Go to the Roots

In my free time, I like to look up etymology for different words. Because words, I’ve learned, are not accidents — or incidents. They’re inheritances. They carry the paths they have traveled. For example, to be haunted comes from the word “to return home.” To be accountable first meant “to be answerable.” Everything has roots.

The biting of a lower lip. The insisting of paying for meals. The making of promises and then backing off. Without understanding the roots, patterns repeat. The heavy heart. The argument. The retreat. They repeat over and over, like long overdue homework. Finding the roots is not easy, however. They lie in the places we least want to go — childhood, trauma, betrayal, hurt, anxiety, the parts we shut our eyes against.

Some time ago, I realized I, too, carry them inside my heart. So I began to study my own etymology of sadness. Roots unnamed, but colored in deep blue. In Korea, we call it “Han.” The sorrow that lingers. The anger that has nowhere to go. The longing that survives even when abandoned. Han is the inheritance I cannot escape.

But it is also the task of mine: to go, to follow, to face, and to claim. And it is also yours. If you refuse to go down deeper, then you must go on. For the roots will not disappear. And in roots, there awaits truth, tears, liberation, love at last.