Poster Child (23 page)

After listening to my heart rate and my litany of complaints, the doctor explained that I was exhibiting all the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. I was relieved to know that I was not about to have a heart attack every ten minutes. Post-traumatic stress disorder sounded as serious as a cold; it wasn't cancer, or heart disease, or anything like that. If it wasn't going to kill me, then of course I could deal with it.

"Tachycardia
is
unhealthy," he said. "Your heart is beating too fast too much of the time. Are you under any inordinate stress beyond what you're telling me?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm fine." I said nothing about my troubles sleeping, about my self-consciousness in the teachers' room or the incident at my host family's.

"Nothing at your placement, nothing at school?"

"I'm handling it," I said. The words felt hollow, even to me.

"No," he said, writing out a prescription for Xanax, "you're really not."

Dr. Pavlovich told me that it might be impossible for me to keep teaching if the attacks persisted. He said I needed downtime and counseling. He asked me if I had considered leaving Korea or taking a leave of absence. I told him absolutely not. I wanted to tell him to fuck off.

"You never had counseling after your amputation?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No. I had my last operation
years
ago."

"You need counseling."

"I'm fine," I said. "I can deal with it." I felt defiant and offended.
How dare this man tell me what I can handle and what I cannot? He has
no idea what I've been through,
I thought self-righteously
He has no
idea what I can manage.

As soon as I was outside the hospital doors, my strength faded and I wanted to turn around. I wanted to run past the rock garden in front of the hospital and tell the truth. "I'm terrified!" I imagined myself saying. "I'm losing my mind!" I did slow my pace as I walked past the security guard, but I kept walking, past beggars and blowing trash and the dirty alleyways to the subway station.

Back at Mrs. Park's that night, I floated in that murky, tranquilized state just before artificially induced sleep. I heard laughter on the street below, dialogue from the Korean television sitcoms Jane was watching in the living room, and the clink of dishes being washed in the kitchen sink. I squeezed the lumpy scars on my stump. What secrets were sealed behind those smooth white stripes that divided the skin into strange geometrical patterns? Why would the body plague me now? Those surgeries were behind me, the pain long ago absorbed and forgotten. I felt betrayed by my body and by the stories of its disfigurement that I did not want to revisit and recall. But the memories lurking and spinning in my bones were coming to me in nightmares. Growing and multiplying like a mysterious infection, they were leaking into my blood until I was saturated with fear.
What do you want?
I thought, kneading the scars and cursing my body.
What more do you want from me?

At that moment I felt, for the first time in my life, purely disabled, in the most blatant sense of the word: limited, ineffective, weakened. It was the most debilitating revelation of my life.

In October, I traveled with Mrs. Park and Jane to the family's village to celebrate Chuseok, the autumn holiday of harvest that is an occasion for giving thanks to one's ancestors for health and prosperity and to the earth for bounty. I was told that Chuseok is the Korean equivalent of the American holiday of Thanksgiving. We traveled north on roads clogged with traffic, remaining completely car-locked for hours at a time. We bought dried squid that tasted like car exhaust and grease from a vendor who, on foot, weaved among the idling cars.

Once at Mrs. Park's family home, we sat on the floor of the two-bedroom house and ate with Mrs. Park's mother, whom everyone called Oma. She stabbed her food with chopsticks held loosely in one hand and swiped at the flies circling our plates with the other hand. We ate
dok, kimbap,
fruit, and three different types of
kim'chi.
One was so spicy that I couldn't stop sweating. Jane laughed as I drank glass after glass of water.

At some point, the talk became very animated. I suspected they were discussing my host father, who had not set foot in the house since the night of the argument. Oma's wrinkled arms shook as she gestured. She talked as she chewed, the bits of food like moving black pegs inside her toothless mouth. Mrs. Park stared into her hands, eating nothing.

