Nearly There, the finishing line

I spent more than three hours with my Dad last night assembling two IKEA pieces. I was grateful to have a person who despite his age would come help me no matter what. I hope I can be like him, to my children as well as to my friends. If I am indeed the generous and loving person some of my closest friends say I am, I owe most of that development to my Dad.

I am not trying to compare my Dad to a dog, but my friend's departed dog offered her something similar in the past thirteen years: unconditional love. There is no drama, no ultimatums, no criteria. There's playfulness. There's sullenness too. Sadness. But everything is simple. Someone had once said I was simple, in a good way, not making things complicated. She didn't know me that well, but then again, I hope with all my cynicism and pessimism I haven't become too "complicated".

While assembling the two heavy and complicated pieces with my Dad, I caught myself every now and then thinking about the drama I am slowly moving out of now. I caught myself thinking about the close proximity to the man who has what I have wanted for a year from that woman. The anger surged, and I was surprised, caught off-guard. But these moments are happening less frequently now. I am only regretful that these moments took pleasure away from enjoying my Dad's presence. He bought me food from Chinatown so we could have a quick dinner. He was simple. He doesn't care about fashion. He doesn't care what people thought of him. Maybe he isn't aware. For too long now I let people pressure me on what I should do instead of helping me see what I want to do.

My friend who had lost her dog is doing better now. I call her everyday at least once to check on her. She told me today after we went to sushi in our former home city how terrible it was to live alone after having constant company for thirteen years. Part of me wanted to tell her, oh, but here's your opportunity to discover yourself, to meet new people, to do as you please. But the rest of me knew better. Those are stupid and insensitive things to say to someone who is feeling hurt from the loss of a companion, a constant companion who never asked for anything back except just pure love. I realize I can't ask this from any of my friends, not even the closest ones. Human beings have grown up to set walls often they aren't even aware of.

For this friend who is dreading this new life in worse ways I am dreading mine, I must commend her for her bravery. The NPR podcast I was listening to today was about this Libyan American professor who left his family and students to join the revolution in Libya, which has no clear future. He said in the interview that courage wasn't something special to certain people, that anyone is capable of courage. I thought about the people who I felt was too much of a coward to connect with me. I thought they were brave at some point because courage is something I look up to. And then I thought about this new friend of mine. She always seemed shy, her laughter bothered me mostly because it sounded like a shy, cowardly laugh. Her eyes recede deep from her forehead, making her look as if she was hiding. And yet, now, I see, through her upbeat humor, her jokes, her laughter that really isn't cowardice at all, how brave she is by simply standing up with tons of weight of her anguish trying to drag her back down. I have spent so long complaining about how miserable life is when such and such woman is too blind to see how great we could be together. Crying over relationship that never existed, while this woman is laughing (and crying a lot) for a thirteen-year old relationship that was more pure than just about any relationship out there. How does she sleep? She doesn't, but at least she is still sane. How does she not cry? She does, a lot, but she rises back up with smiles.

I asked a friend from Montreal once how she keeps such a great smile all the time, how she manages to be in such upbeat mood just about every time I saw her. She simply said she surrounded herself with people like that, with great energy, optimism, and love. From then on I tried to remember to do the same. And to be part of this circle for my any of my friends. Life is truly too short and too exciting to be wasted on people who can't make you laugh, who drag you into the darkness. And even though this new friend of mine is at a point lower than any I remember experiencing, she manages to make me laugh, make me think, make me be hopeful. I hope I can help her keep standing up, against the odds.

Lost, for the moment, Death forever.

Someone was interested in my car. Then I realized I can't find the title to my car, which I need to sell the vehicle. Then that someone stopped calling me. Maybe they aren't interested. Hopefully someone in New York will.

Hopefully, it's all for the best. When things don't go your way, have faith that it's for the best. Maybe I will need my car for the first few weeks.

I can hardly think, let alone philosophize at 12:30 this Thursday morning, or Wednesday night. I just finished emptying my room. It took more than two hours. Surprisingly long. Saturday I am returning to clean. The thought of doing that is tiring already.

And what? Life goes on. But an important few thoughts.

I wasn't crying. I was very composed, actually. It was unfolding before me like a movie. But like a movie only because I have never witnessed death. Nor have I ever witnessed people grieving over death. I think most people in the world don't get to witness death. When someone is terminally ill, they are often left alone in the hospital at some odd hour, and the nurse soon discovers the, well, "event"? I don't know, like I said, I have only TV and movies to draw this scenario from.

But Tuesday morning I witnessed death, and the grieving over of death.

Monday night was one and a half hours. Tuesday morning was two hours. Nearly two hours. And at the end of those two hours, I saw my friend drive away, finally free to cry as much as she wanted. I could see from the distance the full devastation on her face. For the two hours before, mostly she was calm. She was making jokes a lot of times. "At least she won't be taking a bath anymore. She hates baths." "I guess she really didn't want to go for another car ride. She really hates car rides." But there was also consoling words, from me and from her. "Well, she's a real friend, sticking with you till you've moved in."

I said that last sentence. This 1.5 hours Monday night and 2 hours Tuesday morning taught me more about friendship. I learned a lot already these past weeks, months, especially from that meeting with the one guy friend I have made in New Haven. But that night, that morning, was a bigger step for me. I wanted to be there for a human being I cared at least a little bit about. But part of the momentum was her display of affection for her friend.

Her friend is her dog that had been with her for the past thirteen years. She could count the number of weeks they had been parted all those years with her fingers. And the dog came just right when she thought life wasn't worth living, that the whole world had turned dark. Thirteen years with this best friend taught her to love again. It sounds cheesy until you really understand how difficult it is to love again when you've lost almost everything you believed was lost. This woman has a lot of love even though her life isn't exactly cheerful now. She and I were never really close. In fact, for a long time I couldn't get close to her, couldn't really stand her laughter, her mumbles, her shyness, her bizarre behaviors, and of course, her incessant smoking and addiction to chocolate. I never thought we could be friends, at most tango friends. My prejudices didn't allow me to go close to her. I have mostly rejected any offers she had made for connection.

But there was something beautiful about her I could only discover when I found myself faced with yet another romantic episode that terminated completely. She and I were moving to the same borough, only 15 minutes apart but the same train. That itself gave me a sense of solidarity. We were moving around the same time, except that she was smart enough to rent a truck and move on one weekend while mine has been dragging out into the third and hopefully final week. We already talked about hanging out together once we settled in. I realized I was becoming closer to someone I didn't particularly like, or wanted to like.

The prejudices were overrun by a need for solidarity at a time when I felt lost. And she was receptive to any of my offers of connections. She was the only person besides my two closest friends who knew early on that something was wrong with my mood, that a woman was involved, a woman was making me sad and angry. She didn't make me say who it was; she just wanted to listen. That's how I connect to people: listening. So I felt comfortable enough to call her last Wednesday right after getting the exciting news that the woman in question was dating someone I knew. I was devastated and none of my two friends was available to hear me rant. So I called this soon-to-be close friend. I didn't say what had happened; I just told her I wanted to hear someone's voice, to know I wasn't alone in my apartment. I needed someone's attention and comfort. I didn't need to rant. Just needed a blanket.

And that was what she did. Listened, talked when I wanted her to talk.

So on Monday night I decided to go visit her. I knew her dog had cancer and would die any day now. I knew she was hurting (the woman, not the dog). So after a nice dinner with my dad in Chinatown, I headed over to this woman's house. It was the first New Yorker I visited since re-became a New Yorker.

When the door was open I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the chaos in the apartment (she had just moved in two days ago). By the smell of a dog (which I am not used to since I don't know many people with dogs). And most of all, overwhelmed by the sadness and tears on her face.

