I nodded, silent, unsure what to say in the face of such a serious conversation.
“But I’ve not seen much of it with you, kiddo. It seemed like you were always chasing after it.”
Wow. Okay. We were doing this conversation now, I guess.
I opened my mouth to protest, the knee-jerk reaction as instinctual as breathing. But just as quickly as my mouthopened, it closed again, because I suddenly found myself without any argument.
I had to force myself to look over at Dad as he started talking again.
“I thought you might find it at uni. You know, kids have always gone off to ‘find’ themselves at uni’,” he chuckled, “but not you. You just seemed to replace it with determination. Don’t get me wrong,” he said quickly, “I’ve always admired how you throw yourself into things, but sometimes it seems like you do that because you feel like you ought to, not because you want to.”
I felt like I was being peeled open. All of a sudden, the early morning light felt too abrasive.
“When you told me about your fella, I thought, ‘this is it, she’s found it’. But I don’t see much joy in you.”
“That’s not fair, pops.” I had to interject. “He’s there, I’m here, it’s…the world is….” I gestured wildly.
He waved my dramatic gesture away with a ‘pah’ sound.
“I’m not saying he doesn’t make you happy,” Dad said in a conciliatory tone, “and I know the world is a bit buggered just now, but… I’m your dad. Blood, or no, I’m your dad, and if anyone can say it, surely I’ve earned the right to.” He paused, taking a breath while I tried desperately not to fiddle with the hem of my hoodie.
“I just don’t think you’ve figured your joy out yet,” he said. “I’m not saying Jihoon doesn’t bring joy to your life, I’m sure he does – but I worry you don’t know how to find it for yourself yet. It's like that Ru Paul says–”
“If you can’t love yourself…” we chorused together, each of us grinning stupidly.
We chuckled quietly for a few moments, until I took a breath, thinking through my response.
“I know what you’re trying to say, pops,” I said eventually. “I’ve been trying so hard to find it…”
“That’s just it though, love. I don’t think you need to work so hard. Joy is a thing you have inside yourself. You keep looking for it. I see how hard you work. But I think you need to find out what it is that makes you happiest. Look at your life, kiddo. What do you want it to look like in five years? Ten? I think you need to figure out how to make yourself happy, before finding someone to do it for you.”
He fell silent, and I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t, and I’m left with a lingering silence I want to fill with some kind of excuse, denial, a justification. Anything. But I can’t.
I turned to look at my dad, but he only gave my knee a quick pat, and stood up. I watched as he walked back into the kitchen to make Mum her morning coffee, leaving me there, watching as a few magpies joined the fight over the last, crumbling suet ball.
Chapter 14
It was barely after 7 am and I was in the living room, curled up on the sofa with a coffee as I watched GVibes go through a dance practice.
The phone I used was propped up on the sofa’s wide arm, and despite the increasing warmth of the season, I felt cold enough to have draped a blanket over myself. I held my mug close to my face, inhaling the warm scent of the freshly brewed coffee.
Mum hadn’t been the only one to benefit from Dad’s gift, the freshly ground arabica beans a vast improvement from the drip coffee I’d existed on in LA.
Through the small screen and earbuds, I watched in silent admiration as the group drilled again and again. What looked perfect to me was apparently sub par.
They were practising without their dance instructor, but Sungmin – the group’s best dancer – filled the role. He was more commonly known as the group’s clown, but in a setting like this,it was clear to see that he was also quite the task master when it came to choreography.
GVibes was preparing for an online performance, along with several other groups and soloists. It was billed to be a full two-day event – effectively a festival. The only difference was that there were no in-person attendees. All the tickets were virtual. The event was a completely new type of show, but what made it so cool was that not a lot had to be changed from the original set-up.
The original festival had been scheduled months ago. The venue had been mapped out, sets designed, equipment delivered. Tickets had been scheduled to go on sale but halted when the world took a nosedive into isolation.
Then, someone had the ingenious idea to go ahead with the festival – but virtually.
Obviously, the original plans had needed to evolve, but what was amazing was that the only real changes the organisers had needed for the venue itself was to use the space in front of the stage to include additional camera routes – effectively a whole kind of visual choreography, where specially-mounted cameras could be remotely controlled in sequence to follow the movements of the groups. It meant the performers needed to follow their cues even more accurately, as the cameras would follow a strict set of sequences to ensure each person got the right amount of airtime.
With the absence of a in-person audience, the whole stadium was now being used in zones to host all the different groups, instead of cramming everyone in backstage. The scale of it was mind-blowing.
Jihoon had taken me on a tour of the venue last night, and the array of movable setups had been incredible. The staging wasawe-inspiring. Not much had been changed in terms of the set and props, but the back wall of the stage was now an enormous, stories-tall screen that would display the video input of a select number of viewers – people who had bought the virtual tickets, and had consented to being filmed. On the day, the screen would be filled with thousands of fans. I marvelled at the ingenuity of including fans in such a way.
