Esther Han Emotional Displacement

Emotional Displacement Esther Han

There are many moments in life when one wishes that one was anywhere but here. Most of us have been through a lot and pain is mostly relative, so for some it doesn’t take much to make it seem like the roof collapsed. Sometimes I have the ability to remember details that go far back and make me wonder why I am able to fish around in my memories in order to pick and choose how I feel about them. But there is strength in these memories that can overcome some of the most difficult moments. These are the memories, not in particular order. The first was one of the most beautiful moments in my life. I woke up around seven am and put on my makeup and a suit jacket with a puff skirt and listened to Norah Jones “Shoot the moon” all the way to work. The air was crisp and refreshing on that early spring day. I was in that moment happy, just happy. I had had some thyroid issues after college and my weight had gone up and down but that day, I was perfectly happy with my body as well. Then there was the night, my tenth date with Tyler, where he had arranged a night out in a fancy Chinese restaurant in downtown Chicago and when we were done with dinner, he had secretly arranged it so that we were on that block when the snow was falling and a boy was selling flowers, which Tyler pretended to buy them from him, (his best friend) and gave me a huge bouquet of roses. The Christmas snow seasoning the flowers with melting white flakes. On Lake Shore Drive, near the beach in Chicago there is a whole area where the tables are chess tables, and old men, during the summer go there to play chess with each other as well as those watching. I learned a bit of chess from one of my best friends during college and one day I went to that area and asked one of the men to play chess with me. The funniest thing he said was, “If I win you make love to me and if you win, I make love to you.” It was meant to be crass and funny from an old man from Russia playing on the beaches of Chicago. The girl I met at CVS was always calm and nice and willing to help with any questions. I would walk there, since at the time I didn’t have a car, and she always seemed content and happy with where she was, despite being a part-time cashier at CVS. It took me a long time to learn to be patient at a register, any register, and I remember her specifically because of how calm she was within her skin. She had light brown hair, glasses, and a cat. Then there was the day/night when Austin took me on a road trip through the city to a cider mill closer to Evanston. We ate at the Melting Pot and drank apple cider and ate cheesecake. He was particularly nice to me that night and I felt for once that we really did love each other. He was six feet tall and blonde. I still miss him when I see pictures that he had taken of me back then, pictures full of revere. While in Jamaica in one of those all-inclusive resorts, I was able to experience the ocean and made it all the way to Dunn Falls where one can climb up the falls. There were shows during the evenings around dinner time and dancing with the band while smelling the ocean breeze. Sean who kept me protected then, perhaps not later, was a fun travel partner at the time. Feeling self-conscious in that moment because of my weight, I didn’t dance with him one last dance, but that left it open for me to want to go back with someone else and dance without a care in the world. I will never forget the Fitzgerald Hotel in San Francisco where I stayed for 22 days while trying to finish the summer semester at the Academy of the Art Institute. It was there that I experienced such great freedom to be myself and draw without any distractions. The sheets were fresh every day and the décor had a nice vintage look with a dark green ceiling, salmon