"How are you?"

"Not too well."

I love honesty, especially when you are sad. You only hide your negative feelings to those you don't trust a lot. There was a scratching sound. I thought it was the dog, but then I thought only cats scratch. When I entered her bedroom I saw the dog panting. The scratching sound is the sound of her panting. They had been up since this morning. The woman has been sitting by her best friend all day, with a brief nap. The vet said the dog shouldn't be feeling pain. Apparently the cancer-ravaged spleen would rupture anytime and hemorrhage would end the dog's life in a matter of hours. But throughout the day, the dog had periodic seizures.

What is a seizure? I didn't know. Just as I didn't know what death was. I remember seeing my chemistry teacher in high school going through epileptic seizures. He would bite into his left hand, which was totally scarred by then.

The dog would widen her eyes as if she saw something horrific. Her entire body would stiffen but also twitch violently. And sometimes she would yelp a helpless sound. That was a seizure. It always starts out with that eye widening, so horrific to witness. You could see the immense pain she must have been enduring. But for me, the worse pain was to see my friend. She would hold down the dog, kiss her head profusely, talk to her, tell her that it was going to be all right, "promised." I wanted to cry but I just caressed my friend as she was holding down her own friend and caressing her. After the seizure episode ended, I would give my friend toilet paper, to wipe off the white foam that came out of the dog's mouth, and also (a different piece) for my friend's tears. She didn't cry out loud. But the pain was there.

"I am sorry. I have to go."

I felt guilty leaving them like this. She said she would consider taking the dog to the vet in Connecticut to put her down if this torture continued through the night. "For my sanity and for her suffering," she said. And I told her if she decided to do that she should call me before 7AM.

I left her apartment sad. I felt helpless. I felt also a little content, strangely, that I was able to do that. I have overcome some of my prejudice, through bravery and kindness, or through solidarity with another lonesome human being. I don't know.

I got back there as soon as I could. I was on the train calling her to not move the dog herself some half an hour after she woke me up at 6:30. I felt guilty I didn't get there earlier. I had to get ready for work and prepare the place for the furniture movers. When I got in front of her apartment, I saw her getting out of her car. Good, I can still be helpful to get the dog down.

The dog looked different this time. More at peace. She said there had been more seizures but each was a lot calmer. We carefully carried the helpless creature down the building using a yoga mat. The scene was a little surreal for me. For someone who never really liked dogs (another reason I didn't really like this woman), he was trying to help one get to some peaceful place soon. All this time my friend didn't cry. She was visibly tired, exhausted. After we put the dog in the backseat and made room for her to sit in the back with the dog, she took out a cigarette and started smoking it, one from the pack I bought her. It was only the second time in my life I bought a pack of cigarettes, and neither time it was for myself. Prejudices eroding.

She started talking about her family. When to meet them. Plans with the vet. She thought her best friend would leave as we would be driving to Connecticut.

Then the seizure came. She threw away her cigarette and held down the dog again, kissing her, just as the many times I saw her do the previous night. I caressed one of her knees, again feeling the grief she was. It was true, the seizure wasn't as violent like last night's. But then something new I observed. I even stupidly said it, "Her pupils are dilating." And they continued to dilate. I realized the back of a dog's eye is this emerald green. The breathing got quieter. And before I knew what was happening, I saw my friend bury her face in the fur of her best friend and started crying out loud for the first time.

It was a dramatic death like in the movies, the only reference I had until now. And in the movies, it was always about people. But here, the grief is just as poignant even if not everyone involved was a person. I rested my head on my friend's lap and told her how sorry I was for her.

Yes, she had to go before one last car ride. A car ride that seemed so normal. We had to find a gas station. And I got us lost, of course (I had to be the one driving). But in getting lost we found a gas station. Every now and then as the driver I was reminded that there was death behind me when my friend extended her hand to touch what used to be her best friend. Every now and then I caressed my friend, held her hand tight, when I sensed the overflowing of tears. But overall, it didn't seem like a car ride of tragedy. There were two major traffic jams. I was late to work. And we talked a lot. Mostly about how much fun she and her best friend had, and while there were some sad words, mostly it was remembrance and jokes that I have mentioned at the beginning.

But when she drove off in front of my office building, when her face was contorted by grief just as dramatic as the dog's body was contorted by the last seizure, I felt the pang of the atmosphere she did very well to dispel while we were in the car. I felt a little guilty that I couldn't stay with her longer. I felt a little guilty that because of my presence she couldn't fully grieve yet. But I felt somehow at peace, even content in this moment of anguish, that I finally did the right thing these past twelve hours. I finally looked beyond my own petty grief, my own self-pity, and went to help someone I didn't really know, to whom I shared a sense of solidarity but nothing much else. And in return I wanted nothing. I believe the selflessness exists in me, but when I am going through so much of my own grief, boiled in my own anger and tears, I lose faith that I can really reach out to others and be the good person I want to be.

"I was telling my sister last night that during this hard times there are people I was hoping to help me but didn't, but then there were people I didn't expect to help me showed up. And you're one of them," she said while I was sitting on the floor with her Monday night. I wasn't sure if she was referring to the move or the dog, but with me, of course, it was about the dog.

I couldn't do everything I wanted to do for her. But I am glad I could do the right thing given the little time I have and the walls I have built myself behind. She is still grieving. I call her everyday to check on her. I don't find her mumbles, her smoking, her shyness, her awkwardness annoying. I see those attributes as parts of her to embrace. By luck, I was there for her so she wouldn't be alone the moment of farewell from her best friend. I see this as a sign that connections in life are always the right thing to do.

Pull down the walls. Walk on water to cross the rivers. All the pettiness, all the excuses to shut yourself in, are really small compared to the grandeur of a human connection. I look forward to spending more time with her. Her life will be much more different from what she had envisioned before the cancer diagnosis. I think she now trusts that she has at least one person to count on in the same borough of this new city we both claim as our new home.

Second entry of the day

This is the second entry. I don't have internet at the new place because New York moves at the speed of incompetence. At least with Time Warner cable internet.

So I won't be writing often. I want to go to sleep after more packing. I knew that I would always underestimate how much there is to pack!

Tonight the plan, as the previous blog said, was to go back to NYC and dance, either at my favorite Sunday night milonga or this one where I get to be in a movie. Such is New York. But in the end, as I mentioned, I decided to stay in and "finish" packing (which didn't come true). I went to have dinner with that friend, the only real male friend I have made and nearly lost. We had a great chat. And I was trying to be brave. I mentioned that girl, his first true love and his first great disappointment, the one that I dated a year after she broke his heart. I could see awkwardness on his face when I mentioned her, even though, as he said, with a smile, that it's been four years. Has it been four years? Time flies.

My intention wasn't to provoke him unnecessarily. I wanted there to be no boundaries. True friends have no boundaries, doesn't understand conditions, rejects rules. I crossed boundaries that are now old, meaningless. We talked about tango, about philosophy, like when we were having our weekly lunch meetings a few years ago, just before he found out I was interested in his ex-girlfriend.

One thing I tried to explain to him was this spectrum of friendship, with one end being more like acquaintances, people who would hang out with you and have fun, but on the other end, I tried to explain, was where those handful of friends who make a difference in your life. They aren't like family in the sense that they sync with you, intellectually, emotionally, even, compatible with you even if there are differences. And like family, they won't leave you. No matter what. That's how I feel about my best friend in London. How I feel about my two friends here. We can miss each other through time and distance, but their existence makes my life better. Simple as that.

And one thing he tried to explain to me that got me thinking was this idea of emptiness. I learned the hard way that you can't expect anyone to fill that void in you, that emptiness you started carrying since childhood, most likely starting with some fault of your parents. I learned that when you lean on someone to do that you would quickly lose that person. So I thought, well, I guess I will have to find a way to fill it myself. But then he suggested that you don't even try that. Just live, and let the emptiness fill itself. What an idea! Not sure how much I agree yet.

