NEW YORK, NY.- R.O. Kwon asks her ancestors for help. Two jade rings in particular, passed down by her mother, serve as a direct line and source of comfort.
Kwon, an award-winning author, wanted to be a Christian pastor or a religious recluse when she was growing up. She had, as she put it, what felt like a conversation with the Lord going. But she lost her faith as a teenager. Now, in her writing, Kwon explores the challenge of questioning long-held beliefs.
Her first novel, The Incendiaries, tackled religion, while her second, Exhibit, out last month, is about hidden desire. She wanted to write a book centering desire, including queer desire and kinky desire, she said, because in the past, she has felt desperately alone in wanting as I do.
Kwon spoke, in an edited and condensed interview, about how she turns to her ancestral jade rings for strength and the comfort of having them on while she types.
Q: Talk about the rings youre wearing.
A: Theyre double jade rings and theyre from my mother, who received them at her wedding from her mother-in-law. She had them throughout my childhood, but she only ever wore them for very special occasions, like my wedding.
Q: How did the rings eventually go from her hand to yours?
A: There are beliefs around jade for Korean people that the stone can help ward off evil spirits and illness; that it can have healing powers. My mother gave these to me when I was in the depths of a crisis with Exhibit, because I worked on it for nine years. She gave them to me to help.
Q: Do you feel that they have healing properties?
A: I feel better connected to my ancestors, and asking my ancestors for help feels much more available to me than asking a God I dont believe in anymore for help. So yeah, they do give me strength.
I grew up so religious. I thought I wanted to devote my life to serving the Lord. And then when I was 17, I lost that faith. In some ways thats always part of what Im writing about. And Ive thought about how, with the loss of the Christian faith that I grew up with, Ive also lost in a key way the ability to ask for help when Im having trouble, because I used to pray all the time.
Q: Do you ever take the rings off?
A: I do. I keep them close by and then I put them on when I especially need help as a sort of talisman.
Q: Is jade considered a hard stone, like diamonds, or is it delicate?
A: Ive actually looked that up because I want to be careful with them. Theyre reasonably hard, but they can definitely be carved. Im not precious about them. I can feel them as I type. Theres something very helpful about having this physical contact that I feel every time I move my fingers.
Q: Is your hope to eventually pass the rings down to someone else, like they were passed down to you?
A: My grandmother on my fathers side, who gave my mother these rings, died a while ago, unfortunately. I definitely dont plan on taking them to the grave.
If possible, I want a tree burial. I want to return to the soil which were made. Being a tree, that sounds great. And it sounds like a mythic transformation in a way that feels very satisfying. So yeah, theres no need for jade to hang out there.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.