Jane and I slept on rolled-up mats on the floor. I took my leg off inside the sleeping bag after I knew she was asleep. I carefully peeled away the socket's Velcro strap, waiting for ten seconds between each rip to be sure the noise wouldn't wake her. Then I pulled my stump out of the leg and unrolled the sock and then the socket, tucking both inside the empty leg. I slept with my arm secured in the space underneath the artificial knee, its hydraulics cool against my wrist. I rationed out my Xanax, snapping the pills in half and taking them only at night.

On the morning of Chuseok, the house swelled with people for
jarye,
the memorial ceremony that takes place in the home. A table was laid with fruits and nuts, rice cakes, meat, fish, vegetables, and white wine. Mrs. Park's brother and his sons sat in the brocaded armchairs in the low light of the main room; they smoked cigarettes, chewed tobacco, and spat into silver bowls that Jane brought to the kitchen and rinsed clean.

I sat on floor cushions in the kitchen with the women, who were making
song pyan,
crescent-shaped white and green rice cakes filled with a sweetened seed mixture. The women rolled and worked the cakes into perfect half-moons as they chatted to one another. I concentrated on making mine just like theirs, but the women's practiced creations sat next to my lumpy, lopsided attempts; it was clearly an acquired skill. The women's soft voices rose like thin ribbons in the air to mix with the cigarette smoke and laughter floating up from the men's side of the room.

That afternoon, we visited the family graves for
seong myo,
the ceremony to honor the spirits of ancestors who retain power to influence what happens to family members in the living world: a celebration of kinship and bloodline. The graves were on top of a steep hill. It had rained recently, and the mud was smelly and deep. One of Mrs. Park's younger nephews, wearing Levi's and Converse sneakers, grabbed my hand and practically pulled me up the side of the hill.

At the ancestral graves, which were set in a clearing of tall bamboo trees, another feast was spread. Oma lit incense, and the whole family bowed; one by one, each person threw a small cup of rice wine on the grave.

Oma shook my arm, inviting me into the family ritual. I thought of the Korean man's smooth, sweat-soaked skin. I looked at my host mother's pale, drawn face. I looked at the calm and reverent faces of my host family. A thin stream of jet exhaust drew a line across the sky. I felt a sob blooming in my throat and let loose in my brain a prayer so powerful, I expected the air around us to stir. I tossed the rice wine. Everybody clapped.

On the way back to Seoul that afternoon, we visited a temple. It was another steep hike, but this time up paved roads packed with people. As we climbed, Mrs. Park bought me "sweat cloths" at every roadside stand. She offered water and long breaks as we worked our way up the hill. We saw women sidestepping their way down the steep path in their strappy high-heeled sandals, clinging to the arms of men. Mrs. Park watched me limp along at a slow pace in my sturdy hiking boots and took my hand.

That night, I had a panic attack so severe that I had to go outside where I could be sick. The humid air smelled of goat shit and wet dirt. I ran the garden hose and rinsed my mouth and hands. Back in the room, I allowed my last dose of Xanax to melt on my tongue.

The panic attacks continued, and over the next weeks I spent a good chunk of my wages on taxis to the hospital. I sat slumped in the backseat, looking out at the huge, sprawling city of Seoul that had begun to frighten me in its enormity: the crowded streets, the thick car exhaust, the bright neon lights. Every kind of stimulation felt like too much. When I finally got to the hospital, the doctor often refused to see me; he couldn't see many of his critical patients four times a week. On the phone, he told me what I already knew but would not admit: that I could not continue to live like this. He told me to go home.

One night after I spoke with the doctor, I had three panic attacks and was sick in the trash can underneath the desk in my bedroom. The next night, I woke up after having the recurring dream to find my right leg dangling out the open window—if I had tipped in the wrong direction, I might have toppled three floors to the concrete path below. I didn't remember opening the window.

In the morning, I called my parents and told them what had been going on. Shocked and concerned, they begged me to take the doctor's advice and give up the scholarship, leave Korea. "Listen to what your body is telling you," Mom said. "You have nothing to prove."

