Dear July,
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Thank you for your letter. Your voice calling my name keeps echoing in my head; it is almost tangible, my name too, if only I reach out my hand. Now it’s my turn. July. Will you have left Haehwa when this letter reaches you?

I’m now on a train to Busan. To go home-home, to see my doggo Nini, I’m traveling as fast as 180 miles an hour on the Super Rapid Train. To answer your question about what separates my inner and outer world, wherever Nini is, I am in. I’m in, as an unborn bird lies in an egg. Is it my destiny, befitting a descendant of Park Hyeokgeose, to hatch from within? I no longer remember what compelled me to get away, but somehow it’s been a decade since I left my Busan-home to begin a life in Seoul. In those ten years, I never let go of the thought that I’ll return to Nini. Even so, I always come away. I don’t know what I’m seeking outside, in a world without Nini.

How different from me, that the inside of your own is your body. How I envy you. I want to be self-contained in my body but can’t. Maybe it’s because for a long time I have centered my life around my family. Now I’m trying to be myself, fully to the core. Perhaps that was my purpose in leaving home. Hoping that my solitary wanderings will lead to the discovery of my body as my own. I wonder what the secret is to owning one’s body. What does it feel like to inhabit such a body?

I love being with Nini more than anything in the world. Canids like him have a slightly higher body temperature than hominids like me, which makes it so warm and cozy when our skins touch. It is the epitome of tranquility when, lying face down alongside him, I synchronize my breath with his. I bask in the ecstasy of losing myself, forgetting the bounds of my body.

You said you leave out anything that pains or inconveniences you. For that very same reason, I vividly sense the outer limits of my body when I’m out. I can draw a map of my own exterior: what I like and dislike, where it’s warmer and cooler. I’d like to get to know me, to build myself up, expanding my parameters little by little. But I also worry I won’t return to Nini in time, having gone too far out. I shouldn’t keep my aged doggo waiting too long.

While I’m trying to navigate my way between Busan and Seoul, you July are traveling to a new world overseas! As your inner world is your body, like a snail carrying its house around, you seem capable of going a long way. July, what is your reason for heading out? Why do you willingly go out into a world outside your body, full of pain and inconvenience? Your move to a faraway place brings forth so many questions. I’d like to steal glimpses into your outer world.

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On the train super rapidly passing through a tunnel,
Jinhwa