So we exchanged these thoughts. I realized I would miss him too.

There was one more border to cross. It was old too. I paused from eating my sandwich and apologized to him for being so immature a few years ago when I dated his ex, and for being so immature to delay this apology. He smiled and told me that he had long forgiven me, and that his apology was not to have the maturity to understand my natural desires to be with someone. We smiled. We crossed that bridge, that border. There was nothing left in the past.

The past haunts you. But not always in a way that you obviously want to erase. In cleaning my room for preparation for that subletter, the most prominent items are from or related to the woman of my most recent drama. I found the flag she had made me for my last birthday. I thought it was funny that it is white on one side, as if it were a surrender, or at least, asking for a talk. On the other side was lots of blue lines, reminding me of the Greek flag, flag of a piece of her own past that was a thorn in our relationship. I wasn't sure what to do with it. The most obvious thing to do is throw it away, or better, burn it, since I am so dramatic. But I decided to keep it, not for hopes of the future, of which there is none left, but a sweet memory of the past, to remember that despite the callousness and selfishness of her behaviors, there was also a lot of love. For this reason I kept the two notes she had left me over the span of this tumultuous year: one left before she disappeared to the other side of the Atlantic for a few months, and one on Valentine's Day when she left me sweets.

The guy friend sent me an email very late, after we went to my last Yale practica, after I was done packing. He repeated what a dancer told him tonight, that when I danced with her when she had just started, she was "whisked away" and fell in love with tango. It was sweet of him to tell me this on a weekend that reminded me how lonely I was except with my demons. He then went on to remind me that I was a good person.

To keep that flag, those two notes, and whatever else I find, and to keep all the other memories of other women who have failed to give me what I wanted, memories in the form of dried up roses, of a heart of stone on which "Hope" was carved, to keep all these isn't being sentimental, isn't living in the past, but rather, is to dilute, bit by bit, the ugly memories with the nectar of the good ones. Whatever have been the reasons for these women's failure to see who I was, they gave me in their own ways happiness that I don't wish cynicism to spoil.

In the end, as I said in the last entry, and as I can even more surely say now after meeting with this guy friend, that friendship in the end is what counts, beyond the drama, beyond the sadness and the hopelessness, friendship and family are the only things that can pierce all that cloak of darkness. I am feeling more ready to go back to New York, even without my fantasies fulfilled, with good memories and strengthened hope.

Clumsy but Moving

I want to sell my car but the car is here in New Haven while the title is in New York! Smart.

I have stumbled in many ways during this move, which is still happening. I am not always thinking. And part of the problem is that I not 100% ready to leave the little town.

And today I realized I wasn't 100% ready to be in New York. My moving buddy (the third one now, one for each moving trip) and I walked around Sunnyside, the neighborhood where I am starting to live. It was a warm warm day, 77 degrees (23 Celcius for this Canadian woman), and lots of sun. It's Easter Sunday so you get to see fully the family-orientedness of the neighborhood.

But walking around I couldn't enjoy it 100%. My friend repeatedly expressed her jealousy that I was living here, in this wonderful neighborhood, while she was still stuck in our little town. I tried to feel good. But I realized at one point we were in Woodside, in fact, in front of the block where the man who's currently involved with the woman I had just severed contacts with lives. (I hate in English you have to put the verb after a long relative clause.) My mood changed.

Then I felt stupid. On this day of the rebirth of the Lord (at least Christian's lord), when the sun was shining as if even God wanted me to cheer up and motivate me, where everyone was dressed up and laughing with their family, I was dragging the weight of my own self-pity. Guilt or not, I made us turn the corner and walk back to Sunnyside. I have nothing against that man, who unfortunately is closer to me than most tango men. But being there, in front of probably his building (I have never visited him but were told approximately where he lived when he showed his excitement for my proximity), I felt the rage that in the end the fairytale didn't happen to me, the fairytale of moving to New York and have a girlfriend to visit me on weekends. That happened to someone else with the same girl. The rage, as always, subsided quickly, but I realized, Easter or not, Rebirth or not, I wasn't ready to embrace this neighborhood of mine.

Not yet.

But how? How to embrace this neighborhood? How to stop feeling the pain? How to enjoy being alone? It's not like I can snap out of it! Take some cold medicine, go to bed, and wake up being all rational, all happy and optimistic.

Two days ago a friend told me basically that the one thing that could make me even more attractive was if I embraced my immigrant identity. She is very comfortable with her Latina identity, and that comfort translates to a hot woman, great attitude, that self-love radiates out, the same self-love another friend of mine said we must have before we expect others to love us. That is something I will work on with this new life that starts today, Easter Sunday. It will be helpful to live in New York because my family will be part of the equation to solve this problem of the legacy of immigration.

Forgiveness of myself. I reread my last blog entry, and I could see how much I was upset with myself for having wasted a year with that woman. I forget that we are always doing our best, and that given the same situation, we would not behave differently. With that thought I made some peace with the last birthday, the last Valentine's Day, the many beautiful things that happened between me and her that can't be erased by all the turmoil. Forgiving myself a little would help me find some peace, and finding some peace would help me forgive myself more.

I am alone now in my messy apartment in the little town. I was not planning to stay tonight, but I realized I almost stumbled again, thinking I could drive back here, pack more, clean, and then take the train back to New York for dancing before five hours of sleep. I needed peace, especially today, Easter Sunday, day to forgive myself, at least a little, for the transgression I committed to myself, for being less than the happy person I want to be. But the demons came back.

In the darkness of my apartment, those same demons were sitting among the mess on one of my bad futons. "What are you going to do tonight?" "Are you afraid to go back to New York and face another empty apartment with no friends in the neighborhood?" "Your friends here are all busy with something." "Maybe you should email that 'woman' and tell you how sorry or angry you are, either way, you need the attention."

The heart shrivels up like a raisin in the sun. I gave in to the demons, a little, and called one of my friends, to see if she was busy. Yes. Then I felt like a loser. I should be in New York, be strong. "It's for your weakness she doesn't want you. That no one wants you. You think your two closest friends would date you knowing so well by now how weak you are?" I texted the other friend, no answer.

But then something happened. I thought about this man. The same person who came to give me food when I was going through my first vomiting food poisoning a few months ago.

Part of the reconciliation with the identity is reconciling with the fact that I am a man. Not just an immigrant, but a man. In this new life, new city, I will focus on making male friends. The same friend who woken me up to the immigrant reconciliation told me on a different occasion that I needed to have some manly hobbies (I guess stamp collecting is out of question). In my shame of being associated with sleazy, perverted men, I have stunted my growth as a man to the point where only now, at the gate of 37th year, I have started to see what manliness hidden in me that I want to express, even flaunt.

I made an attempt to be close to a man once, but then I ruined it by dating the person he thought would be his wife. Even though I committed this sin a year after their breakup, I see now how insensitive an act it was. If I can accuse this woman of insensitivity for telling me about her current romantic involvement at a time of my stressful move, I need to first look in the mirror and see what I have done to others.

And so, this being my last Sunday in New Haven, my little town, I called up this man. We are closer now than for over a year during which he refused to talk to me. But we are not like before. And while I don't believe we ever will be close like then, on this first day of my new life, I called him up to meet for dinner before our Sunday practica. I have never done that, not even when we were close, during which time we would call each other up for lunch. But dinner, just us, a new step. He was receptive to the idea. He didn't have that coldness in him that I have gotten used to when he has spoken to me. And after I hung up, I felt the tide of peace rising a little higher.

