alice moon (@anothermoon) • Instagram photos and videos

anothermoon

240 posts

752 followers

46 following

alice let me play among the stars

August 19, 2018 hello sun, hello namwon. 164 80	August 23, 2018 this was my first time in korea and the only picture of me my grandmother kept. guess i'm not the favourite grandchild after all. 133 38	September 14, 2018 my new favourite bookstore. i might need another suitcase to fit all of my finds. 89 64
September 26, 2018 new friends and a new view. 73 26	October 30, 2018 chrysanthemum festival in iksan. mom and i stayed until the lights guided us home. also the security guards. 112 75	November 6, 2018 alice spots cats: a collection. 64 39
December 12, 2018 i want to remember every minute, always. always to the end of my days. 68 12	December 17, 2018 wonderland. 72 32	December 24, 2018 found a nice cafe to celebrate christmas with mom and halmeoni. 179 54
December 25, 2018 i hope everyone is enjoying a warm christmas meal. 270 87	January 9, 2019 goodbye sun, goodbye namwon. 109 65	January 11, 2019 home sweet home. 112 82

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She's standing in her grandmother's living room and wondering if she's looking into her future.

She doesn't know Korea the way her grandmother and mother do, has only been to her mother's childhood home a handful of times growing up for Chuseok, Lunar New Year and important events that seem better hosted in a country long since left but still loved and seeped in meaning, but maybe these aren't new footsteps but rather a well worn path carved out over two generations and soon she'll be a third set of imprints in the stone.

An indescribable ache in heart already starts to bloom, and she tries to find solace in an old photograph taken in a room that's only remembered because of stories told rather than memories lived.

The first time her hand drifts towards her phone, she stops herself just as fingers begin to curl around the plastic cover.

It's the fourth time that has her getting up and moving into the kitchen to stop herself and find a distraction.

Small bowl of strawberries gone, though, and her hands are free and her mind is too curious, giving way to temptation. She has to see, has to know, if he reached out, how many times, what he's written, what he hasn't written – she needs to know if he's missing her as much as she's missing him even if that's the opposite of distance she thought she needed.

Fourteen messages.

Not their personal record, but it's more than what she shouldn't have been hoping for, and a giggle escapes her before she can even think as the first message she sees is a new cat meme. She scrolls through everything, back back back to her closed off replies that pause her only briefly, an uncomfortable wedge in her heart that only begins to lift as her eyes take in visual proof of how much he's missed her. Messages, memes, even two more songs, she shouldn't want them but she does.

She warms herself on these feelings, sinks into them as a smile softly lights her face more than the screen every could, eyes crinkling in happiness. Free fingers tug at the blanket on the back of the couch until she's wrapped a makeshift, cotton cocoon around herself, and she crouches further into the cushions and minds the jostling of the phone balanced on her propped knee, careful it doesn't fall. Once she's feeling safe and secure, she presses play on a new song he shared with her, closing her eyes and giving into these feelings.

Returning to Vancouver had always been a heavy thing – a band-aid after New York, an unknown path after Rhode Island – but all of it paled in comparison to the worry in heart when she took new steps in the city, taking her further away from the months spent in Korea. It was painfully obvious her mother wasn't happy, the downward curves of her face starting to smooth as weeks passed but her eyes telling their own story, and the weight of saying goodbye despite sadness that lingered weighed heavy on her shoulders. Alice hadn't known, still now even unsure, of what to do, what step she should take – back to her mother or forward to home, but her mother spoke what the hesitance couldn't. She needed to return, back to her own life while her mother lived her own, both deriving comfort in knowing that this was the best of a horrible situation they felt themselves trapped in, this way their way of coping, their way of freeing themselves.

When she landed, Alice did what she thought was best.

She shielded herself, cutting off all conversation with her dad after another round of fighting, tense words heavy between them that couldn't be taken back, not anymore, not another time, but he wasn't the only causality in her attempts to carve out the distance she thought she needed from too painful reminders. Sam, too, was another step back. Conversations were purposely dwindled and feelings were hidden away, and although she tried to explain, she knew the only words that didn't sound hollow were the apologies as she stuttered over vowels in unshed tears.

"It's for the best," she tried to remind herself, burrowing further into the lie until her heart believed it.