Gazing at the Banpo Bridge: A Memoir

By J. F. Kroemer

This is a story about a girl who doesn't fit in, the anti-hero who knows how to sabotage herself, and the God who meets her halfway. She journeys from Texas to Seoul, South Korea in an attempt to leave the pain behind, which proves merely to be one of the first steps on a wandering road towards freedom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. F. Kroemer
• Release date: Jan 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005607555

J. F. Kroemer

Julie lives in Vienna, Austria with her family, the bugs that wander into the apartment, and the spiders which eat them.

Book preview

Gazing at the Banpo Bridge: A Memoir

By J. F. Kroemer

Published by Julie Kroemer at Smashwords

Copyright 2021 J. F. Kroemer

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

Disclaimer

This is a work of creative nonfiction. The events are portrayed to the best of my memory. While all the stories in this book are true, some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

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For the swamp slushers

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Note: Events are portrayed according to the mindset of the author at the timing of said event.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Jesus is my Best Friend

Chapter 2 Texas

Chapter 3 Sunshower

Chapter 4 Bandages, Blue Glitter, and Angels

Chapter 5 Rhinoplasty Blues and the Party Boat

Chapter 6 Sing Over Me

Chapter 7 Karoake

Chapter 8 Sound of Music

Chapter 9 Seed of Hope

Chapter 10 Im Werd

Chapter 11 Crumbs

Chapter 12 When Love Takes Over

Chapter 13 An Unfolding

Timeline

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Chapter 1 Jesus is my Best Friend

I ride home with mom from cheer practice, the large oak trees passing by, the shame keeping me from experiencing the beauty of our small town of Emory in East Texas. The girls on the team don’t talk to me much. Mom pretends to understand what’s going on and once again tries to convince me to invite them over for a slumber party, implying they all would like me if we just spent more time together.

I’m just concerned about you, Julie. I just wish you had more friends, she says.

I’m almost in tears by the time we arrive at our new brick home outside town surrounded by pine and oak trees, and I assume the conversation will end any second as we pull into the garage.

When it doesn’t, I get out and cry, Jesus is my best friend! slam the car door, and run to my room to hide.

I lay on my bed and cry silently for an hour. Like every house we’ve had since I was around 6 years old, it’s expensive and new, but the lack of love makes the place feel like a white-washed tomb. No one will come to my room to chat with me, and I will be expected to entertain myself for the evening, so I usually turn to a book to escape reality.

After weeks of nagging, I go ahead and do what mom wants and invite the cheerleading team over for a slumber party. I know they don’t like to talk to me, so instead of asking them to their faces I write letters, painstakingly creating 8 to 10 copies of the same invitation and folding the sheet perfectly into a little rectangle, with a flap to close it. I pass them out at the end of practice one day and then sneak out, silently triumphant. Later, I tell mom I invited everyone over for next Friday; she’s pacified for once.

It gets closer to Friday and the atmosphere is awkward on the cheer team. No one talks to me about the letters they received. No one talks to my face, that is. Friday afternoon rolls around, and my nerves are high. I am nervous about being rejected. I know it’s coming, and I brace myself for the inevitable fact that no one will show up, no one likes me, and I’ll have verifiable proof I’m a loser.

At the end of cheer practice, Michelle comes up to me.

Dad said I can stay the night at your place tonight, she says.

I’m so relieved at least one person will come! She arrives at our house an hour or 2 later. We spend the afternoon a bit awkwardly at first, but eventually we have a good time hanging out in my room. I’m indebted to her for what she’s done, saving me from another awkward discussion with mom. Each one avoided is a breath of fresh air from the suffocation of her nagging. It’s not just the number of friends I have, but also my appearance.

She tells me frequently, Julie, I wish you would do something with your hair…Julie, you need to fix your eyebrows. They would just look so much nicer if you did.

She continues the long nagging sessions even up until the day before I leave Texas in my twenties, most of it hidden behind the guise of the so-called care and love she has for me. As a trainer for other teachers for the state of Texas, she receives the chance to go to various trainings in the state capitol of Austin and from time to time invites me or Joan to join her.

After one such training while I’m substitute teaching and working through my post-grad slump, she takes me to a special green hotel in Austin after talking it up saying how wonderful and cute it is, the overgrowth from the ivy hanging down over balconies and the little seating area outside for guests surrounded by potted plants. Like many of our trips, it’s fly by night, only a few hours to hang out together. Nonetheless, she chooses to spend the afternoon nagging me for over an hour about my life, what I should do differently, why subbing is so hard, on and on until I break down crying. Once I’m finally broken, she sits across from me just staring at me with no emotion. It’s one of the first times after years of emotional abuse I realize something is wrong and that she’s only wanting to see me squirm and get upset before she’ll stop the badgering. Aren’t we supposed to be having fun? If this is fun, I sure don’t understand her version of it.

The next morning, my emotions still reeling from the night before, we have a quiet buffet breakfast surrounded by the beautiful scenery in the courtyard. Like so much of my life, the beauty, material blessings, and status of my family would cloud my thinking and keep me from seeing the depth and disease of the ugly lurking beneath the surface.