colored walls and a red French design comforter. The staff was always friendly and there was a great sushi restaurant across the street. Or the nights when me and Sophie walked from Belmont stop on the red line to the Drake hotel along the lake shore, contemplating, perhaps too philosophically on what our goals in life were. When you are young, one tends to feel that anything is possible, and that one can change one’s mind about a career every other day. I remember one of my professors said that 99% of us would never paint or draw again after graduating and only the 1% would be left. I vowed then that I would be the 1% and this still comforts me when I draw and paint now, twenty years later. Every time that anyone sees my drawing of Scarlett, there usually is a positive reaction and I remember drawing it with all of the love inside me for Sean, but it really didn’t end up being for him. He helped me frame the drawing but remained critical of my work. He did not realize how much I struggled with that drawing, sometimes taking a month or two between strokes, in order to express, in great detail, how much Scarlett wanted to stay in the light, without noticing how people looked at her beauty and fell in love. So fast forward to 2020. One of the most difficult years I have come to face. I work part-time at Pet-Smart to pay the bills. I still paint, draw, write, stay creative and work towards building a portfolio. Every day that I work I am faced with both positive and negative, some customers love me, some are inherently disgruntled, and there is a lot of dog poop and pee that I pick up on a daily basis. One interesting fact for me this year was ending up being essential because pets still need food and Pet Smart provides for that need. If anyone three years ago told me that I would end up being essential because I work at Pet Smart, I don’t think I would have believed them. I have many objects surrounding me in my room that reminds me that I am blessed. I have my favorite white desk; I have a closet full of Express clothing which was expensive to collect and I still don’t fit into many of them but am getting there. I have a delightful collection of costume jewelry and three cats that remind me that even animals get taken care of if they end up in a good home. I still have the clear glass, piano encased, paper weight that my brother bought for me while he was in the army in 1998. My co-workers are the usual range of nice but not so nice, to someone who can be depended on to tell one the truth. I try to stay out of the drama and just get along. This was not the case when I was younger. I was always ready for a fight and willing to justify my actions just so that I could sleep at night. My health overall is improving but there are the Covid-19 obstacles and people who come into the store without wearing masks even though it is required. I have been in the retail sector on and off since 1997 and I have to say that much has changed and then again much is the same. One of the best methods of handling retail stress, I have only discovered recently, and this has helped me in every area of my life. It’s definition for me is emotional displacement. So when the moment that I am in is too much for me to deal with, I instantly pull from a happy, contented, peaceful memory, and even though my body is at the register, inside I am on the beaches of Jamaica. It’s internal visualization and through the scenes my emotions become what I want them to be. The other day I was at the register, and I had this customer walk up to the line with a frown and was very short with me at check-out. I visualized the cashier at CVS and her calm. I was able to say thank you have a nice day even without a response from the customer and not be upset because he was rude because I was at that moment channeling the calm of the CVS cashier. Sometimes I have to count in my mind, 1, 2, 3, 4, breathe, and then 1,2,3,4, breathe,

in order to stay calm, and add to the visual element in order to not get hurt every time a customer is rude. The other day I wanted to go out and do something, anything, out of my routine but here we are during Covid-19 and the curfew has returned for us in Colorado. And so in my room, under my dark blue satin comforter, I am imagining myself back on Lake Shore Drive, walking with my friend Sophie and talking about our futures, which in the end were very different than what we had discussed, but I keep telling myself that I am not that old, and I still have a chance to grow as an artist and within whatever retail setting, I may be in in the future. Thinking about the time in the Fitzgerald, I am reminded of the passion I had for the drawings that I completed for that class. Those were some of my best and encourages me to work in a very detailed, realistic style, with my own flair which defines my work in general. I remember setting up scenes to draw and every time I look at my easel now, I feel that same passion when I think of that time, and how much I was willing to overcome, even physical pain in order to succeed. Sometimes standing before that easel, the only thing that gets me through the physical struggle of making each line and color count, is the music on my I-pod. It’s like that morning when I was listening to Norah Jones on my way to work. It is a spiritual uplift that over comes the pain and helps the careful strokes become something more than just lines and colors, but an overflow of my love for images that convey the love. And then there is the chess. The old men playing by the lake. I always felt life is mirrored in chess. That the battle between good and evil, white, and black, despite the nuances of the greys within our lives, have a say in how one can succeed despite the push and pull of the pieces which all want to win in the end. Maybe within that battle all of the love making is part of the search for a life that has everything including the sensual, the wanting, the naked openness. In some ways my philosophical meanderings has kept my writing and drawings distant emotionally and, in many ways, lacking in imagery. It is this struggle that for me now is the challenge. People ask me often if I don’t regret not having children and reassure me that a relationship is always possible no matter the age or circumstances. But for me to be the 1% was and still is the most important. When I get a text of one of my cats sleeping or messing around during the day, the moment I see that photograph, I smile, even though the stocking never ends, and I am taking only the 2 seconds allowed for me to look at this picture. When I eat the Pizza Hut pizza from Target for lunch, I imagine it to be a Chicago Deep Dish that I just ordered and is hot off the oven. Drinking hot black light roast coffee because it is cheaper, I think of the eight espresso shots I would put in a foamy latte, giving me the caffeine high I would need for a whole day’s worth of work, back in the café inside Border’s books and music. It was fun to work in downtown Ann Arbor for that period of time and give free lattes to my family and friends. And now I watch a lot of Korean Drama, also known as Kdrama. Why? You ask? Because it is 16 hours or 16 episodes usually of eventful laughing, screaming, over the top drama that involves the growth of the characters in unrealistic circumstances that create a modern fairytale grounded in the cultural atmosphere of Seoul, Korea. Watching others struggle, watching anything for the sake of entertainment has an impact on one’s emotional psyche and I choose what I want to be influenced by especially when I am off, or depressed, or just sad. Sometimes you have to take the pills, literally. And sometimes you have to face your life head on and without any filters. Sometimes there is no other way out and you have to back

