벚꽃. Morning walks. 포항 beginning to bloom.

Calling 엄마 every day and night.

Getting my first haircut since my last haircut that I got in 파주 last July. I didn’t want 이모 and 이모부 to be worried about me not taking care of myself. Accidentally cutting off too much hair, regretting not going into my appointment with a plan, feeling like I had become 단발머리.

Taking Haejoon on his first KTX bullet train ride. Going on my first KTX bullet train ride. Traveling with Haejoon by myself for the first time. Calling 엄마 on FaceTime from the train. Surviving our first KTX bullet train ride thanks to the help of four, kind women in the 연결통로.

이모 and 이모부 picking Haejoon and me up from 서울역. Seeing them for the first time in nine months, which is a short amount of time compared to our usual five-year stretches of separation.

Being back in 서울. Being back with my family. Feeling like I’ve finally arrived home in Korea. Feeling relief to be in the comfort of my family and my 고향. Eating the most delicious 평양냉면 and 수육 at 평양면옥. The place I went to with 할아버지 when he was alive. The place he said tastes most like home. Paying for their meal.

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Flowers from the Field • 들꽃

Book: Governing Bodies by Sangamithra Iyer
Documentary: 정관스님의 철학적인 요리, The Philosopher’s Kitchen Jeong Kwan, by 백헌석
Television Series: 갯마을 차차차, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha by 신하은
Restaurant: 풀향기, The Scent of Grass, located in 이동, 남구, 포항
Bakery: 떼오, Teo, located in 효자동, 남구, 포항
Flower: 진달래, Jindallae, Korean Rhododendron
Conversation / Podcast: Between The Covers: Sangamithra Iyer, by David Naimon and Milkweed Editions

This is the art that inspired me during the fourth month of the year.

What art did you read, watch, listen to, and experience this month? What inspired you? What broke you? What moved you? What encouraged you? What questions did you ask? What answers did you find? What art did you make? What realizations did you have? What did you discover? Share your own field collections with me in the comments.

With love,
Jieun

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Field Notes • 현장 기록

① 정관스님의 철학적인 요리, The Philosopher’s Kitchen Jeong Kwan — This show is a two-episode documentary series. It’s incredibly calming and beautifully filmed. It reminds me a lot of Little Forest. It makes you think about our relationship with the food we eat, the intentionality with which we cook and source our food, the pace at which we live our lives, and what it looks like to be deeply connected with oneself, our land, our surroundings, and the creatures among which we live.

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Flowers from the Field

Magazine: choa, Volume 5 — 이별, ibyeol by Mirae Lee and Harriet Kim
Film #1: 말모이 Mal-mo-e by 엄유나, Eom Yu-na
Film #2: Little Forest by 임순례, Yim Soon-rye
Documentary: The Last of the Sea Women by Sue Kim
Live Performance #1: Creatures in Your Head, by Run River North
Live Performance #2 + Interview: Run River North || Character Concerts E1 by Run River North, produced by Character Media
Conversation / Podcast: Ep. 11: Hana’s Guide to Moving to Korea by Adopted Feels

Welcome to 3월’s Field Collection.

This month’s collection includes works on: lineage, the threads holding identity, language, and culture together, war, and our life’s calling.

What did you read, watch, observe, and listen to this month?
What inspired you?
What broke you?
What encouraged you?
What questions did you ask?
What realizations did you find?
What art did you make?
What did you discover?

Share your own field collections with me in the comments.

With love,
Jieun

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PS — You can look through past field collections that I’ve put together since December.

