Dear Cheri
Dear Cheri,
Letters, enveloped, archived, imprinted with the subtle traces of touch and pressure on their paper surfaces. Post stamps, letterboxes, deliveries, wheels, and motors—each a link in the quiet machinery of transit.
First, it was the bicycles—the mailboy dressed in yellow—then came the railroads, the ships, the planes, each carrying whispers and words, waiting, suspended, longing to be read.
There are moments when my hands, feet, and eyes come to rest, making space for the future to unfold. Some may call it waiting, others dreaming. Our senses begin to gather the stills of mundane landscapes, the slow passage of time, the quiet ache of longing—words fractured into fragments, bodies adrift at the edge of the earth.
Dear Cheri, I’m writing to you from within the dim chamber of my world. It is March 14, 2025 I am expecting to open the envelope, covered in the stills and glimpses of places you’ve resided. You sent me a message that you and Wendy have moved together to a new place in Kaohsiung, near where Dongren served his military duty in Taiwan.
Perhaps there are churches like those you visited in Astoria, the remaining echoes of railways that remind you of the days you spent across 30th Street Station. Perhaps the boxes of fresh groceries piled up beside the walls of a supermarket might bring you back to the very first autumn you landed in New York. Time and again, things repeat—arranged in patterns that pull you into the currents of a particular time and place, despite them no longer being as they were.
On the subway, I catch glimpses of faces, shoulders swaying with the train, fingers idly tracing circles in the air. I think of your camera, your silent gaze, the breath that bends the air around you.
And somewhere, perhaps in another room, another city, Cheri moves—her feet wrapped in purple slippers, crossing the living room slowly, sensing the wooden floor beneath her. She bows toward the bed, lowers herself with care, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Silence lingers as she takes a deep breath and drifts toward sleep.
And so we move, between moments, between places. Here, then gone. Then here again.
With love, Minsu
