A steady diet of indulging in pounds of barbecued meat, that ubiquitous kogi filling the air with its sweet delight, has rendered me seriously handicapped. I forgot to eat vegetables for a few days besides the kimchi side dishes and the pieces of lettuce offered at meals to wrap loads of meat and garlic in little sandwiches. Some spicy noodles helped solidify the contents in my stomach and thoroughly impeded the digestive process.
I didn’t pick up any cereal from the market because I figured the expensive purchase unnecessary. No bananas for days; just ramen, fried chicken, grilled pork, stews, and rice. Big mistake. A bloated belly slowly degenerated into a full-bodied paralysis, leaving me stuck to the couch like roadkill pelted to the side of the highway. I watched late night football games with Shelma, afflicted with her own sort of immobility though she’d never admit, where Korea and USA both lost their respective group stage games. The shouting at the television in the midst of Seoul’s purple morning, hot and large drops of rain crashing against the windows, hardly pushed along any bowel movements.
Shelma went for an afternoon run and picked up some so-called laxatives from a neighborhood pharmacist; for her husband, she told him. But like the Korean deodorants, the laxatives don’t seem to do much but smell bad, look fake, and fail to do what they’re supposed to do.
To sober myself, after nearing a week of constipation, I’ve reflected on the metaphorical power of this digestive blockage. It’s perhaps the most pertinent metaphor for the creative process that the biological systems might offer. French film-director Alain Resnais explored similar themes in his film, Providence, where an old writer harnessed the habitual experience of his chronic and awfully painful diarrhea for the purpose of creative fantasy and exploration. Ingestion, absorption, the tower of babel, and excretion. I await such release.