Words of Encouragement

“다른 하늘 밑에서 살 거네.”
“We are going to be living under different skies.”
—곽미정 Kwak Mi Jung, 엄마

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Flowers from the Field

Book: Goodbye, again by
Film#1: Past Lives, by Celine Song
Film #2: 소울메이트, Soulmate, by 민용근
Television Series: 주관식당, The Blank Menu for You, with 최강록 and 이상훈
Music: Perfect, by Run River North
Live Performance: RRN LIVE Show (in the Year of Coronavirus) Episode 1 (I recommend listening to all three Coronavirus live show episodes in order, and end with the full album performance of Creatures in Your Head)
Conversation / Podcast: Hey, Cool Life! Episode 99 by

These are the films I watched, the writings I read, the conversations I listened to, the music I listened to, the art that inspired me, and the beauty that broke me this month.

What did you read, watch, and listen to this month? What inspired you? What broke you? What moved you? What encouraged you? What questions did you ask yourself? What art did you make? What realizations did you have? What did you discover? Share your own field collections with me in the comments.

With love,
Jieun

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Words of Encouragement

“버리는게 있으면 얻는것도 있거든요. If you leave something behind, you gain something too.”
—나영 엄마, nayoung umma, Past Lives

Every time you reclaim your language, your dress, your traditions — you are dismantling the lie that you must become someone else to succeed.”
—bell hooks

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This is a comprehensive, incomplete list of my dreams for my life.

I included everything — small dreams, medium dreams, big dreams. I organized them into categories — big dreams, life intentions, writing dreams, music dreams, creative dreams, life dreams, community dreams, and family dreams. Some of these dreams I’ve carried with me for years. Some are newer dreams. Some are easier to fulfill than others. Some feel impossible. Whatever I don’t accomplish this year, I will try to fulfill next year, and the next year, and the next.

Dreams, goals, intentions — they give me a finish line to push towards. They help keep me on track. They give me a foundation to plant my hope in. They give me a mountaintop to look up at.

In 2024, my banner line was: Surviving is the goal, surviving is the victory.

In 2025, my banner line was: I didn’t come up with one, but it was the same — Surviving is the goal, surviving is the victory.

For 2026, my banner line is: Courage is walking towards our fears with trembling hands.

What do you hope this year holds for you? Wonder? Rest? Hope? Grief? Honesty? Surrender? Rage?

I invite you to make your own list of dreams. I invite you to come up with your own banner line for the year. I invite you to choose your own word(s) to carry with you throughout the year. What do you want to do with your one precious life? How do you want to pass your precious days? How do you want to pass your precious time?

Let’s keep moving towards our dreams together.

With love,
Jieun

Jieun’s Big Dreams:

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Flowers from the Field

Book: The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh
Documentary: Liquor Store Dreams by So Yun Um
Film / Television Series: Pachinko by Soo Hugh, Kogonada, Justin Chon; based on the novel by Min Jin Lee
Music: Now (1973) by 김정미, Kim Jung Mi
Conversation: E.J. Koh | The Magical Language of Others & The Liberators, by Literary Notes and Yoon Park

These are the films I watched, the writings I read, the conversations I listened to, the music I listened to, the art that inspired me, and the beauty that broke me this month. This month’s field collection was created with these questions in mind: How do we keep going? How do we act with courage? How do we endure?

What did you read, watch, and listen to this month? What inspired you? What broke you? What moved you? What encouraged you? What questions did you ask yourself? What art did you make? What realizations did you have? What did you discover? Share your own field collections with me in the comments.

With love,
Jieun

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Words of Encouragement

“너그는 조선 사람인거 이자뿌리면 안 된데이. 여 뼛속까지 조선 사람인기라. You must never forget you are Korean. To the depths of your very bones, you are Korean.” —양진, Yangjin, Pachinko

“The relentlessness is a strategy. The dehumanization is by design. You have to be just as relentless. You have to match the relentlessness with relentlessness.” —Hala Alyan

