Fly To My Room: Curated Spaces as Coping Mechanisms
Earlier this year I moved into a new apartment. A seemingly mundane event had it been any other year; except it’s not any other year — it’s 2020 and the world has come to somewhat of a halt. At this time I was about five months into quarantine due to the current pandemic, and it’d been roughly two years since I last had my own room. Growing up, my room had always been an extension of my identity, a way to express who I was and what I liked. Having my own space wasn’t something I imagined would have a drastic effect on my mental health if I ever lost it. But it was quarantine that brought to my attention the negative impact that results in not having that sanctuary. I had been staying in my sister’s apartment, and I remember the first four months of this entire situation were the most difficult for me. It was hard to sleep, hard to stop falling in and out of despair feeling as though somehow time, which was arguably never mine in the first place, was slipping away from me day by day. And then there were spells where it felt like I was repeating the same day over and over.
Everyday
It’s so suffocating that I’m going crazy
Feel like it’s still day one
Somebody, please turn the clock back
The whole year got stolen
I’m still in bed,
feeling bloated in the stomach
It’s killin’ me slowly nahAnyway,
I want to leave, any way
There’s no way
This room is all I have
Well, then I’ll just change this place to my world¹
Fly To My Room is simultaneously chill and upbeat, with a smart placing of both light and heavy instrumentals. It’s one of those songs that just sounds perfect for putting you in a good mood. So while this particular verse of the lyrics reflect the darker feelings I was experiencing, this is as bleak as the song gets, because the track is meant to be hopeful and imaginative. The original title of the song in Korean is 내 방을 여행하는 법 which translates to ‘the way to travel my room’ and fits perfectly with the theme of the lyrics.
In a piece I wrote about the significance of BTS releasing the new album BE, I briefly referenced how genius I thought the idea of each member having an individual room for the concept photos was. Genius because it’s so simple but it can have many meanings for the current moment. For me, it resonated with all the issues I’d been dealing with in regards to losing my sense of self with not having my own space, exacerbated even more so by living during a global pandemic. Turning one’s bedroom into a reflection of the personal has been studied as a behavior for exploring and constructing identity when we’re adolescents.² But this is something I would argue we continue to do beyond adolescence, and why BTS’ concept resonated with me and many others so well as we analysed the members’ personalities from each of their curated spaces.
Everywhere
I wonder if it’s been like this the whole time
This scenery that feels unfamiliar all of a sudden
Lost in memory for no reason,
even the old desk and the changing sunlight feel special
I’m little less lonely nahBetter way
I just found a better way
Sometimes we get to know
Broken is beautiful
My body feels lighter
I fly far, far away
This thing so surreal
Yeah¹
One of my favourite things about the musical dynamic of BTS is that just like in their relationships with each other as a group, trying to balance seven distinct personalities, they do an incredible job of capturing more than just one perspective in their work. Fly To My Room was one of two subunit tracks on the new album BE that included four of the members: Suga, Jimin, V, and j-hope. In line with BTS’ ability to share multiple perspectives, two shifting emotions are equally balanced throughout the song. I say two because it felt to me as though V / Jimin and Suga / j-hope stood somewhat in opposition to each other as units — a parallel I drew from some of the words they shared with us during the 75th UN General Assembly months ago, and in their recent Weverse Magazine interviews. Jimin talked about how his world of meeting fans and singing and dancing at concerts “had shrunk to a room” and the hopelessness that came with everything falling apart. V had lots of trouble with feelings of depression and isolation.
Suga, however, expressed that he was used to the world shrinking down like that in an instant when the group is on tour; the crowd and the cheers when he’s on stage all gone when he’s back alone in his small room at night. But in this small room, he could see that the world was a lot bigger and yet still reachable through technology and the connection with fans.³ On the other side of the same optimistic coin was j-hope who focused on changing one’s mindset. Allowing ourselves a little escapism could be an opportunity to be more adventurous in our approach to the current situation.⁴ This comes through much more in the following verse:
My bed, I land on it
This is the safest place
Happiness, sadness, whatever emotion it is,
this place just takes it in
Sometimes, even when this room becomes a trash can of emotions,
it holds meAnd it welcomes me
The toys in my room that feel like people
The TV sound makes it feel busy and crowded as if I’m out in the downtown
Your mind can be changed by your mind
Here, this is a travel that only I can enjoy
Delivery food is ☆☆☆
Fill it optimistically, I’m full¹
A bedroom can be used to “deal with and meet the emotional needs such as being in a depressed state, or coping with anxiety or stress.”² This is how a room that reflects back our sense of self can be helpful in coping with difficult situations when we need a safe space to process our emotions. It’s probably why as soon as I had my own room again, BTS memorabilia quickly lined my walls and filled up my shelves since they’ve been my biggest source of comfort through this challenging time. To be able to extend that comfort into how I organise my space gives me a sense of control when everything outside of it feels like all too much for my already overwhelming anxiety and bouts of depressive symptoms. Here in this verse we can take Suga’s use of the slang term ‘emotion trash can,’ typically meant to describe a person being mistreated and consistently used by others to purge their negative emotions onto, as symbolising that our rooms are absorbing everything we feel as we deal with COVID-19.
When I reflect on the lack of mundanity in having to move during a pandemic, I also have to consider that it’s the mundane I circle back to when I am in my room and at home. Losing a sense of normalcy in these times means we begin to take notice of the little things we, for the most part, take for granted in our daily lives. A commute to work, dining in at a restaurant, whatever it may be — this verse spins that on its head and tries to convey that imagining these things as real just in a different sense, like j-hope suggests, is still something we can do. It’s like Suga and j-hope took V and Jimin — and ARMY — by the hand as we made our way to seeing the glass half full.
Shall I leave, let me fly to my
Lower the eyes, wherever it would be, zoom
With me, now, let me fly to my
Get me outta my blues
And now I’m feelin’ brand new¹
Finally, we have the chorus: short and sweet but decisive in its hopeful resignation. While exploration of identity and using my room as a way to cope are just two ideas I extracted from this song for myself, it pushes us further by encouraging a more purposeful use of our imagination, making the room a vessel to travel in our own minds and within the environment we may be feeling stuck in. Just like every BTS song, it’s a creatively organised track that fits seamlessly with the theme of BE. The track, like the album itself, takes us on a ride through the heavier emotions and then to that lighter optimism as we continue this uncertain journey together. Never leaning too one-sided, since feelings constantly fluctuate and challenge each other, the song ultimately arrives at a simple conclusion: let’s focus on what we can control in a frustrating situation and fly to our room.
References
¹ BTS. (2020). 내 방을 여행하는 법 [Song]. On BE. Big Hit Entertainment.; Doolset Bangtan. (2020). 내 방을 여행하는 법 (Fly To My Room). https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2020/11/20/fly-to-my-room/
² Fidzani, L. C., & Read, M. A. (2013). Identity Expression and Bedroom Personalization by Urban Adolescents in Botswana. Journal of Adolescent Research, 29(6), 691–715. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558413502533
³ BANGTANTV. (2020, September 23). BTS (방탄소년단) Speech at the 75th UN General Assembly [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aPe9Uy10n4&t=352s&ab_channel=BANGTANTV
⁴ Kang, M. (2020, November 24). j-hope: “Even just one, single love is beautiful, but we’re getting love from all over the world.” Weverse Magazine. https://magazine.weverse.io/article/view?num=57&lang=en
