One time, in Portugal, a man who owned a food truck gave me a black marker and asked me to write something in my mother tongue on the wall behind his truck. I smiled, and hesitated for a while before writing. It was a beautiful day in April. There were no words needed to describe the beauty of the sea, the walk, the cold drinks; all I wanted was to stay in the moment, fully, without holding anything back. Later on, whenever something similar happened, I wrote the same thing over and over again. In my slim, cursive Korean, I wrote: 삶은 순간의 연속 . . . 전부 지나갑니다 . . . Because that was true. Life was mere a string of many different moments. And one day, even when I did not notice or want, it went away.
—thoughts after my camino, 260502