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1월, January

We visit 아빠’s grave twice — New Year’s Day and 설날. We do a 성묘 at the grave, with fruit, 떡, and 빈대떡 on paper plates. It’s Haejoon’s first time visiting his 할아버지. It’s my fourth time visiting 아빠. I haven’t been to his grave since October 26, 2023. We 절. I haven’t 절-ed to 아빠 since I was a little kid on New Year’s Day. I have a conversation with him in the ground and in the sky. I make a list of dreams for the year. The dream list is filled with longings to see my family — my family in Virginia, my family in Maryland, my family in Korea. I want to go to Korea this year. I start Asian American Art Club, and my friend David joins. I host two community gatherings for Asian American families. It snows a lot. I sled down the hill in Prospect Park. I make a little snowperson on a park bench. 엄마 makes three snowpeople on the back deck in Virginia — me, 엄마, and 아빠. We move our bed to the kitchen and give Haejoon our bedroom. We come home for 설날. We eat 떡만두국 twice. 엄마 and I make 만두 together. We play 윷놀이 and 공기 for the first time since 아빠 died. We feel his presence. We feel his absence.

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I’m starting a writing series called Field Collection. It’s a collection of beautiful things I saw, heard, and experienced, that inspired me to create my own art — quotes, art, poetry, writing, music, films. It’s a practice of observation, exploration, reflection, and wonder.

I feel like, in a day, in a week, in a month, I hear, witness, or experience hundreds of things that inspire me — something that rearranges the neural pathways of my mind, something that changes the way I look at life. I want to keep these little pieces of wisdom forever, but naturally, I forget. Field Collection is an archive of these inspirations — things I’ve seen, things I’ve heard, things I’ve experienced — so when I want to remember, I can come back to them. I also want to share them with you, in the hopes that these pieces of art will inspire you, too — in your art, in your work, in your life.

This month’s collection features poetry and writing from my friend, Max Lin, and poet, writer, and pyschologist, Hala Alyan, and quotes I gathered throughout the month. At the end, I’ve included a mixtape for you to listen to, as we say goodbye to the old year.

What inspired you this month? Share your own field collection with me in the comments.

With love,
Jieun

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“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”
— Emily Dickinson wrote in a letter to a friend about moving, dated 1855.

“It’s never a waste to love somebody.”
— Stella, an Asian diasporic ER doctor sharing lessons from her experiences of working in the emergency room.

“Life is once. Enjoy yourself.”
— A Japanese man who moved to New York. In Japan, he felt like he was “the nail that stuck out that got hammered down.”

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”
— Joan Didion, the opening line of the title essay in her 1979 collection, The White Album.

To Take With Me, by Max Lin

My friend, writer, and creative director, Max Lin, wrote this beautiful personal essay about his mother called, “To Take With Me.” His writing is devastatingly candid, sharp, and hilarious. He gives us permission to speak about the topics we’re societally forbidden to talk about in this country — death, illness, culture, and suffering. Any griever will be able to see themselves in Max’s words. This piece is for everyone, but it is especially for my grievers. You can read the full essay at Pithead Chapel — here are the opening lines.

“The funeral director was a used car salesman in another life.

Maybe even in this life. Maybe Gary’s shift at Big Auto Dealer of College Point starts in an hour.

Chun Fook Funeral Services in Flushing, Queens has laminate wood walls that reflect its fluorescent bulbs. Mounted to these walls, a display of tombstone swatches: marble, gray granite, black granite, red granite, and speckled beige straight from a ’90s Tuscan kitchen countertop. Welcome to Death Depot.

Gary, a boxy middle-aged man with gelled black hair, flashes his big white veneers and claps me on the back.

“Great eye, granite is always timeless! Now which color you like?”

I don’t give a shit which color, Gary.

But definitely not that shade of red. And could I see those engravings again?

“Yes, yes, good! Bamboo engraving is an excellent choice. Very prosperous! You married, Max?”

“No.”

“Ha! Lucky.”

We watched the body get carried out yesterday.