track to keep going another day. But sometimes if one pulls through these moments through memories, the strength comes back and keeps the mood light. I took a lot of risks when I was younger, and I am still alive to be able to have fond memories. I perhaps should have taken less risks but now that I have survived, I want to encourage those who need good memories, to make them while they are young, so that when one’s life becomes a bit stagnant, one can pull from the memories and keep going with a smile. When I see Nam Joo Hyuk fall for Suzy Bae, in the recent Korean Drama, Start-Up, I can’t help feeling that even if I don’t create the greatest masterpieces, that life in the end is about love regardless of circumstances. That there is still innocence in life, and that there is hope in the difficulties that will cultivate a new beginning while moving forward to new relationships. That there is forgiveness and understanding if one wants it bad enough. At Pet Smart, there are some associates that are particularly particular about how things “should” be and how one makes these mistakes that anger others but really are just mistakes. What does one do? Everyone says “kill them with kindness” but in life that does not always work. So I just work, with a smile on my face, every day regardless of the situation. Sometimes I get flustered, and sometimes I get angry too. Yet every opportunity to make light of a difficult situation, such as when a co-worker is upset and I get him or her Starbucks, this sometimes works wonders. Some of my co-workers have tested positive to Covid-19 and I am getting tested today. We live in a world where many do not care for anyone but themselves. We live in a world where the movies and shows tell us that everything is going to be ok and the underdog always wins, but in life that is not always the case. We live in a world where fulfilling your dreams means sacrificing a completely different reality. I want to be able to say, that even within this world, I have tried and done my best with all of the memories that has made my life what it is. Sometimes dying seems easier than continuing since the hardships one faces as a human being is just too difficult to hang onto sometimes. Yet if one chooses life, every time, one may be able to succeed in living a good life and this is all that is necessary to build a better future. There are always obstacles, there are always criticisms, there are always some who will never like you. But there are the moments of respite when I am walking to a gallery opening on State Street Chicago with Austin in a floral satin dress, with eyes on us as we make our entrance holding hands and loving each other. For the first time since then, my hair is past my shoulders, and I remember how much he loved it, every time I brush it, these mornings. I don’t drink at home, but when I see Nam Joo Hyuk getting drunk with Suzy, I remember what it’s like to get tipsy and drunk call my friends back in undergrad. We also had fancy wine parties because we were snobbish artists that felt that we had the world at our fingertips. I remember passing through Colorado many years ago, on the Amtrak, that summer when I ended up in San Francisco for the summer semester at the Academy. There were white horses in the valleys, and I lunched with different people from all over the world. I took the sleeper car because I wanted privacy and didn’t think that I would ever be taking a 3 day train ride across the country ever again. My mother still makes light of that trip because if it had been her, she would have taken the coach seating for a lot less money. But for me it was about creating the memories, then and now. Maybe I will not be remembered as the artist who succeeded. Maybe I will be remembered within my family as one who struggled. Maybe my co-workers will miss me when I am gone. Maybe the only thing left will be the work I leave behind, and a few photographs of me. No matter what happens in the end I want to be able to say that I tried, through it all,

without giving up. Another comment from one of my professors was “it is 30% talent and 70% perseverance” Twenty years later, I am still working on communicating through art. I know what it is like to be alone; I know what it is like to be in good company, and I feel that I know what it’s like to suffer. But we all suffer together. Regardless of time, space, and memories, perhaps we comfort each other for those small spaces in time, like thinking about the cashier at CVS, every time I feel panicked at the register. I am confident that she has no idea that I use my memory of her during these times. But that is one way in which life can be better. When we are better. And it is possible to be better. I am old enough to have known friends that have passed in their twenties through sleeping pills and alcohol. The saddest moments have been when I have had to say good-bye to artists that could have made an impact had they lived longer but they had decided to end the pain. If I could just talk to them then, as I am talking now, about ways to ease the pain, to continue because it is not just about you or me but it’s about us. It’s about the love that can be found in a world that wants to paint it all as “cheesy” and not worth it. No it is worth it. No matter how “cheesy” or “silly” the memories and shows that we choose, brings comfort and the will to continue. In the end, no matter what, there is something or someone out there that feels the same, as you and me. To find the memories, to create them, to make them something that gives you the strength is what is important. No matter your occupation, no matter your lack of an occupation, one always has the choice to continue to the end and in the meantime help others see good, in a life that may be filled with just the temporary greys and the darkness.