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When I’m in my thirties and taking a walk through the huge park in the middle of Vienna, I have a moment of doubt. Normally I don’t ask Him these kinds of questions since the Bible obviously spells this type of thing out.

Lord, do you love me? I ask silently, feeling the pain so often hemorrhaging somewhere in my inner being.

I continue down the lane of large trees planted in perfect rows, walking towards my destination at the ballpark. I look forward to the game, because whether we win or lose (most likely lose) I’ll be able to have fun anyway and release some of the anger by hitting the ball hard and running the bases. Hopefully I’ll catch the ball if it comes my way, it being more down to luck than skill after so many years off the pitch.

The pathway continues, soccer fields connected on the right, the famous carnival to my left, neon lights flashing in the dark to attract more customers for the rides. I notice a scene play out along the path where some young pre-adolescent girls huddle next to a tree and look behind them, giggling and whispering.

I follow their gaze and perceive a young girl with curly hair trying to keep up with the group. When she gets close enough to the other girls, they quickly run off giggling. The one left out sees a bench nearby, flops herself down on it, leans her head back, and cries loudly.

My heart goes out to the girl, and I see a group of moms approaching. Her mom tries to comfort her daughter and tell her the others just didn’t see her coming or didn’t mean to do what they did.

"Das tun sie! she cries in German, which literally translates, That do they!"

I can understand the mom, taking the easy way out, but the girl’s pain remains unacknowledged, and I’m reminded of my difficult time in middle and high school.

All right, Lord, I get it. You love me, but the pain of being rejected has caused me to doubt your love at times in my life. I’m sorry for getting it twisted. Thank you for showing me that girl tonight.

I continue down the path in the darkness of the evening, the cool weather almost biting, looking forward to the game.

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There’s one place I feel safe and can release some of the adolescent anger and strong emotion I feel - the dance studio which we found by accident. As the golden child, my sister Joan was supposed to keep doing gymnastics (pronounced joonastics) at a place near the studio so she could be a highly skilled cheerleader with gymnast capabilities, but I ended up upsetting the scales and obtaining the abilities mom so wanted for her favorite child.

One day while waiting for Joan’s lesson to end, mom decides to go with me to check out the dance studio nearby, just across the parking lot. We go in, I see the girls dancing with their bellies showing, and I’m shocked; I don’t think I can ever dance or look like that, dancing is prohibited by the Baptist church, plus I just hit puberty and am very self-conscious. Within the past year, mom has begun her weekly routine of criticizing my physical appearance and the fact I have almost no friends.

Despite my hesitation, mom signs me up for a private lesson with the dance school director and a beginner hip-hop class. I realize quickly I love it, and no one knows me so I can just hide in the 3rd row while the best dancers take their place at the front. The teacher is so beautiful and kind and reminds me of Angelina Jolie with dark hair and, of course, cool moves, having cheered for the Dallas Mavericks earlier in her dance career. I want to be like her someday.

I go every week for a year. At the end of the year, I start taking more classes to prepare for tryouts for the middle school dance team. I have to learn to jump and spin. One of my friends from school (whom my mom constantly criticizes privately) joins me in the endeavor. We share a moment of glory at the annual dance studio trip to the conference in Waco when we kill it on a hip-hop routine. We know we’re the best dancers in this small class that met all morning to learn the moves. We know Miss Angelina is watching, along with the girls on the performance teams. We are badasses for one day.

The studio will continue to be my refuge for the next years until I graduate high school one year early. I make the team, go to the practices, and eventually start driving myself 23 miles down the road multiple times a week. I don’t realize how blessed I am to have a body which can do this: jump high, push hard, keep excellent balance, and release pent-up energy in a healthy way. Despite all the other classes, my favorite remains hip hop. Later in South Korea, it will be K-Pop.

One year I decide to do cheer tryouts and make the middle school cheer team, the overwhelming schedules between dance and cheer team colliding in several ways, mom and dad annoyed with all the driving involved and letting me know I have to choose between cheerleading or dance, which will it be? Although I love watching the football games from the sideline (ever seen a crash up close, the shiver of impact traveling down the spine of a young man flying in the air?) and the fun of being out late at night for the games, plus the smell of fried food, rubber on the track, sweat, and the sounds of the crowd, whistles blowing, the referees’ announcements, the announcer, the school band, and our own voices trying to find a presence among the chaos, I decide to opt for dance team. I don’t fit in with the cheer girls or the dance girls, so in the end I choose the skills I love most: the difficulty it takes to master a hip-hop move and the pride that comes along with performing it for a crowd, plus the bass and the beat of the music is irresistible.

My second-to-last year in high school mom and dad own 2 houses and have large overhead costs building from scratch like mom prefers, and dad has been unable to make his drilling business profitable. Impatient for the inspector to arrive, he decided to drill without state-mandated approval, kneeling on the ground in front of his crew, praying that God would guide the drill to keep it from hitting any pipes or cables in the ground. The inspector arrived days later and, once he saw what had transpired, prepared quickly to shut down dad’s ability to operate the machine.

