An Entertainer in South Korea (3)

"My mother's in a fascinating place in her life right now." I tell my friends. XD

I'm on my way to a "shoot with animals" (that's what I was told). I soon learned I'd be working with a dog for this shoot. I'm okay with that. I had a previous shoot with a dog. 

 

Here in South Korea they're usually little dogs so it's okay! 

This part of my life... this time in my life feels like a dream. Sometimes, as I am on my way and look around me, it all feels surreal. I'm in South Korea. I'm not Asian. I don't look Asian. People notice me and they smile and nod their heads to acknowledge me. I nod and smile back. Often they engage me in conversation. "Where are you from? Why are you in Korea?"  I tell them that I am here working in entertainment. As I say it I can hardly believe it myself. Most non-Koreans are English teachers. Me? I'm "living the dream". Is this what I was dreaming? Is this what I was aspiring to all my life? 

Every day seems like a brand new day. I never know what is going to happen. Sometimes I have a plan that actually happens as planned. Many days I have a plan that has changed quite often before it is finally actualized and then changes again while in process! 

I feel my life is miraculous. It's not every day that a person of my age (a youthful 65!) sells their comfortable home, puts all their "stuff" into a single storage unit and then gets on a plane to fly to a country they've never been to with no plan at all except to "go wherever the wind blows me". Breathe.... 

Suddenly... well it does feel like it happened all of a sudden - like overnight... I'm living in a new place, a new culture that feels like a whole new world. I'm a "foreigner" but oddly enough this new world somehow feels like "home".  

I am essentially illiterate here in South Korea. I can read Korean, albeit slowly, but I don't understand what I'm reading. I can speak a little bit of Korean. I know just enough to get by. The rest is pantomime or Google Translate! 

I have work here. Really good work too. I'm in the entertainment business. I get called to jobs more and more now. I never really know what is it I'm going to or even where. I barely even know what I'm expected to do when I get to the location. I just go along and somehow it all works out. I may be illiterate here but I'm not stupid!! 

People tell me I have angels watching over me and I think they are right. I don't know how else this could all be really happening. G-d and G-d's angels are most certainly taking good care of me! ברוך השם (Baruch HaShem!)

For this job I'm riding on the subway for 1.5 hours to a location somewhere far North of where I live. I can barely pronounce the names of each subway stop. I think it's probably pretty close to North Korea but heck, I'm not worried about it. Somebody is waiting for me at the destination.  

I'm managing to get around pretty well in general. I have to work. I'm paying rent, health care insurance and a phone bill. I'm also paying for a storage unit in the USA. Gotta eat too! I meet a lot of interesting and very good people and have even met a few I would call friends. None of them are even close to my age except for maybe two women who are in their 40's. Again, I'm not worried about it. People my age are full of aches and pains. They love to talk endlessly about it and about each medication they are taking for each and every ill. They have family baggage that I really want no part of. I find them mostly boring. 

I look out the subway window. I see I am riding through cities that are in the thick of the mountains. Today the mountains are covered with a foggy mist. It's going to rain. I look out and see a magnificent rock formation on the side of the mountain. "Where am I?" I wonder.

My grown up kids told me to go have an adventure. I wasn't doing anything anymore in the USA. There wasn't much work there for me as a musician. I had worked instead as a school bus driver, an office clerk and found some decent work as a teacher & Cantorial soloist in Jewish synagogues. I had a part-time position as a Certified Clinical Musician (CCM). I loved my work at hospice and at senior facilities. I enjoyed teaching Torah, Hebrew and about my Jewish faith. I even liked driving a school bus. Yet, it was time to go. 

So at this time in my life, after childhood, youth, adulthood, marriage and children now living their own lives I find myself on a happy adventure. On this side of life I am still journeying, learning and growing. I just have to wonder why it's happening here in South Korea? 

I can't complain. I'm simply going where G-d sends me.