I had a Kimjang Summer
How does one sum up a good summer? My instincts say I must type out a long list of all the things I did. But listing it all—camping, Grand Canyon, painting a room, swimming, rearranging this, building that—doesn’t quite do it.
So let me start with a question: Have you ever made kimchi?
Once or twice a year, I host a kimjang. I scrub my kitchen until it’s sparkling and rinse out my big kimchi tubs. My husband goes to the market when sales are ripe. He returns only when he’s got a carful of veggies and fish sauce.
Then the party arrives. My friends bustle into the kitchen. Their kids disappear into my son’s room for hours of play. And—I don’t exactly know how—the result is magic.
We make sure everyone’s wearing aprons. K-pop blasts from one of the cell phones that’s laying around, forgotten. The Maangchi mak-kimchi recipe sits on the end of the table. We fumble with this wealth of veggies. There’s so much on the table it’s hard to make space for cutting boards. How do we do this again? How many pounds of napa are we using this time? Twelve? Twenty?
Finally, we feel ready for our fist task: prepping the cabbage for brining. We slice into the end of a cabbage, grip each side firmly, and rip it asunder. It’s the perfect power trip. Nothing else like it. Somehow, every single time, we marvel at how beautiful these crinkly green leaves can be.
And so begins three hours of labor. We work side by side, having an old fashioned gossip. In my experience the word gossip is loaded, but the word chat doesn’t quite cover it. You get what I mean. We finish chopping everything for the filling, but the cabbage hasn’t finished brining. So I make spicy tteokbokki and cut refreshing cucumber.
I pull soju from the fridge. Touristy shot glasses I bought in Jeju last year clink in my hand.
A friend exclaims, “it’s the middle of the day!’
I say, “but the food is spicy.”
Another friend adds, “I should’ve had my husband drop me off…so I wouldn’t have to drive home.”
I laugh, “no getting drunk at my house.”
I know she wouldn’t, anyway. That would ruin the fun. We sit around the table, legs exhausted. We sip, we eat. When the brining timer goes off, we get back to work.
The feeling of a Yoon kimjang is like family parties from when I was a kid. Back when I ran around under the grownups’ feet, just like our kids do now. The honesty, innocence, and freedom. The feeling is warm. It’s community. It’s home.
This feeling is how I’ll sum up my summer. My family drove eight hours to attend a wedding, scrambled together a feast with friends in their Airbnb, and then drove eight hours back. We met up at the local water park, sometimes watching each others’ kids, sometimes meeting up so the parents could chat too. For several weeks, we hosted guests who were in-between housing situations, getting to know their daily rhythms and hoping they found our particular brand of chaos welcoming.
The list could go on. And on. But I’ll spare you.
I am not the most socially adept person out there. It has taken years to find my voice and dare to believe that there are people out there who actually like me as me. They accept me when I fidget, when my social battery is depleted, when I get a little turned around, when I can’t find my words, or when sensory overload forces a retreat.
Daring to unmask these needs has been vulnerable. But it has also allowed so much goodness into each day, too.
At the end of a kimjang, my house is thrashed. Huge tubs are covered in a deep, red paste. Veggie scraps have fallen on the floor and the dishes have piled up. My friends clean despite my resistance to help, bless them. I send them off with hugs, their arms full of food, and collapse into exhaustion.
We leave our fresh kimchi on our kitchen counters overnight to ferment. The next step?
Enjoy.
What’s Next?
Now that we’re getting ready for the school year, I’ll finally have work hours again. It’ll be so good to settle into my cozy, well-regulated brainspace again. I plan on updating you on several things!
Sept. 5th, tabling at the Fullerton Art Walk. Find me by the Night Owl!
Sept. 13th, I’m running a free therapeutic art session for adults at Hello Heart Creative Studio. More information to come.
And don’t let me forget to show you the client work I did earlier this year!
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