Read Max's Essay

Pledge Allegiance, by Hala Alyan

Poet, writer, and clinical psychologist Hala Alyan puts language to the diasporic experience with unflinching honesty. This is her poem, “Pledge Allegiance.” It’s about Palestine, diaspora, grief, and identity. You can read the poem in its entirety at Adroit Journal. Below is a video of her reciting the poem for an audience, and below that, I’ve included the poem’s opening lines. You can find her on Substack at: , moonseed.

my country is a ghost // a mouth trying to say sorry and it comes out all smoke // all citizen and bullet and seed // my country is a machine // a spell of bad weather // a feather lacing my mother’s black hair // I mean her dyed hair // I mean her blonde hair // I mean her hair matches my country // so shiny and borrowed and painted over // my country is a number

like—

it is 1948 and my great-great-grandmother flattens bread with her hands // while my other great-great-grandmother prays with her hands // one watches her land disappear // the other builds a house on land that will disappear

my country is an airport line a year of highways an intermission // my country is Stockholm syndrome // is immigrant mouth saying thank you saying please saying // my country is no country but ghost // is no man but ghost // my country is dead // my country is name the dead // give them their salt

Read Hala's Poem

Mixtape: Farewell, 2024.

I made this mixtape last year, as we entered into 2025. I listened to it again at the end of this year, and I think this is just a good mixtape to listen to at the end of every year. So I offer it to you now, as we burn the old year again.

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At the beginning of the year, I made a list of dreams for 2025.

I was going to share it on Substack back in January, but it felt too vulnerable, too accountable, too exposing. Time passed and passed, and then it felt too late. So I’m sharing it now, at the end of the year.

It’s fascinating, endearing, and inspiring to look back at these dreams of mine that I wrote down at the beginning of the year. It takes a tremendous amount of courage, vulnerability, and faith to acknowledge the things I want to do in this life, and then really go after them and try to accomplish them — the precious dreams of my heart, some that I have carried with me for a lifetime, some that I have inherited from my ancestors and the generations before me. I accomplished a lot of them, I fell off on others, but I did try almost all of them. I’m incredibly proud of myself.

I used this dream list to write down anything and everything, small dreams and big ones. Writing down all of the things I want to do in this life, in this year — committing them to paper, and saying them out loud to myself, Greg, and the internet — helped me fulfill a lot of my dreams this year. I feel like, if we keep talking about our dreams with courage, faith, and persistence, we will probably, hopefully, eventually fulfill our dreams.

I looked at this list of dreams as a bucket list. What do I want to do with my one precious life? How do I want to spend my finite, precious time? If this is the last year of my life, how do I want to live out my final days?

If you made a list of dreams, goals, and intentions at the beginning of the year, share them with me in the comments. If you didn’t, when you look back now, what dreams did you fulfill this year?

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This was my list of big dreams:

1. I want to live closer to 엄마. ✨

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Hi friends,

I’m starting a writing series called Little Joys • 기쁨.

This is my attempt at freezing time, at capturing the mundanity of life that actually holds all of life’s magic. It’s my attempt at holding onto the fleeting moments of a beautiful, imperfect life, of remembering the little things. It’s my attempt at archiving the little moments of joy in my life.

I think joy finds us. I think we also find joy. I think we also make joy. And I think we can experience more joy in our lives by remembering the little joys that make up our days.

Life feels louder, darker, harder, and scarier than ever. Maybe it’s because my eyes are wide open. Maybe it’s because we’re more connected to and disconnected from the rest of the world than ever before. Maybe it’s because I’m not a child anymore, and I don’t have adults to shield my eyes and ears from the perils of this world.

Little Joys is my attempt at rooting myself in the unwavering, unflinching joy, that exists, that persists, that endures, in the midst of it all.

I invite you to join me in this practice. Maybe sharing our joys with each other is another way to experience more of it? Maybe sharing our joys can multiply our joy?

What were your little joys of December? Share them with me in the comments.

With love,
Jieun

Little Joys of December • 기쁨

Eating avocado toast on a thick cut of multigrain bread with tomato, egg, arugula, spinach with a side of balsamic vinaigrette and hot sauce at Underdog in Annandale.