In the end, friends matter more than anything else outside your family. More than the people you date, the people you flirt with, the people you think have a deep connection. Choosing the right friends is important, but so is keeping your mind open about who could be your friend.

When I am feeling connected to my friends, few as they may be, I can face those demons sitting among the mess. I don't have to be afraid of being alone. When this friend agreed to have dinner with me, I got happy not because I was rescued from another night of loneliness. My joy was from this extra level of peace. It is, for now, enough to make me embrace Sunnyside more, to care less that that woman's new man lives just five blocks from me. To embrace my new home that has always been my home, to embrace my past, my culture, my manliness. I need my friends, but not necessarily their physical presence. I need that energy that binds us and, paradoxically, allows us therefore to be free. Free of demons.

Holy Week: A Rebirth

Easter for me is about a new start from some old origin. A rebirth. Whether it's the pagan tradition or the Christian one, it is originated from celebration of spring, the season when new life comes from the old soils dormant over the winter.

Two days ago I completely severed contacts with that woman I've had a very rocky and rough relationship with over the past year. I could talk about all the sentimental stuff. About last April, when we started "dating", about my birthday that is coming soon that reminds me of last birthday when she stayed with me, making it the best birthday ever. I can mope about the loss of these few good things that are often overshadowed by the turmoil that marked this past year.

But instead, I want to talk about a different April. It is the April of 2008. Or was it 2007? I think 2007. Doesn't matter. Time flies fast with all this drama.

(I just realized the shampoo I bought is called "Clean Drama", how characteristic!)

It was the wedding of my then-best friend's sister. My sister and I were invited, and I was at my best friend's apartment. She had just moved to New York City, her hometown. When she was planning to move back there, she had expressed desire for me to go with her. She didn't explicitly say that we should start dating, but I can bet that that was in her mind. She didn't dare to explicitly say so because for a while now I was interested in someone else. We went to China prior to her move, and there was a bit of drama there, too. After that the drama continued on and off. I was in some ways irresponsible in leading her to believe that she could have what she wanted. What did she want? To move to New York with me, to start a new life with me. At the time I didn't truly understand how high that expectation was: to move with someone, to start a new life with someone. And so I didn't really pay attention to the effect of disappointment. Not that I would have fulfilled her expectation had I understood the impact of the disappointment, but rather, I would have been more sensitive.

She was becoming needy. She wrote letters to me, telling me how great I was. But little by little, the tone darkened. She wanted to blame me for something, but ultimately, she would blame herself for everything. I remember going to dinner with her at the Afghan restaurant near where she lived. I remember needing to catch the 10:40PM train back here, and seeing her disappointment that I had to leave, and remembering how I was tortured between going home in time and not disappointing her.

Her move was not smooth at all. I can't complain about mine (though worse things could be waiting for me). She bought this co-op with the full expectation to resettle in her home town. But being New York, the situation was hardly smooth; the seller didn't even show up at the closing. She was upset. Another friend and I were there for her, to witness her frustration. But even more tortuous, she encountered bed bugs in her apartment. She needed my help every weekend. I was glad to help, but what I didn't like was the feeling that nothing I did was enough. No matter how much I helped, she always found some reason to be disappointed, and I can say that trying to help someone 1.5 hours away driving, which I hate, is not easy. She was tortured by the neediness and the guilt of neediness.

To make things seemingly infinitely worse, she started getting sick. She was having trouble walking. It would become progressively painful to walk a few months after she moved in. She really needed my help, but perhaps more, my presence. That was when she was writing a lot of letters to me. Love and torment. I have all those letters. I sometimes read them to remind myself of the complications of life, often reading them is very liberating. The last letter, after about eleven, she told me I couldn't be close to people, that I didn't know how to be close. It was true, of course, but later in life I realized that's the problem with a lot of people in this world.

A little after that I found myself in her living room along with other people, getting ready for her sister's wedding. She was having trouble walking. Everyone had to be patient and walk little steps with her. With the exception of a brief encounter, that day was the last day I saw her. I was not really thinking about her, just enjoying being happy. I was happy because I was going on a trip with this girl I met in tango. We were going to the West Coast, to San Francisco. Actually, we weren't going anywhere long. She was going to the Southwest on a tour, and I was just flying with her to spend a few nights in San Francisco and then we would part ways before meeting up again in Los Angeles. I would be visiting the deserts of Southern California for those few days. I was excited. Not really for the trip since I have been to San Francisco, but rather traveling with a woman I was attracted to. I wanted to share my excitement, and I made the mistake of doing so in front of her. After that day she wrote one more email to me explaining how crass it was that I should mention my trip in front of her on the day of her sister's wedding. Her sister is younger than her, but she always managed to succeed much better in the realm of romance, success that culminated now on wedding an amazing man. My then-best friend always carried the baggage of being the older sister destined to become a spinster. So it was already stressful enough to have to be the maid of honor on her younger sister's wedding, and my expressed excitement made her feel even lonelier, poked directly at her deepest insecurities.

I didn't understand this then. In fact, I was very defensive, not understanding why it was wrong to share my excitement with people I cared about. Perhaps it's karma, but I have gone through not a few of the same experience but from her side. How many times has a "friend" tried to tell me something great about her romantic life knowing very well that I had feelings for her? Of course, I was never in a devastating situation as my then-best friend was that April, three years ago, or four. I remember this woman telling me she wasn't interested in dating me because she was having trouble feeling connected to Asians, but a few weeks later, she told me in the same kitchen bar stool that she was dating this Asian man. Now this woman was telling me just a month ago that she wasn't ready to date anyone, and tells me two days ago she was dating someone, and not just anyone, but someone I know. And part of her motive was to quash any remaining hopes I have for "us." Between this current woman and that Asian-dating one a few years ago, there were others. I want to be upset with these people, but I realize I did something not so dissimilar that April three years ago.

My then-best friend no longer writes back to me. She didn't even bother to tell me to stop contacting her, which I did on many occasions over the years. She simply disappeared from my life. I was upset with her for throwing away a friendship that started in high school. But I also understand that sometimes, even the most cherished relationships backed by years of love and drama would need a break, long, perhaps even indefinite. The trouble with the break with this current woman is that I will see her and the guy if I want to keep dancing tango. I have always suspected something was happening, and that suspicion alone always tortured me, turned me into some sort of twisted, needy monster that I didn't like. Now that it's official, to me at least, it is slightly different. I no longer am tortured by the uncertainty, the hope that my suspicions were wrong. But at the same time, the certainty means all my love is stripped away, from her as well as for him, whom I also know quite well. And with her, once all the love is stripped away, the only thing left is all the resentments, all the hatred that brewed over the past year.

I could feel sorry for myself that her insensitive declaration of her news in her private life came at a stressful time in my life. Came over Easter when I need the peace Easter offers. Came a week before my birthday, a time that reminds me of how she made me feel beautiful last birthday, in contrast to the romance-less ones before. I could do all this, but then I would be too self-centered. I have done something similar to what she did to someone I loved much more than this woman loved me. There must be some explanation for all this craziness. Knowing I have wrong someone in the past doesn't exactly help me feel good about being the victim of a similar act.

What is important now is counting the positive parts of a given situation. It is Easter. It is a time to remember that it's possible there exists a loving God who sacrificed his own son to spread love to a world so full of walls. I am moving back to the city I love, and to let one woman and her news ruin the excitement is silly. And in my move I am not totally alone. I have a good handful of people to help me, more emotionally than physically.

