To home

The streets of Jongno in Seoul are always overflowing with waves of people. To move through them, you need to step lightly and ride the flow, slipping into the small gaps between the crowds. If you lose focus for even a moment, you might get swept away, pulled somewhere you didn’t intend to go, and tossed aside without knowing how.

On a humid summer night, feeling restless and wanting to go somewhere, I walked through the Jongno crowd. Eventually, the bustling people thinned out one by one, and I realized it was time to head home. I stood at a bus stop, waiting for the bus that would take me home. But suddenly, I couldn’t remember the bus number.

I asked people which bus went to Itaewon, but no one seemed to know. After much searching, I found a public phone and called home. I dialed the first four digits—then blanked on the rest.
A sense of panic slowly crept in. In the darkness of the now-empty street, I started to wonder:
Do I even have a home to return to? I shivered in fear—and woke up from the dream.

When I was little, there was a tiny, dim room next to our kitchen. It was full of unused things, and I used to sneak in there to find missing items or read books—and often fell asleep inside.

“Go tell Grandpa dinner is ready.”

My mother would say this as she woke me up while setting the dinner table. How did she always know I was in there?

Grandpa would be sitting there in his yellow silk robe with big orange buttons, a long pipe between his lips.
“Dinner’s ready,” I’d say.
He’d let out a deep cough and tap the pipe against a brass ashtray. The sharp, ringing sound would signal everyone to stop what they were doing and gather at the table. The table would be set with seaweed, grilled fish, and a clear radish soup. Only after Grandpa lifted his spoon to taste the soup would everyone else follow, as if by silent agreement.

I thought I was going back to that warm home, filled with the smell of radish soup and a mother who looked for me in the evenings. But it was only a dream.

I remember something a younger friend once said before leaving New York after living there for over ten years:

“I’ve never had a dream about New York.”

That stuck with me. Even though I’ve lived in New York longer than I ever lived in Seoul, I’m still wandering around my childhood home in my dreams.

In my dreams, I’m a lonely teenager, maybe around sixteen, unmarried and looking for my mom.
My husband appears as a neighborhood man or a familiar traveler I can’t quite place. My children show up as neighbor kids or cousins.

My childhood memories still dominate my mind, never making room for the memories I’ve built as an adult.

Far above, a plane disappears and reappears through the clouds, getting smaller and smaller.
Could it be flying to Seoul? Every time I see a plane, I think it’s headed to Korea.

It feels like, if I got on that plane, I could return to the house where my mother waits, setting the dinner table. Even though she passed away 25 years ago, I still dream of going back—to see her again.