Wet and Not So Wild: A Life Well-Lived

Wet and Not So Wild: A Life Well-Lived

By Constance Chatfield-Taylor

It was Labor Day, 2014. Feeling out of sorts, I took a long walk and ended up down at the Georgetown waterfront. There were dozens of children playing in the huge fountain feature, and one…grandmother?

I watched her spin in the water, arms outstretched toward the sun, enjoying it tremendously.

I took a picture, then another, and looked around for her family. I couldn’t find anyone connected with her, so I motioned that I would send her copies. She walked out of the fountain, dripping and smiling. “Would you like some photos?” I asked. She smiled, and when I asked her for her e-mail, she said, “I have none.” Cell phone? Nope. “I’ll see you here again, I come every day.” OK, I said. Every day? “Yes,” she said. “Every day I come from Silver Spring. You know it?” Yes, I know it. “I go to Miriam’s Kitchen for a very good meal, come here to the fountain, and go to the free concert every night at 6 o’clock at the Kennedy Center. Did you know they have free concerts daily?”

The grandmother in the fountain.

Photo by Constance Chatfield-Taylor

We talked for a while, and I learned she was North Korean, born in 1934. We talked about North Korea during the war, her immigration to the U.S. in 1957, going to school in South Carolina. Her work as a ballerina for 10 years.

“I was in fashion design for many years after dancing, you know it helps to understand human anatomy when designing clothes….I also played classical piano.”

She works in cosmetology in Silver Spring now. I was still trying to take it all in.

You seem so very peaceful, I said.

“Yes, when you enjoy life, you treat yourself. I take no medicine. I eat only healthy food.”

“I’m 80 years old,” she said with a huge smile.

“The things I have done with my life – dancing, design, music – give me a very good foundation for enjoying life, for opening myself to the paradise around me.”

I asked her name and told her mine and she said,” I’ll see you someday at a free concert at the Kennedy Center. I’m there every night.” What’s tonight’s concert? I asked. She thought a minute and then said, “It’s September, right?” Yes, I said. September 1st. “I won’t know until I get the schedule tonight!

Then I can tell you.”

“I’ll see you sometime,” she said. “I sit on the left, all the way up, by the piano.”

Constance Chatfield-Taylor lives in Upperville and Georgetown and will be writing for Country ZEST on matters country and city.