I still woke up this Good Friday feeling sad. Woke up thinking about this woman that I never wish to speak to again. And the rational side of me knows how wrong she is in my life, how it would really have been better if she had refused to date me in the beginning and we would never had anything to do with each other this whole past year, how it was a real waste this entire year trying to court her, to prove to her my worth, when I am worth a lot more than what she could give me. But then the sentimental side can't let go of last year's birthday, let go of the late night talks we had, but more harmful, though, is can't let go of the expectations built for her because she never fulfilled any of them. I wake up every morning feeling alone because she isn't there. Now I know that she wakes up sometimes with someone else. How will I ignore that thought when I see them? Tango is full of these love triangles, and people seem to get over it. So must I.

The best thing that has happened to us is, strangely, this insensitive piece of news she had given me. In the past, the only way to stop the cycle of drama with a woman who refused to reciprocate and with whom I refused to be just friends is such news. No emails, no schemes, no tricks could stop the cycle. But the news that she is dating someone is the surest way for me to cut off everything. Even though I will likely have to tolerate the sight of them together, I hope soon I will move on and truly forget about her. In much the same way my then-best friend has moved on and unlikely to think much about me.

Slowing down for a Friend, or Two

I was so sleepy sitting there listening. But I was listening. I was alert to the story, brief as it was, just two sentences, about how one of my art friend's visitors met her grandfather who despite having suffered stroke before that meeting he still managed to behave like the man so of life before the incident that left him speechless. The gentleman was defined by his exuberance and love for life, he was always talking but not talking in the way that he was trying to get attention, but in a way of sharing love with others. Through my art friend I learned all the crazy stories he had experienced across the Americas. Though I was quiet there, tired from just a single sip of whiskey more than an hour earlier, I was re-inspired by a hero I had never met (and never will, sadly). He is a hero since I got to know him for the simple fact that he loves life, he was crazy about it, and even having been struck down by a stroke, he showed all the love he could to a stranger he had never met before.

I thought about myself (of course). I can identify with him. I love to laugh, to make my friends laugh, love to take things easy, while trying to learn everything I can about life, whether it's pragmatic things like investment or understanding ways to be close to people, like listening. I know I have trouble when it comes to romance, an area that manages to provoke the marginal but significant piece of me that makes me the opposite, the dark person who is sullen and never smiles, the Mr. Hyde that is paranoid and petulant. But it's all the more reason I was happy to be reminded of this hero, because a piece of me is that hero, and the challenge is to make the rest of me like that. I am not trying to be someone else; I am trying to be the good of me all the time, everywhere, with everyone.

So I didn't move to New York. I wanted to. I was a little anxious when my friend who said would accompany me disappeared for the afternoon. I got upset with myself for relying on anyone, for trusting anyone besides myself. Moreover, I was upset that I needed anyone, that I couldn't be like most people in the world who do have to move alone, who have no one to count on. I remember that night, the night that inspire that crazy short blog entry a couple of days ago, the night when I just walked away from that woman, never turning my head, let alone saying goodbye or giving her a hug. The reason I was so upset with her was that she gave up on life, on me, and decided to move alone, that life really sucked and it was best to rely on yourself. I was there, waving my arms crazy for her to see that she wasn't alone, but she refused to see me. She saw life as it was: a desert where the only shadow was your own.

I didn't want to be like her. She is someone who has always been lonely and likely remain so. I admire her for being a survivor, for overcoming many obstacles in a life of poverty and as a woman that needs to work harder for the same recognition as men just because she wears a bra. But this individualist mentality is closely knit with the defeatist ideology that you must rely only on yourself and trust no one. I don't want to be like that.

But this afternoon I saw myself starting to believe it when faced with the perspective of driving to New York alone. I would have done it if no one told me they would be supportive and come with me. Now having gained that confidence and then just lost it inexplicably, I felt resentful.

But life has its little tricks. Good tricks. I had a mini-epiphany. I wondered, why was I rushing to get to New York. Why was I setting myself up for anger and cynicism. Where is the love? I took the day off mainly to be there for my art friend's critique. Her final review. It didn't go so well, it seemed; they were very harsh on her. I could see on her face how nervous and upset she was. I know her enough now to read her face. But when it was over, I realized she had to be at other critiques, until the end. I couldn't talk to her. So I hugged her and left to what I thought was the start of my move. I felt a little empty leaving the gallery where the critique took place. I came home and felt disconnected. And only after I vented to another friend about how I should never rely on anyone to be supportive, I realized I didn't have to rush, but rather, spend as much time as I could with those I loved. So I invited myself to spend time with my art friend and her visitors, most of whom I knew. And that's what we did. I didn't say much, partly because of the one sip of whiskey followed by half a glass of weak beer, but partly they were all talking mostly about art. But I felt good being with her. I could see why the critique was a very sensitive event for her, explaining why she is always very hesitant about inviting friends over; it's a tough moment that only those she trusted or wanted to trust more should show up.

One of the things her friend, the one who saw her grandfather, also said was something like this. "When you travel with someone, somewhere tough, and they stick with you, you know you have someone special in your life. You don't find someone like that often. Somewhere tough, not like in Paris, though the French can be very mean. But like in India." I thought about that girl again, the one that I didn't say goodbye to. We were in India. We stuck together. Not long before we parted without a goodbye, we were sitting by her new air conditioner. She said to me, "Here we are again, by the AC." Yes, in India we were being boiled, I got sick for two days from a minor heat stroke. The electricity came on about ten minutes every half an hour, and the heat rushed in after each shutdown of the AC within one minute. We both sat in front of the AC because it was too weak to cool even our bedroom. We survived that hell hole. Together. I was touched that she remembered such minor detail. We went through a lot without killing each other, but rather, helped each other. But then, look where we are now, how we couldn't even garner the courage to turn around and run across the street to the other person and give that person a hug. What keeps people from loving each other? What is the price of pride we are willing to pay? My friend's friend was a little wrong about French being mean (just to tourists, I guess), and probably wrong too about how a tough trip could prove the endurance of a friendship.

For now, I have my art buddy. Thanks to the absence and flakiness of the other friend, who disappeared because she got a huge headache, I was able to take a step back and see what really counts in life. Cheesy as it might sound, what really counts in life is love. Love not only for your friends, but more importantly, for life. It's that love that makes me love laughing, love listening, love to love. Someone told me she used to give $20 to charity even when she was a poor student who could use that money for a minor luxury like concerts that would make her happy. But she understood that that same amount of money would make someone out there even happier. That's love for life, manifested in the love for someone even more distant than a stranger. So next time I want to feel grumpy and upset about something related to romance, I hope to remember that at least I am someone who loves life, that nothing is worth taking that away.

Compartments and boxes

I went to look for boxes. Everyone has more or less failed me, friends, even boyfriend of sister, all told me they would get me boxes but in the end they couldn't find any.

So like most things in life, I had to do it myself!

I went to one place I knew I could get in and knew where the boxes where: the Medical School. I spent five years working there, or nearby. I knew the labs. It was where I started my English Conversation, an eight-year commitment that outlasted tango, though that commitment ended when I started the new job. I didn't make friends there, except my best friend. Yes, that Spanish girl who walked in with those big brown eyes and I was enchanted.

I was aware that I was roaming right below the corridor where her lab used to be. How many times I had waited for her, patiently. How many nights. As I have mentioned in one of the entries, there were plenty of drama between us, expectedly, but still, there was even more love. We had many fights where we didn't talk to each other for weeks (more like she didn't want to talk to me for weeks). Then we always found the walls really thin after a short period of time and we broke them down with big smiles. We were both very proud people, refusing to budge. But we really loved each other. She isn't around anymore. She has a loving boyfriend. We don't talk for more than once a month. But she's still my best friend. And being there, in those sad-looking halls of the competitive laboratories, the smell, the sight, the way the staircases were designed, so many memories.

Why can't I just write books with those memories instead of letting them make me so sentimental?