Eating 집밥, 엄마’s home-cooked, 정-filled, table-leg-breaking meals. 오이무침, three kinds of kimchi, 돼지불고기, 멸치볶음, 무채, and a hot bowl of 엄마’s 미역국. I actually love 미역국 without 참기름, and this makes me sad because I could’ve loved 미역국 for decades, had I known this fact.

Haejoon walking around the living room while carrying 아빠’s golf club like a giant walking stick. I can see it now — the massive grin on 아빠’s face, the booming, reverberating sounds of his laugh, the echoes of his laughter off the walls of our home. 아빠 would have been over the moon at Haejoon’s first steps, at Haejoon’s obsession with his golf clubs, at Haejoon’s existence.

Reading a message from my friend’s grieving mother written in Korean.

Attending my friend Zach’s funeral and hearing hilarious, ordinary, and moving stories about him. He’s reminding me how much we shape one another, how much we remain with one another, and how much of an impact we have on each other’s lives.

Hearing so much laughter, and so much crying, at Zach’s funeral. Thinking about all of the hairy buttholes that are being created in Zach’s honor (it’s a Korean inside joke, look it up).

Watching Mr. Sunshine on our turquoise corduroy sofa in 엄마’s house, that we moved with our own bodies down our apartment stairs, into a U-Haul truck that we drove from New York, just so we could feel a piece of New York with us in Virginia. A piece of home.

Going on our Sunday morning family walks together — me, Greg, Haejoon, 엄마, and Gamja. We have a walk route around the neighborhood, me leading in the front, Greg, Haejoon, and Gamja in the middle, and 엄마 trailing behind. I feel like we’re a little family of ducks.

When it snows and I can see my own footsteps. When I look back and I can see all of my footsteps in the snow, it feels like a metaphor for life.

Sitting in Soricha at my little wooden table against the wall, with my little table lamp, drinking a hojicha, listening to the Minari soundtrack, writing words on a page to try to make a little more sense of life and the human experience.

Listening to Hala Alyan’s written piece in Emergence Magazine, “A Letter to my Husband,” on a snowy, frigid walk.

Seeing so many hawks — sitting in trees, flying so close to me, perched on lampposts. Young ones, old ones, small ones, fat ones. Seeing their feathers and their beady little eyes. My friend Chris Burton once told me of this thing New Yorkers say when it’s cold outside. When it’s really cold, New Yorkers say, “It’s brick.” When it’s so cold your bones shiver, they say, “The hawk is out.” The hawk is a sign of 아빠. 아빠 is everywhere.

Watching the sun break through the sky at dawn from the windows in the kitchen. Seeing the navy, midnight sky slowly become swirled with a gradient of dusty pink and lavender hues. My favorite time of day is 새벽. My favorite word is 새벽.

Waking up on a Sunday morning before Haejoon, 엄마, and Greg wake up and writing a letter. I feel like I’m stealing time.

Watching Haejoon wake up in the mornings while I’m writing in my journal at a low table on the floor right next to him. He lifts his head up from his bed, and I see his round, little brown eyes through the rails of the crib. I smile and he grins back. He rolls around in his bed, he makes some stirring noises to communicate he’s awake, he climbs up the rails while he’s still in his sleepsack.

Watching the joy on Haejoon’s face when he pushes the “walk” button at the stoplight.

The clear, cold blue sky and the snow covering everything like magic.

Watching Haejoon light up and giggle after he “throws” a tennis ball for Gamja — drops it from the air — and watching Gamja chase after the tennis ball like a hawk swooping down to grab a mouse.

My morning walks in Annandale. Saying hello to my neighbor and her two little marble-white dogs. Saying hello to my neighbor who reminds me of 아빠 when he holds his hand up to greet me. I always find friends on my walks, in Virginia, in New York, in Korea.

“미안해. 마음 푸러.” A sincere apology from 엄마. We are repairing the ruptures of our past.

Seeing 엄마 every day.

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