umma, mom

postcard 13: on an ode to my mother, on mother's day

May 12, 2024

For you, a thousand times over.

prelude

**Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)**

My first word was Korean: Umma. Even as an infant, I felt the importance of my mother. She was the one I saw most, and on the dark edge of emerging consciousness I could already tell that she was mine. In fact, she was both my first and second words: Umma, then Mom. I called to her in two languages. Even then I must have known that no one would ever love me as much as she would.
—Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner

Since it’s Mother’s Day, I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about my mom.

Technically, in Korea, we celebrate 어버이날 on the 8th, which translates to parents’ day. There’s no distinction between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but my family celebrates all three since my parents raised me outside of Korea. Ever since I’ve been making my own money, I’ve chosen to gift my parents separately on Mother’s and Father’s Day.

I’ve recently been very into books about motherhood, which is strange because I literally cannot fathom having a child, at least in this phase of my life. But as I get older, I am able to contextualize my mom not as my mother and superhero in my life, but also as a human with her own entity. I feel like it’s an interesting juxtaposition that often feels uncomfortable, like a form of cognitive dissonance.

A few weeks ago, I told my mom how I think it’s weird that I’ve known my mom for my whole life, but she only met me when she was twenty nine. My mom told me that is a silly way to think about it, but I stand by that. I have been asking her more questions about her life before she had me because the older I get, the more I want to know about my mom as a person rather than as my mom. Things she loves, things she loved, dreams she has, dreams she had.

My mom (and dad) is the reason why I grew up with a love for literature. They placed a huge huge emphasis on literature and art. I was their firstborn and they wanted to raise someone who could value and appreciate the beauty in the arts. They raised me bilingually, not sacrificing one language over the other and made sure I was fluent in both. They would read stories to me all the time before I could read words, and they took me to so many historic writers' houses and museums when we lived in England.

The fact that I can connect something that I have loved my entire life to the values my mother instilled in me from such a young age—because of her, my love for literature and art bloomed over my whole life, and reading and writing have always been second nature to me. My parents always emphasized that like real beauty isn’t in materialistic goods but more so in literature and art and food and culture, and things that you have to know to understand.

I always tell people that no matter how unlucky my life feels sometimes, I won the lottery by being born to my parents, especially my mother. My longest, strongest, and most important relationship and friendship in my life belongs to the person who gave birth to me. I sometimes tell my mom that I think the reason I was born was so I could know and love her. And ever since my sister was born when I was nine, I’ve had the privilege of feeling like a friend as much as a daughter.

*my parents, a week after i was born (2000)*

I do not know what it is like to be a mother; I may never know. But I do know what it is like to be loved by mine. Here is what it feels like:

My mother loves wholly and unconditionally. She tells me she loves me every morning and every night. She never forgets a single thing I tell her, even when I forget. She humors me even when I tell her the stupidest joke or the wildest piece of gossip I have. Growing up, she never treated me like I was too young or naive to understand something—she (and my dad) would explain every parenting decision to me so that while they held the authority, I never felt like I was being treated unfairly. Seeing her after a long day feels like warmth, like the security and solace of a blanket wrapped around me on the coldest day.

My mom is selfless, kind, and the smartest person I know. I move through life with the confidence and peace of mind that even should everything fail in my life, I have someone who patiently stands behind me, ready to catch me if I fall, no matter what. She has gathered pieces of me in her arms, wiped my tears, and patched me up and stitched me back together more times than I can count. She has an infinite amount of forgiveness and a boundless heart that reaches across the ocean whenever I am away from her, the anchor that I will always return to.

*me with my mom and my mom’s mom, all eldest daughters (2003)*

For my last postcard, my friend Niña wrote: “Moms are superheroes, protectors, anchors all our lives, but they aren’t invincible. Time is the one thing we can’t get back. Go home. Take care of her. Be the anchor this time around”, which has stuck with me for the last month.

For the same postcard, I asked my mom if she had any advice for me (and anyone in their twenties), and this is what she said:

I spent all of my school years focused on studying. I devoted filling up each day to getting the most amount of things done with care and vigilance. After I graduated college, I focused on results, accomplishments, and things that could be measured in numbers. I already had these, so I thought that everything would be decided by this time. I would get a good job, settle down, and become a successful member of society.

But your twenties are not that time. Your twenties are not a reflection of how hard you studied, or how much you accomplished in the past. It’s not a time to evaluate what you have so far and make something of that. It’s a time to keep experiencing, keep failing, keep starting. If you fall, pick yourself up again because good days are ahead of you. Scars heal with time. Failing is simply a course of life. Make mistakes loudly and without regrets. Had I known this in my twenties, I think I would have been a little less harsh on myself. I would have failed with peace of mind, had more experiences, and lived more passionately and bravely.

*The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown*

i love you mommy <3 happy mother’s day.

interlude i: what i read this week

I had the busiest three weeks, but I’m back to normal scheduling now. I will update my Goodreads with all of the books I read while I was MIA from my weekly postcards (sorry again!!), but I read: The Last Quarter of the Moon by Chi Zijian, Self Portrait in Green by Marie Ndiaye, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, and The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada. I’m definitely forgetting some books, so I’ll add them on my Goodreads and next week’s newsletter!

Here are ten articles about motherhood and mothers to read this week:

A Letter to My Mother That She Will Never Read by Ocean Vuong
The Orca and the Spider by Grace Loh Prasad
My Daughter, Myself by Marina Benjamin
A Thin Line Between Mother and Daughter by Jennifer Egan
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Motherhood Makes You Obscene by Marguerite Duras
A Mother’s Exchange for Her Daughter’s Future by Jiayang Fan
The Girl in the Picture by Nile Cappello
On Mothers and Daughters in Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird by Anna Silman
The Last Picture of My Mother by Natasha Trethewey

Also, here is my guide on finding articles and what newsletters to subscribe to (along with my favorite articles)!

interlude ii: what i watched this week

I’ve been watching a bunch of movies! I have to update my Letterboxd (are you seeing a pattern here) this coming week, but here is what I watched: The Idea of You, Palo Alto, Eileen, Pretty Woman (rewatch), Tár, and The Princess Diaries (rewatch), and Last Night in Soho.

Television show wise, I’ve been rewatching episodes of Criminal Minds. I’m halfway through Season 1 and I forgot how good the earlier seasons were.

I also finished Queen of Tears, which was the first Korean drama I finished in full for the first time in years. The script made me viscerally upset, but the main actors were just insanely talented that everyone I know, including me, just stayed for their acting and chemistry. I feel like I’ll be taking a break from K-Dramas again for a few years because every time someone convinces me to watch one, I’m always left disappointed.

Here are some video essays I watched this week: this video on Gucci’s downfall, this video of the use of ultramarine in paintings, this video on afforestation, and this deep dive on the Wii in retrospect.

postlude

things i love: le labo baie 19, anne carson’s poems, almond croissants, the tortured poets department + anthology, any ball cap.

love,
elle