Roots

Oh, these bones, how they keep me bound in this bed—a bed I once found so comforting and protective—a cocoon of cotton sheets, layers of quilts (sewn by my daughter), and pillows that comforted my sore neck following an afternoon crouched on the lawn, gazing down for too long as I extracted root after tender dandelion root from the earth.

If these bones didn’t ache so much, I’d be in the kitchen crushing garlic, chopping scallions, adding powder from fiery-red dried chilis (in pinches) to enhance the flavor of my harvest. “You eat those?!” the neighbor (hand on hip, the other clutching a fly swatter) spatted to my daughter-in-law one sticky afternoon, her arthritic finger pointing at me a safe distance away. This portly, wrinkly woman with crooked glasses, hair the color of snow, and too little clothing for someone her age (72?) was overwhelming to my eyes, but seemingly couldn’t spare an ounce of respect for those who hadn’t been forced down the beaten path in life that she did. I didn’t have to comprehend her twangy words: Her body language was enough to offend. I would have insisted the hag sit down to lunch with us in our sunny, air-conditioned kitchen. I envisioned my chilled and pickled dandelion roots with a bit of freshly steamed white rice would win her over—silence her ignorance and release her from the chains of unwillingness.

I’m no longer bitter nor am I hungry for the distinct taste of those pungent roots even though my fewer meals now consist mainly of flavorless broths—easier to swallow since I have less teeth these days, and free of salt that the fast-talking man with the oniony breath advises against—the same man who presses the cold metal disc against my back. I see him more often now—and way more often than I’d like to because all he feeds me is the same old lines: “breathe in….breathe out…good.”

The last time I saw this man, the young woman with the lovely olive skin and face as round as a full moon accompanied me. She’d done so on half a dozen occasions, gently holding my scaly, liver-spotted forearm as we inched at a snail’s pace to the drafty brick building with the funny smells and frowning people of all kinds. Who was it that told me this young lady, whose smile slants her eyes even further, is my granddaughter? Ridiculous, I think, because I worked alongside this woman in the fields, under the relentless late-summer Korean sun. Her fingers were as agile as mine at plucking and bundling scallions by the dozen. It’s remarkable how she doesn’t seem to have aged a day, despite her deeply suntanned skin. Not a wrinkle in sight! When she pays me a visit (which she often does), I tell her to stay out of the fields as much as she can for she is getting too dark and won’t be able to attract a husband. She stares at me, a somber look crosses her face, she replies with pursed lips and a barely visible nod. I tell her to wear longer skirts, too, not the too-short one made out of the blue-jean fabric. I also ask her to ask the man with the cold disc why I choke on the broth every time I take a spoonful, but I never get an answer. I don’t remember to seek an answer.

Today, I’m too tired to take my broth—and much too tired to cough. I also feel remarkably light despite this peculiar weight on my chest—like an overly fed cat crouched atop my sternum. Funny, but somehow I feel at peace—an inexplicable easiness washes over me. I nod off, but not for long it seems before opening my eyes to glimpse a shiny gold ring, scratched from years of living hard, just inches from my eyes. How did it get there? I don’t remember it feeling loose on my left finger, beckoning the reflexes of my right hand’s fingers to grasp it before being swallowed by the abyss of warm, sour-smelling sheets.

Sleepy, so impossibly sleepy, I manage to place the ring next to my heavy head, the pillow filling in as some sort of ring bearer’s cushy prop. I think—or dream?—that the ring will fit the delicate finger of the olive-skinned, moon-faced girl far better than mine.