Dear Boyoung,

I hope you slept well. On the day your letter arrived, I slept in—a dreamless, deep sleep. Twenty nights or so have passed by since then, on the whole tranquil. How were your nights?

We’ve had a string of clear days here in New York City. And this vexes me for some reason. I’m familiar with the hazy spring skies of Seoul filled with fine dust. But here, in this big city, people savor spring without a care. If spring here lacks anything, it’s rain. While it’s unlikely that anyone is doing any large-scale farming here, I still hear the concerned voices around me. Even when the weather report says it will surely rain, the rain never appears the next day. And again, perhaps tomorrow, and perhaps tomorrow again. I hope it’ll rain tomorrow.

I was surprised you’d read so many biographies and memoirs. In my twenties, I wouldn’t look twice at books with the face of a politician or business mogul plastered on the cover as I walked through bookstores. I had a similar attitude during election season when I lived in Hyehwa-dong—I would ignore all the candidates canvassing in front of the subway station wearing their campaign jackets of every color to pass out flyers and handshakes. But I remember devoting a lot of time to another question that wasn’t “What should I dedicate my life to?” Maybe I should have tried looking for the answer in books, like you, Boyoung. Instead, I tried my best to find answers at the bar while out drinking with so-called comrades, sitting before their faces that would flush red after only a few drinks. But I no longer go out to drink like that.

These days, you and I only rarely think about “What should I dedicate my life to?” I wonder if the reasons for why we troubled ourselves so much over such questions before and no longer do so now are similar. I’m also thinking about what I want to write and what I am writing now. Boyoung, what are you writing these days, and what do you want to write?

I’m still mulling over what you wrote about “autofiction” as a genre. For my class this semester, I had to write a lot of autobiographical pieces based on my own personal life. But to tell you the truth, I always wove in some fiction. It’s not that I wanted to lie, but sometimes I couldn’t write the next sentence without making things up…

There’s one more thing I want to ask you about, Boyoung. Have you ever experienced living as a foreigner or an outsider? I’m not asking to see if you’ve experienced living outside of South Korea. I’m curious if you’ve experienced having to settle down or start fresh in an unfamiliar place.

Yours,

Ju Ly (who organized books all day to avoid studying for finals)