Sometimes I dream of being 'at home'.

It is a dream that I, a child, a twenty-year-old, a person who has just turned forty, and a person in their sixties who has not yet arrived, are doing something at 'home'.
A hazy light seeps through the glass on the floor, and sometimes I can smell the scent of white lilies blooming in the small flower bed in the yard.
As I often did as a child when I was sick, I often have dreams of sitting on the edge of a flower bed, shivering from a fever, soaking in the sun.
In my dreams, I am a different age and what I do is different, but I am always in the same place.


It is a small house in Jemincheon-ga, 150-14 Banjuk-dong, Gongju-si, where I lived from the age of 3 to 15.

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But, what always makes me stop is the 'little house in my dreams' where I lived as a child.
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I still feel a surge of longing whenever I pass by that house, and my heart flutters, wondering if the front door might be open, if I might catch a glimpse of that long-ago era through the crack in the door.

--- pp.9-21 From “The Small House of Je Min-cheon”

One day, while I was in Gongju, I suddenly felt like going to Gapsa Temple.
It was early summer, the green was dazzling, and the neatly maintained driveway was deserted.

Occasionally, sunlight would sparkle through the deep shadows cast by the beautiful oak trees that had stood there for many years.
It was completely different from the Gyeryongsan Mountain I had visited to play in the water as a child, and it was also completely different from the Gyeryongsan Mountain filled with hikers enjoying the autumn foliage, but I finally felt like I was embraced by Gyeryongsan Mountain.

With every step towards the temple, the trees inhaled and the fields exhaled.
I sat quietly on the porch of Jijangjeon Hall and looked at the sky above Daeungjeon Hall, where not even the sound of Buddhist scriptures could be heard. Then I found the statue of Bhaisajyaguru Buddha and bowed three times.
After seeing the large banyan tree in front of the main shrine, I decided that I must come back again when the banyan tree blooms.
I thought about how peaceful and distant it would be if the bright pink crape myrtle blossoms in full bloom, the faded paint, and the greenery of a summer day blended with the silence of the temple.
Thirteen days after that day, my father passed away.

Even when I returned to Daejeokjeon to hang lanterns after my father's funeral, the pear blossoms had not yet bloomed.
--- p.61 From “Like the Wind Flowing Through the Valley”

When I hear the word watercolor, a foggy pine forest comes to mind.
Because the pale, clear colors and blur that spread like watercolor resemble the fog of Gomnaru.
Even the fleeting beauty that suddenly disappears at any moment is like that.

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How many people have left and returned from this ferry?

How many people have rejoiced and despaired here?
The pine forest covered in fog must have even engraved in its leaves the memories of the days when this place was our playground.
Now, once again, if you decide to go and stand on the observation deck, you can see the now-disappeared sandy beach overlapping the forest of trees where the deer run.

When did all the sand disappear?
When did all the sparkling days of the past disappear?

--- pp.105-121 From "Gomnaru, Five Watercolor Landscapes"