the ice, slipping a little, but clawing my way to stay afloat, looking both tragic and funny, which suits me just fine.
