Sun and the Moon

Last month I got to spend a little time in Northern Michigan with my family for a quick vacation. It was wonderful to spend time with everyone, go fishing, and even squeeze in a round of golf. At the end of the trip, I visited with my dear friend Bethany, who lives near where we were staying.

She brought me to the dunes, which was my favorite part of the trip. The feeling of sand between bare feet in a soft yet mountainous landscape resonates with me. We took a dip in the lake, which was an invigorating cold plunge, dried off, and then began to walk back while there was still enough light to pave the way.

We paused just before the sun set and took a minute to soak it in. It was beautiful, as sunsets always are, but I noticed something special, something I had never experienced before.

The sun and the moon facing each other.

I looked at one, then turned to look at the other, spinning in circles for a while.

It was spectacular.

Hindsight is 20/20, and I realize a panoramic photo would have been perfect in this instance, but I was too busy experiencing the thing to properly capture the thing. Looking back at the photos I quickly snapped, I also find it beautiful that while the experience felt whole, the images show how distinctly separate they were. 

I was perplexed by how they could both be sharing the same horizon. For some reason, I always imagined the sun and the moon perfectly spaced on opposite ends of the Earth, traveling together in unison, revealing day and night in a perfectly choreographed dance.

But that’s stupid.

I’ve seen the moon during the day.

Like, even today, I saw the moon during the day. It’s not special, rare, or unusual. But a full moon with the setting sun, both sharing the same horizon, giving you a celestial hug with the warm light of dusk, just hits different. It makes the relationship between them felt.

We know that the sun and moon are both there. They exist all the time, whether we can see them or not. We know the moon moves the tides. We know the sun brings the light of day. We know the moon illuminates by reflecting the sun’s light.

I suppose that’s what I hope to be. Like the sun. Someone who brings light. But I suppose being like the moon is maybe a more realistic aspiration. To become a reflection of light rather than the source of light.

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For those who know my nomadic life journey, searching for home has been a big thing for me. I thought I had found it in Detroit. And in many ways, I did. It’s where I’ve developed some of my deepest friendships and strongest sense of belonging. Yet somehow, living there was still hard. I connected with people but still felt isolated. I felt I belonged yet was still an outsider.

No matter how passionate I was about Detroit, a city whose creative energy has no rival, the winters were brutal and isolation made things worse. I struggled to function for half the year and felt that if I didn’t make a change, I wouldn’t survive the terrible things my brain does during depression.

I moved to LA to be with the sun, to become well, to live somewhere blessed with diversity and to have Korean culture at my fingertips. I thought maybe this would become a great place for me to live and grow my art career.

Figuring out the right fit for me in LA took a little doing but I have found home in Santa Monica. Maybe home shifts to neighboring Venice at some point, but I’m essentially home.

Some people aspire to be bi-coastal.

Some think traveling frequently for work is glamorous.

I think both sound awful.

But I’ve been back and forth between LA and Detroit twice during the past month. Back-to-back weeks, unexpectedly, with a third trip coming in two weeks.

While I had no intention of traveling frequently between LA and Detroit, it’s starting to happen. The two places I call home (physically and spiritually) are beginning to connect, and I’ve started to come around to the idea that this might become normal.

Maybe my version of normal is an unconventional way of experiencing home. Like my identity, split between Korean and American traditions, perhaps home is both Detroit and Los Angeles. Perhaps living and working in both places on a consistent basis, rather than simply visiting for the occasional project, is what home looks like for me.

Maybe nature is pulling me into its orbit, and my rhythm of returning to Detroit is becoming something like the moon becoming full once a month, hanging out on the horizon with the sun for a moment before they return to their separate lives.

This feels like a ritual taking shape in my life.

Maybe it’s strange to feel this way, because this isn’t hope like I described before. Traveling still blows.

But I think it’s happening.

I had two completely independent projects, one in Detroit and one in LA, follow almost identical timelines. Both took about a year to develop. Both seemed dead in the water for months. Both shifted and changed shape recently. And then, on my last trip to complete the Detroit project, the LA project was greenlit.

Two separate things materializing at the same time.

What’s most extraordinary is that they are both going public in September, one week apart from each other. And the second one, the LA one, is completely unexpectedly being completed and coming to life in Detroit.

Sun and the freakin’ moon, my friends.

It’s interesting how my worlds are quickly converging after a two-year period in which they felt distinctly and distantly separate. Time and space are funny things. They don’t move at the speed we want them to, but sometimes when you step back far enough, you can see that everything has been moving in perfect time.

Maybe that’s what I saw on the beach.

The sun and the moon were always there.

I just hadn’t caught them at the right time.