I stand outside on the cement by the house, mom preparing to drive somewhere for the evening, perhaps something to do with her administrator’s certificate she wants to obtain (move as fast as you can out of the classroom, Julie). She catches me off-guard with her pronouncement.

We can’t afford dance team anymore. It’s just too expensive with these houses I have to pay for and your dad not having a job. You can take one class and that’s it, she says quickly with pursed lips and turns to get in her car quickly and drive off.

Her harshness surprises me, and she has manufactured this situation so I can’t say anything against her decision: more houses trump more dance lessons. I’m only allowed to keep going to the hip-hop class. This year I decide to do school cheer team once more although the awkwardness between me and my peers continues.

My last year in high school I’m allowed once again to be on the elite team, but my skills are handicapped after a year off. Although I make the team, I’m unable to dance like the girls who can jump high and move their legs quickly. Despite the fact I’ve lost some of my speed and agility, I decide to try out for the Texas Aggie Dance Team at Texas A&M University.

Originally, I wanted to leave Texas for university, but mom offered to drive me down to College Station, Texas to visit Texas A&M since seniors are allowed to take a day off school for that type of thing. I’m mesmerized by the college guys wearing their military outfits, the traditions, Midnight Yell, where the students gather to talk shit about the other team and do cheers together, the sports, the Yell Leaders, and the beautiful campus.

On campus, if a guy thinks a girl is pretty, he says, Howdy. And if she says Howdy back, that boosts his ego, but if she doesn’t, he gets teased by his friends. During our visit, a guy says Howdy to me and my heart goes aflutter in nervousness. I could get used to that kind of attention. In Texas in 2005, if you’re in the top 10 percent of the graduating class, you automatically get accepted into any university of your choice, so there will be no trouble getting in. I also apply to Stephen F. Austin University out of decorum, but the skill level of their dance team is incredibly high so I have no shot at making it.

Dad and mom take turns driving me about 3 hours away to College Station, Texas to learn separate segments of the routine for tryouts and see what kind of skills the team director expects. In severe abstraction, I don’t realize the routine needs to be memorized, so I only work on jumps and turns in preparation for the big day.

A few days before tryouts, I encounter a major setback and wake up one morning to find my neck has a crick in it. It’s terrible pain, I can’t move my head from side to side. This spells disaster for the dance tryout! I have to be able to whip my head around when I do the pirouettes and to focus forward or I will lose my balance too quickly and drop my 2nd foot to the ground. They should know I can do a triple, spinning 3 rotations on one foot before performing the next move.

Mom arranges for me to skip school and see a chiropractor in town. He jerks my head to the side and a small groan escapes my lips. It hurts, but it must be for the better good so I try not to say anything, then spend the rest of the day watching T.V. at Granny’s house.

The next day, my neck is still sore. I try to convince myself it’s getting better, but the soreness lingers on the day of tryouts. It also happens to be the day of prom, a dance only juniors and seniors are allowed to celebrate.

Dad drives me hours to the tryout; we arrive, and I notice the girls going over the routine we learned.

Oh my gosh! Why didn’t I memorize the routine?

I rush to remember the sequence of moves, struggling to remember which one comes next. My skills are subpar when it’s time to show them, and I can’t spin more than 2 times around before I lose my balance as my neck still hurts. My jumps are low due to the previous year off from the team. My morale is also low. I know I won’t make it.

Later this year, after I make a couple friends at college, one of them will tell me she’s glad I didn’t make the team after she hears my stories of how my roommate who’s on the team behaves, bringing guys home to our dorm room, partying, typing online late into the night disturbing my sleep.

I understand what she means: I’d be a different person if I’d joined. I would be stuck up and full of myself, full of pride about my skills and looks, maybe dating a guy from the basketball team with whom the dance team performs.

I don’t make the first cut, so dad takes me to a hair salon and they spend over an hour straightening my curly hair, only to burn it and force it to curl back again into a nice updo. My hair literally stinks, I can’t stand this look, but it was expensive so I pretend to like it for dad’s sake.

We drive 3 hours back home, I rush to put my coral evening gown on, realize I need body tape to fix the bust area, too late to do anything about it, put the right shoes on, grab some comfy clothes for afterwards, and rush out the door. I arrive an hour late to the prom. My date, as I learn years later, is a total narcissist. He has chosen to wear black pants, a black t-shirt, and a black hat and sunshades, misunderstanding the concept of a black-tie event.

How do I look? he asks as we slow dance.

You look awesome, I say and he smiles.

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Chapter 2 Texas

Joan and I stand on the top of a rusted trailer overlooking the field behind the house. Beside the field are the woods, nothing special in there, our new brick house not far away. Here on top of the trailer, we feel as if we’re on top of the world. We sing a song or 2 together, religious songs, easy to remember as they’re repeated to us each week in Sunday School.

Joan, easily bored, starts to climb down again, but I remain here alone, allowing the wind to blow through my hair. I feel a connection to the earth, to this place called Texas. The grass is dry and yellow, the trailer old and rusty, but it’s there to experience this moment with me. The house, lingering to