The weekend before Valentine’s Day 2002; eight months after the Holt Motherland tour; two months of being Korean adoptee friends, talking every night on the phone until the wee hours about how post-Korea has obliterated any sense of who we thought we were.

Against all logic,

I have fallen in love with him as a person . . . .

I was drawn to a little girl with a dazed look on her face. I guessed she was around 2 1/2 years old. The same age I would have been in an orphanage.

I didn’t know what she was thinking. I couldn’t imagine, but then I did. Because when information, communication, stories are withheld, all we can do is fill in the blanks.

We create our own stories.

I come from metal, from shaky steps, from air. I arrived as a newborn at 2 years and 9 months old. I could say Umma for Mom and Nye for yes.

My adoptive mother was a strong, independent, white woman who chose not to marry. She liked to say I came from a 747 that carried me from Seoul, Korea to the Philly airport in December of 1979.