You offered the umbrella to me and said in slow, syncopated Korean that I was grateful for, “Next time you come, you can bring it back.” I looked at the red umbrella in your hands. Ppalgan usan. The first phrase I had learned in Korean as my eighth-grade roommate played Yozoh songs and taught me the colors. This moment with you, like so many moments when speaking my second language, made me feel like a child. But the humanity of this gesture, the weight of its kindness opened something within me. Looking at you with this umbrella—this ppalgan usan—outstretched like a flower, like something precious, I understood that this was all I ever wanted as a Black woman—to be seen. To be treated as human.
I loved this personal essay so much.