I found boxes, a lot, enough for tomorrow's move.

But I still hated being in the med school. I always get sad. I don't know why. I really don't.

I stopped by the architecture school because that was where my art buddy said I could find lots of boxes. I had enough boxes already, but I was greedy. I had never been to the new architecture school before. It's beautiful, really. Why do I still discover new gems in this little town that has apparently taken up so much of my life? I didn't find boxes, but I found this gem. The discovery made me sad too, but in a different way from how the medical school made me sad.

I thought about my excessive complaints about being alone, having to do things alone. I think those who hear them must think I am a weakling, but then they don't really know me. I don't know many men who have done and overcome what I have done. I am sure there are plenty of men out there who have done far more, but either I am surrounded by sissy men or I am not as weak as my complaints suggest. I like to complain with people I trust. I actually don't complain much unless I have decided that such person was within my circle of trust. I believe in a form of complaining. You gotta complain to someone if you need to complain. Not like you can complain to a mirror and expect the same results.

I went to the gym after the scavenge hunt for boxes. Would this be my last gym visit here? I don't know. I think I got tired of noting everything "last time." I am still not excited about going to NYC. Partly because I know I will once I get there. Partly because it is my home, and I am more emotional than excited to be going back "home" for this boy with nearly no roots. Partly because it's difficult to leave here, more than I thought. It's difficult because of the mountain full of memories. It's difficult because my heart is heavy with the lead of the recent separation from someone I really care about, even love. I am less afraid of the future (quite welcome it) than sad about the present. I don't know what a non-sad departure looks like. To have a girlfriend? So I can come back every now and then? Not sure if that makes a big difference. One woman can't be expected to buttress the cathedral of my memories, each stone cut with so much joy and sorrow.

Now I have boxes. I get to decide what to put where, the compartments of my life, filled with different facets, different interests. I have two shoe boxes of letters from friends. I don't get many letters, actually, not anymore. Before the internet became a social tool, I got a lot of letters. Now I write a lot of letters to those who never write me letters, but I guess they don't know how to use the pen anymore, not only to write, but to express themselves. I am still a traditionalist; I write. I write so that the reader takes the time to think about what I write and give in to the urge to respond as text messages and emails allow. Those two shoeboxes are memories too. I also have a bunch of letters I wrote but never sent out. They are almost all angry letters. Letters I wanted to send. Most of them even have stamps on them, waiting to be sent out. But in the end, after I have vented, I decided to keep the letters.

There are lots of things to pack up. Some will go to my apartment half the size of where I live now. Many will go to story, in the basement or my parents, or just get sold, thrown away.

I am accompanied by friends on this move, both friends from here, friends in New York, and friends and family elsewhere. But I wonder, I can't help wondering, what it's like starting this move with someone I love sitting in the car with me. I don't mean a close friend of mine who will be coming with me, a generous act that I will forever be indebted to her, and so I am not being ungrateful. I just wonder what it really is like if my fantasy came true, that the girl I love loves me back enough to go down with me, be the first to see what my new life looks like.

That won't happen. Not this time. But I still wonder. It would be an interesting piece of memory for the future.

Moving, always Moving

Yesterday's post is weird. Probably also very incomprehensible.

It was one of my survival techniques.

No, I wasn't hanging over a cliff, caught between a lion and a crocodile, nothing like that. If only my life had real drama instead of those I make up with which to entertain myself and usually one other person.

Again I had to say "goodbye", and again to the same person. So instead of letting the pain get to me and make me do something stupid like trying to undo the goodbye and contact that person, I decided to let my mind fly in the course of a farewell with a different person. By "letting my mind fly" I mean just letting it go wherever it wanted to. It was much better, healthier, safer for everyone, if I let my mind and heart wander in the land of imaginations and writing than to act it out in real life.

And it worked. Afterward I felt better.

I have other "survival" techniques. Mainly with friends. A friend called me up just after the chaotic piece was written, and we met up for sushi. We shared our thoughts risen from the pain we both bore; though the pain was different for each person, there was too much in common not to let it out and by doing so help the others. My two closest people on this continent are here, in this little town. I will miss them. That friend told me she would miss just extemporaneously show up and go have sushi with me. I am sure I will make great friends in the big bad City. But no friend replaces another. Close friendships are different in many ways, sometimes overlap in their looks, their functions, but in the end, they are, like the people in each, distinct. But one thing all my closest friends have done for me, and me for them, is being part of this "survival" technique. Again, this isn't survival like the "real" ones people in war-torn nations or victims of economic and political misfortunes. This is just a personal one, one that involves families, other friends, and of course, the all-too pervasive theme of love.

This week continues to be one of soul-searching. It is my last week in this little town. I don't really have a lot of time because of work, which I enjoy a bit more every day. This week, however, is squeezed between two major moves.

The first is the weekend that had passed. It was the tango festival that has for the past five years, this being its sixth event, been my favorite festival of all, and I have been to a lot, perhaps too many for my own sake. Now I don't go to festivals anymore. I used to feel negative when New Yorkers told me they didn't need to go anywhere since it was great already in New York. But in some ways I now agree with them. I am tired of the traveling. I am happy to be with the tango people without seeking to get the best dances possible. And every now and then, if I am really bored of the same old people, I can always go to Buenos Aires or one of the mini tango events reachable by land transportation.

In any case, again, I enjoyed this festival very much. And this year I really danced a lot, more than any other year. Saturday night I walked on the dance floor at 11:30PM and left after the last song at 6:30AM. My feet were in so much pain that after three hours of sleep I spent another three hours trying quiet their complaints. Men usually don't have feet pain problems in tango, unless you dance as much as I did.

What makes a festival great? Good dancers is one part. But the atmosphere is another. I suppose I am biased that it's in the medical school, in the town I know. Sadly, and completely my own fault, I hardly danced with most people from my own community. I just wanted to dance with the best dancers for no other reason than feeling good. I felt a little guilty, but oh well. They will live, even if forever I will be branded as a snob.

The people make a difference. And I knew a lot of women there already, after five and a half years of dancing (interrupted only by ill-fated relationships that took me away from tango, which is ironic since all the women involved I met in tango). Saturday night I got to dance my last dance with the Montreal woman I met in Buenos Aires. The one who spent almost every second with me, who spoke almost exclusively in Spanish with me, who made me laugh, and most important of all, who made me realize at that point that there were indeed great women out there who could make me happy, who could be in sync with me. And when I hung out with her and the rest of the gang again for dinner, it seemed that we still had that same connection. So it was very nice to be able to finish a very long night with a wonderful tanda with her. After all, we went to all the practicas together, met the locals together, just a few months ago.

It did not escape my notice of how ironic it was that on the Saturday night performance I found myself purely by coincidence sitting between this Montreal woman and the woman of my current, ending drama. The juxtaposition reminded me that my life need not be black and white, and in fact, it has many facets, many ways of expressing itself. Sometimes I forget that, like when I get so hung up with the drama of the current problem that I can't imagine life otherwise. And here they were, each representing a different thread of behavior in my life, so different. The juxtaposition gave me hope as well as a smile from the irony of the situation.

I say all this to illustrate how a festival isn't just some composite of dances. For me, at least, it brings back a lot of memories, and more important than memories, it puts my present in perspective, much in the way that a hiker takes a break to look back at how much he had accomplished.

The tango fest started this week. And the move to New York will end it. Friday I will pack as much as I can in my little blue car and drive down to Queens, not too far from where my former best friend lives, the one who still doesn't bother to write back to me. Not too far from a whole slew of tango dancers. They are acquaintances, even if some I have spent some time talking to, not just dumb, superficial stuff. But to be a real friend, you have to take some risks. I remember when a tango friend made fun of me for calling her my tango friend and not a real friend, and in that friendly mockery is an understanding of one of my weaknesses: putting things into categories. I was touched by her joke. And even more touched when she told me that I was more than just a tango friend for her. That's when we became close, even though she had moved to another timezone.