I arrived at Mr. Adams's office in central Seoul unannounced. I was on the verge of tears, because I had never in my life quit anything. Never. Not as a skier, when I went so hard and fast that I would literally drop at the end of each run. Not as a student, when I pushed myself to study for hours on end. Not as a person with a disability, when I did everything to overcome the circumstances of my birth. I was the superachiever; the poster child for what a person could accomplish with guts and determination. But now I could not force myself to function; the night before had been my wake-up call, and I was finally paying attention.

I walked past the protesting secretary, opened the door to Mr. Adams's office, and said, "I'm leaving. I can't stay here." I felt sweat gathering in my scalp. "I'm resigning," I said. It had been almost four months since the day of my arrival. "Today."

"You'll work it out," he said, turning in his chair to file something in a cabinet drawer. "Nobody quits the Fulbright."

Hearing that word made my whole body shake. /
am not a
quitter,
I thought. I wanted, for a moment, to retract my statement. But I could not. The decision to quit was the right one. Something was shifting inside me—something that perhaps had been waiting to do so for many years, but I would have to address it now, and quickly. I understood this without fully wanting to admit it.

Without saying more, I walked down the stairs and out the door of the building. I walked past a small
dabang
(tearoom) with a tree-lined courtyard and stone pathways. Sunlight poured through the trees, and leafy shadows rippled like water across the stones. I stood still for a moment and watched the watery shadows spill over the bricks, over my feet, over a young couple holding hands on an afternoon stroll. I saw a travel agency on the corner. I crossed the street, stepped inside the door, and booked my ticket to Denver.

The day after I announced that I would be leaving the school and Korea in a matter of days, a large group of girls approached me in the garden recess area, led by Sue, who handed me a small box wrapped beautifully in the way I'd seen cakes decorated in shop windows—in hot pink and brilliant blue, topped with silk and satin bows. I bowed to each of them. Sue began to wail; the high-pitched heaving sound shocked me, because each time the girls laughed or giggled, they usually hid behind their hands. Now each girl was sobbing.

"Don't go, teacher, don't go," Sue cried.

"You have been wonderful students," I said. I tried to wish them happiness and luck without crying, too—not because I wanted to stay, but because I desperately wanted to leave.

Inside the box were long love letters written in broken English, pictures of fairies and queens with "I love you, teacher" written beneath them, a sketched likeness of my face next to a tabloid photograph of Brad Pitt, and an Edith Piaf tape. When my former students wrote to me, which they did for years, I waited weeks to open the letters. I could hardly stand to read their sweet words or look at the intricate drawings they made for me.

Mr. Adams called and spoke to Mrs. Park in Korean about what was happening. Afterward, she stayed in her room for the rest of the night, and I sat, guilt-ridden, in my bedroom. When I did see her next, she was distant and quiet. Perhaps by leaving I was shaming her or communicating to her that she was not important to me. What had Mr. Adams told her? I would never know.

I tried to explain myself to Mrs. Park, but language failed me. How could I express the complexity of my gratitude? How could I thank her for such kindness? I sat in my room, looking at the personal, intimate gifts from my students. I felt the deep ache of failure.

I knew I'd never enjoy doing tae kwon do again, but I had learned something during my predawn sweat sessions. Those desperate moments I spent alone in the empty gymnasium made me feel closer to my students than any lesson I ever taught in the classroom. As I moved and punched and shouted, waiting for the sun to rise and my fear to dissipate, I could feel the pressure the girls put on themselves to succeed. I thought of the bright, motivated, and lovely students in my classes, trying so hard to make the grade no matter what it took, trying to be extraordinary, to be the best student and the best girl, as if being perfect were the only way of being acceptable, the only way to live. It was clear to me that my students were already as perfect as they'd ever need to be. And maybe, I thought, so was I. Maybe.