Today was meant to be a stay home day, but I developed a yearning for some peaches at the Korean market. Ed and I were going to find it by ourselves, but before long my son decided to join us with Little Ed in the stroller. My son planned to amuse himself by seeing how long it would take us to find it.
He was much amused. I don't know the actual compass points, but if the apartments were oriented north to south then we set off in the north-west when we needed to go south-west. When we were sure we should have passed it, we headed south and I quickly recognized some street construction we'd passed on our previous ramble. And after a minute more, there it was.
So there! We found it. In a roundabout sort of way. Later we discovered that you could see the top of the building from the street beside the apartment complex.
After that we just played on the playground and did a little cooking. Not so fun to describe. Instead, I want to write about something that happened a few days before.
At the farmer's market in Pyoengtaek, at the very end of a row in the least-traveled corner, an old lady sat with her offerings. They were the same as everyone else's--a few green onions, a small pile of vegetables, and a handful of peanuts. She looked at me and I glanced at her and quickly drew my eyes away. It was lonesome down there and she had nothing special to sell, same as everyone but in trivially small quantity...and....
I wanted to offer her charity--just money, because she didn't have anything I needed and I wouldn't be there long enough to cook with it anyway...but that might have been insulting...she wasn't a beggar--she was a farmer with goods to sell. But...I didn't need anything...I didn't have any cash on me...and the others were moving away. I hurried after them and tried to forget.
How hard would it have been to borrow a 5000 won note from my husband and gesture to the peanuts, negotiating for a small bag of them to munch in the car? I like peanuts. What was I so afraid of? Hurting her pride? Making her feel like some rich American woman's charity had poisoned her goods? Why couldn't I take a chance?
I don't know. All that I do know is that I let my own insecurity rob me of a chance to bring a bit of happiness into a person's life. There has to to be a way to give money without making a person feel like a beggar. I ought to have found it.
Next time, there won't be a next time. I'm going to be bigger than myself and if it doesn't work out, there's plenty of "oh well, what the hell" in my vocabulary.
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