I don't think much about friendships in New York. I know there are people I can talk to, even some would be willing to spend time with me. Unlike the past, I am not so eager to spend time with people for the sake of feeling I have people in my life. I am not insecure about myself in terms of family and friends. Thanks to many years of patience of friends who had to endure my insecurities with them, I finally reached a point where I am all right being alone, going to places alone, being happy alone.

I am not completely there yet, of course.

If I had fallen in love with myself, as one of my closest friends here has urged that we all do, I wouldn't have anymore drama in my life, at least not the kinds I make. I wish I could feel secure when it comes to women who come into my life, reject my romantic advances without totally disappearing, thereby giving me unattainable hopes of a reversal of that rejection. In such situations I feel like I was many years ago. The neediness, the tantrum, the anger all flood back.

But to look at the bright side, I don't do this with my friends, and I have a lot of great ones now.

I just started inspecting what I want to move this weekend. It's already 10:30. I am a little apprehensive about the move. Not so much move to New York since there isn't much room there to take my stuff except the most essential. The anxiety is about leaving here, this little town, this big house. Leaving my stuff. Moving them. The emotional charge as well as the pragmatic burdens. I wish I had someone to be here, giving me the emotional buttress and being practical at the same time. But then again, I have moved many times in my life, mostly alone. And what I have learned from those experiences is that I am fully capable of doing just about anything in my life, but friends, and my Dad (the only one ever to help me move in my family), provided emotional support that meant more than the muscles needed to move my boxes.

So, New York, here I come! With a train full of memories and a bigger truck load of hopes.

Those Words of Steel

He sits there inside that car of steel. There's nothing to feel. It is as if feelings were frozen in a compartment that is falling. There is no sound, no orientation, no direction that is obvious until the compartment crashes.

A minor few seconds of bravery. They didn't even bother to say goodbye. The last words are barely visible inside this cage of steel. "So this is the way it is?" "Yes. And for you too?" "Yes." And she continued walking on that sidewalk while he crossed the street, fully aware that there was no embrace, let alone a smile frosted with a goodbye, before their departure, and that it was precisely because of the cold, inflexible nature of this departure that made its finality obvious. They won't see each other again, and it wasn't because she was moving away. She was moving away far enough that no sentimental regrets could just push them back together. Distance was never great enough if two people really cared about each other. But it wasn't about lack of love here. It was something else that made neither one of them turn even a little.

For a minor few seconds he felt satisfied. He felt he did the right thing. They hadn't seen each other for over six months, and then a few weeks ago they started talking. There was no bad blood, it seemed. He had always been like this, since he could remember. He would be resentful if someone hurt him even a little. And hurt in a specific way, hurt him by making him think he wasn't loved. He would not forgive that person, or he told himself so. But then much sooner than he expected, a simple connection would bring a warm smile back to him, and to the other.

So a few weeks ago they started spending time together again. He knew she was leaving, but he felt he could live the moment, give all the love he felt for her and not worry about phantom consequences. It was a departure from when they were having many nasty fights, where he demanded to know, basically, the future, to know she would stand by him, never disappoint him. For those few weeks, they were truly friends who didn't care what any of this meant, caught up the past as simply stories to share, and shared visions of personal future while dispensing advice.

How did all that become this cold, unbending departure?

Now he sits in this cold cage of a car already filled with the late autumn air that chills the bones. Then a truck, made of much harder steel, much thicker, much more weathered and colder, strikes his meager cage with the full force of regret. His fleshy, fragile body is completely disintegrated. The compartment of feelings finally has crashed after a long free fall onto the hard surface too familiar but still amorphous and ineffable. And in this explosion of feelings, the disintegration of the self, he discovers not some amazing truth, but rather, simply, that nothing made sense. The regret makes no sense. The nature of departure makes no sense. The stubbornness on both people makes no sense. That the two people care about each other can find no room in their love makes no sense. In this void that is created from his former entity there are no words, just, at most, the evaporating ether of feelings.

It helps a little that he calls his friend and complains how painful it is. But he can't explain anything. Can't think. All the time, the only image is the departure. Watching himself walk away, walk across the street, not turning back, not for one last look because that resembles too much like the movies, refusing to admit sentimentality, refusing to give in. He still believes he is right. He believes she was wrong. And the divide in their opinion apparently has bridge built by any perceived, at least, love.

After hanging up the phone, he calms down a little. The atoms are finding their relative addresses, little by little. And he thinks, maybe there was never really a lot of love. Maybe love is just a feeling, not some force that can build bridges, that can bend steel. It certainly has no words, can't put letters together to say sorry, to wash away pride. Whatever it was that allowed them to be so casual, so caring for a few weeks is best left as some mystery not worth investigating.

He turns on the engine now that the pieces are slowly assembling themselves. The engine starts. He drives farther away from her.

Another "Last" Something

Last night started the sixth tango fest in this little town of ours. My first tango festival was this one, six years ago, just when I started. Every year I hosted someone, and it seems that as each year passed by, I hosted fewer and fewer people. This year I have just one person, a tango friend and a brilliant tango teacher. Less stressful.

This is the last time I am hosting someone. Next festival, if there is one, and if I actually go, I will need someone to host me. By then I won't really know anyone. Everyone I know will have moved from the city proper by then . So much can happen in just one year.

Last year I was just starting to become interested in someone. I still remember the anxiety, the anticipation, the nervousness, of seeing her. She wasn't here for the whole festival because of personal obligations in New York. I still remember dancing with her on the first night that she was here. She had just started. Then I hadn't been to Buenos Aires yet. And since then, I have been twice. I mention this to show so much, even within the confines of tango, has happened. And so much drama between that woman and me. Traveling to the West Coast is a big event, but there had been a plethora of smaller incidents. Now we are hardly talking.

But we danced last night, for the first time in what feels like a long time. We were friendly too.

Last year one of the tango friends stayed at my place, among three other people. She slept on a slowly-deflating air mattress in my room. So odd to think about that now. What was a woman doing in my room, but not in my bed? That was before my birthday. Before she got very involved in my birthday celebration only to go home alone because I wanted to be with that other woman. Now she has a boyfriend she's crazy about, crazy enough to go on a bigger adventure in life with. I don't regret not being interested in her. First, you can't really control who you are interested in, you can only be mature about knowing what you believe is good for you. Second, she wasn't the person for me, and neither was I for her. She was very sweet to me, but we had nearly nothing in common. I remember explaining the tango songs I was learning to her, but she, being also a tango dancer, couldn't understand what the big deal was.

I saw her last night. There were simply too many people. I didn't have a chance to invite her. But she has left an indelible footprint in my walk of memories. She will be leaving for her country in a month. I have feelings about that, but I don't think I will miss her.

Where we danced last night was the same place as a year ago on that first milonga. I didn't really have a best buddy then. My art friend was someone I was just getting to know. Someone I gave rides to pretty frequently. My Latina friend I was not on speaking terms with because in the March before the festival we had a falling out over I don't really know what. But last night I got to dance with her for the last song. Sweet.

I was happy to be there. Despite the memory of drama, I didn't create any drama, even though I was very apprehensive to see a few people who have build plenty of drama with me in the past year, past five years of tango. I just danced the way I wanted, without regards to whose feelings would be hurt, who would benefit most, which is something you end up with a lot pretty frequently in milongas. I just danced.

