2007 Things

January 24, 2008 in 10 Things, The New Year's List | by Stephanie | 17 comments

My birthday falls three days after the New Year. This is convenient packaging for that quiet moment of reflection that takes us all by the balls each January 1st, even those of us without balls. Where am I? Where am I going? Am I a fabulous success or a horrible, miserable worthless excuse for a productive member of the human species? Quiet, simple, healthy reflection.

Rather than dwell in the should’s or could’s or truth about enzyte would have’s, in the past few years I’ve taken to writing a list of things I am grateful happened to me in the previous year. The unexpected things, the things that make me so happy I could spit. For me, 2007 happened to be splitting at its seams as far as rich, tasty, new experiences go, so this year’s list was so easy there were surely more than ten. But let’s review ten.

1. Korea

Without question, the most amazing thing that happened to me in 2007 was moving to Seoul, South Korea. I knew this in my bones and blood as early as March. Still, it took several months to find that feeling every single day, in every single encounter; to find a community of people to make it feel like home; to realize the profound shift in my heart and mind because of this place and its vibrance and its soul. No pun intended.

2. Photography
As a child, I spent entire Saturday afternoons perched on a high countertop next to the enlarger in my dad’s basement darkroom. He let me push the exposure button and move the prints from developer to the fixer and finally my favorite part: standing on the tall stool to hang the photos from clothespins to dry. He gave me free reign with his Olympus 35RC and rolls of B&W, even though I insisted he be my subject and pose on the front porch with my doll. In high school, he tirelessly helped me print color 8×10’s for my film school portfolio, bought me my first Pentax 35mm SLR and took me to Hunt Drug for gear. After college, he handed me his exquisite Nikon FE2 and said “Why don’t we say it’s on permanent loan?”

All of this and it took 35 years and a year overseas for me to “get” that I Like Photography. In one year, photography has brought me real friends, virtual friends, and an entire network of immediate friends from all over the world. I have been published and I have been featured. I have made projects and learned new skills. Photography has given me a focus and my learning curve this year has been tremendous. I actually don’t tune out anymore when people talk about f-stops around me. Well, not as much at least.

3. The German
In March, I met this girl. Well, I virtually met her. She emailed me about a photo I’d taken and the words I’d written with it, words that inextricably linked us in ways we’d not imagined. But as the emails grew longer, we realized that we had far more in common than that one thing that first stuck us to one another like glue. By May we were talking on the phone and by June she was on her way to Seoul for a 3-week visit that deepened not only our friendship, but my entire experience in Korea.

I’m not going to blahblahblaaahhhh about the internet community and its ability to bring people together, because I’ve done that enough. But I am going to say that Ann-Kathrin was one of the best and most unexpected things to come into my life in 2007. It is something I will be grateful for much longer than three sweaty, humid weeks in a tiny one room Korean apartment.

4. Money

We have not always been friends, Money and me. We are friends now.

5. Writing
In the seventh grade I moved the family typewriter into my bedroom to begin work on my screenplay. It was a very moving romantic comedy intended to feature a monkey, Simon LeBon of Duran Duran and the well-known actress Bess Armstrong whom I’d seen in my favorite movie of the 6th grade, High Road to China. I was a very serious middle schooler who held tightly to my Trapper Keeper, stuffed with poetry about snow, short stories about the holocaust and of course, my screenplay. Visions of New York City salons and smoking cigarettes over my beat-up typewriter danced through my head. I was going to be… A Writer!

Filmmaking became my focus and later design, but I never stopped writing. This year, through a number of means, I’ve had the opportunity to flex this muscle and it has been deeply satisfying in ways I could never have anticipated. I am sorry there are no monkeys. I’ll work on that for 2008.

6. Make New Friends But Keep The Old
The problem with gypsy living is simple. You collect so many amazing people into the inner circle of your secret society, it is hard to keep track of them all.

Oh wait. That is actually not a problem at all.

7. My Students
My biggest hesitation about coming to Korea was putting the design work aside and being a teacher for a year. Kids, they’re pretty cool I guess. But what if I wanted to scoop my eyeballs out with spoons within a month? It’s one thing to try out something to see if you like it. ‘Tis another to fly half way across the world to a strange land to try it.