“Did we appear normal?
Whose normal would win? … Whose normal was worthy enough?”
—Tasha Jun, Tell Me the Dream Again
When Tasha Jun was in high school, she would guard the front door to her family home, allowing only a few, trusted friends to cross the threshold to see, smell and taste the multicultural richness of her Korean American family life. (Including “the television that called out like an extra family member”—I especially love that one, as it evokes memories of my own Italian nonna’s constantly-on set, and how it was its own white noise of sorts).
She’d make excuses for not having classmates drop by and, if they did, she’d scan the room for those details on which she feared she’d be judged.
As Tasha tells the story, you’re desperately scanning the room with her, it’s so vivid.
In Tell Me the Dream Again: Reflections on Family, Ethnicity, and the Sacred Work of Belonging, Tasha—a “melancholy dreamer”, wife and mother who also edits
here on Substack—writes beautifully and deeply movingly about growing up biracial Korean American, and the years of feeling “caught between worlds”.She speaks to the particular pain of not feeling at home, or a finding a true sense of belonging.
“I was stuck in this misfit middle place with nowhere to go”.
(In addition, branches of her family tree stretch out to England, Ireland and the Netherlands. Needless to say, I wanted names and postcodes on hearing about the English towns in which she has traced family roots.)
Tasha’s story is achingly beautiful, hauntingly hard but oh, is it transformative as she takes us on her journey “from childhood curiosity to turmoil and rejection and embrace—and finally back to a redeemed, holy curiosity about my ethnic and cultural identity”.
She tells of how her “ache for Shalom … a shalomsickness” led her to the feet of Jesus, in a way that recalls St Augustine’s words in Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
I thought about St Augustine’s words quite a bit along the way.
Not only is Tell Me the Dream a story about the search for belonging and, ultimately, seeing, as she writes, “the imago Dei in my own, bi-racial skin”, it’s also a beautiful testimony to motherhood, and daughterhood. There is a hair brushing scene in the book which is one of the most extraordinary passages about motherhood, loss and yearning—and love—that I’ve read.
I don’t want to give too much away, but I do want to recommend Tasha’s memoir, which deeply resonated with me, albeit in a completely different context, as an adopted daughter (as evidenced by the fact that I whipped through the audiobook, beautifully narrated by Tasha, in just over a day. Is binge-listening a thing? It should be).
One line that really hit home (see what I, unintentionally, did there?):
I thought I could separate me from me.
This is, truly, the power of story at its finest—and most sacred.
As Tasha writes: “May my stories help you bravely and patiently look at your own and lead you back to who you were divinely knitted together to be.”
Amen.
Plugging back in
As a sidenote, going to Italy back at Easter was a bit like being plugging my soul back into its recharging base.
I felt like the Italian light on my battery had been slow-blinking amber for so long, longer than I’d realised, having not visited a country I will always call home—even though I didn’t grew up there—for so long.
Can you relate at all? Is there somewhere, or something, which helps you recharge, or reset?
Some ways I intend to keep my Italian battery topped up back home in England are by playing more of the music, following Instagram accounts documenting street life and watching the TV (Italian daytime TV is bonkers and legendary. But I might be biased).
Last night, I posted something of an emotional reel to Instagram, to mark the tenth anniversary of our losing my Italian birth papa. I definitely woke up to a bit of a vulnerability hangover this morning, but I resisted the impulse to take it down, wondering what people would think. If it was too much. If I was too much.
I’ve left it up, because it’s absolutely part of who I am (jumpy phone work, searing operatic soundtrack and all).
Reading Tasha’s book has reminded me of the importance of our embracing it all. Who’s with me?
Thank you so much for this beautiful synopsis and review. What an honor it is to have our words connect us. I’m so grateful, Jen.
I’m so excited to read Tasha’s book!!!