Tonight is the big night. I don't know how I will dress, exactly. I dressed in a crazy way last night, crazy by my standards, with a sloppily tied tie, open blazer, and even red sneakers. I wanted to be free, and I felt free. It was a feeling I couldn't imagine having last year. I have changed. For the better. But still, part of me still wonders how all this really translates to getting the only elusive thing I want. Part of me understands that the point isn't to chase after the elusive, but rather enjoy the beauty and the elusive will come when she is ready. Part of me understands that until I have fallen in love with myself, I will not actually enjoy a relationship that I have idealized. But then, part of me just wants to throw a tantrum and ask in frustration why I can't have what I want.

What I want today is finding some boxes for packing. Cash my rent checks. Pay my bills. And go to a practica. I would like to spend some time with friends during this festival, but we will see.

Last time I am hosting. So far I am happy. So far, I can let go.

Stepping Back

It's late, again. It's time to go to sleep. Was going to the gym but instead spent some quality time with my best bud here. I am tired of saying "last" this and "last" that. I simply spent time with someone that makes me happy, that's that.

Once again we spoke about how great life is if we can simply step out of the vortex that drives us crazy. In this case, something to do with romance. Really, can another human being's failure to fulfill our expectations of romance make us so crazy? It's not worth it, especially when we aren't in love.

That's what I wanted to add tonight. I was listening to another lecture on Financial Markets. I know, very interesting. But it is. this lecture is about behavioral finance, study of human behavior, usually irrational, in investing. Most of us are risk adverse, meaning we prefer certainty over risks even if mathematically certainty, 100%, is not superior to other probabilities in the way we perceive. But we usually prefer certainty over any other prospect. That already says something about how we behave, not just in investing, but in life. Me, at least. We need an answer. We need black and white. We can't stand living in uncertainty. It's embedded in our genes, it seems, to seek out certainty at all price.

That was the secondary lesson I learned from this lecture. The even more illuminating one is that not only do we seek certainty, but we make such decisions, and many decisions, in compartments of life. When we are faced with a decision that involves $100, we make a huge deal out of it, even though, if you look at the expenditure and income over a lifetime, $100 is really insignificant for most of us not living in poverty. But we are, again, programmed to see every little thing in the small context that it is in, so that every little thing seems so big. Every problem, however insignificant, is viewed as a giant challenge, every pain and unbearable hurdle. This at least is the tendency of human beings, even if we don't all behave like this always. So stepping away from the financial theories again, we see how we just don't see the big picture.

In my case, always grumbling about being single, I don't really appreciate life, or as my sister says, the gift and love of God, when I focus so much on one silly person's rejection and inability to "see" me. It's quite ridiculous to let the behavior of one person upset the balance and peace of my life. It's possible for me to just shrug and accept that not everyone is ready to have me in their life the way I want.

It's funny that my buddy tells me everyone loves me and I really can have any woman I want. I don't take her words at face value. But I'd like to think there's some deeper truth to what she says. In the end, it doesn't matter. My life is put on a silver platter compared to what a majority of the people in the world have. And I am thankful, most of the time, at least, instead of complaining.

Hopping among the Images

It's late, again. Where does all my time go? It's time to sleep.

Tonight was another night of serendipity. My favorite restaurant in this little town is this fancy Spanish place in downtown. I haven't been back since my best friend and I went, and that was when I saw Harrison Ford with his anorexic girlfriend, sitting not too far from me. The Star Wars star was at a shoot for his latest Indiana Jones. They were quiet.

That was nearly three years ago. Since then I never went back. I always took my best friend there. She was the only person I went with.

Tonight one of my closest friends called me up to have Cuban food. That place was packed, and she suggested that we went to this Spanish place. I was so moved I couldn't stop smiling. I totally forgot about this place. Ever since my best friend left, I have buried it under a layer of memories. I never met anyone who expressed interest and desire for Spanish food (that's NOT food from Latin America, as many Americans call Spanish anything, but from Spain). In any case, it was fitting that the last time I go to my favorite restaurant was with someone practically one of my best friends. And to our surprise, it was restaurant week so we didn't have to splurge. It was a very cheap prix fixe. The food was, as always, beyond expectations.

This was just another example of a good piece of memory to leave this town with. Good company, a good place, good food, good piece of the past. Life certainly does not need to be about frustrations, rejections, and drama. Of course, my companion spoke a lot about her drama, and it was nice to see that I am not the only one so full of drama up his nose.

I am baking a quiche. It's late but I wanted to eat up all my food in the freezer and fridge. As soon as that's done, I will go to bed. Another great day at work. The boss actually sat with me and see what I have been up to. I was nervous. Only thing more nerve-wrecking was asking a girl to dance or asking a girl on a date. But it went well, he was encouraging, showed his interest in me being happy at work. I told him I have been genuinely happy, told my friends how happy I was at work. I was, however, surprised at how nervous I was. Being judged. Being measured. All comes back now.

Tomorrow I will have dinner with another member of this little town. It was a colleague from one of the labs I worked at. I bumped into her at the gym. What a coincidence. Another piece of the past came knocking on the door of the present. Why? But I was happy to see her. She was the only one I really felt connected to in that lab, in fact, the only colleague I felt connected to in all my years working here. We even went out once (as friends) to this Indian music event (she is Indian), where I, of course, bumped into that woman with whom I went to India. That mini-drama aside, I felt she was as close to a friend as any colleague could get. Anyway, we decided to meet one more time before my move. So that is what we will do tomorrow. Somehow that makes me happy. Not sure entirely why. But this and other little events are making me feel better and better about leaving. Funny how I haven't felt excited yet about moving to New York, but that's mostly because I don't trust the lease I have and am not getting excited until I actually have the keys to the apartment I saw and start sleeping there. Or perhaps it's just my refusal to think about the immense move. It's huge and scary. It carries a lot of practical challenges but even more burdensome is the psychological ones. Leaving these 8.5 years behind in such ambiguous mood, leaving behind great friends but also carrying so much of the weight of troublesome past. And what do I do with them? My friends. My past. And New York, unlike most places in the world, awaits me with its own set of my past, from childhood, the source of most of my fears and insecurities.

So I am not thinking about that. I am thinking more about leaving here, not starting there.

The quiche is nearly done....

adiós buenos aires

The song I am learning now is "Adiós Buenos". In a few words the song speaks of the yearning for one's neighborhood, the love, the pain of being so far away, every corner brings back memories. But a goodbye is in order.

My little town isn't Buenos Aires, not in the sense that it has the richness of good and bad and everything in between and all the dimensions that overshadow any simplistic evaluation. It is loved only if you have lived here for a while. I wonder if it's like me. You only really appreciate all my potentials if you spend the time, and a long time, to get to know me. Perhaps that's the case for a lot of people. For some people, they only see the surface, they are moved by the physical superficialities, the apparent self-confidence, the false charisma. They can't see me. They can't see the small city they live in because it doesn't have all the interesting theaters or the art galleries. That's most people, really. That's why I don't really have many close friends, and it is with pride and not regret that I have such a small circle of close friends because I am lucky to have found any who "sees" me. One of them asked me what I meant by "seeing" me. I almost told her that she should know since she is one of the few who sees me.

I went to have my car washed by driving through a carwash. For a moment, while inside that water tunnel of soap and huge rotating brushes and noise, I remember how I gave a carwash to my best friend's car, twice, before her return from Europe. She always reminds me of what being in love really felt and meant. I was so happy to surprise her with a clean shiny car, something she cherished a lot because it was the only thing she owned in the world besides her own body. To love someone requires knowing them, more than skindeep. Knowing what makes them happy with the simplest gestures like a 6-dollar carwash.

This weekend was a lot of "last time" events. Another one of my close friends called me dramatic, calling everything "last time." Last time I was washing this car, because I hope I will sell it and never own a car again in a while. It is not without sentimentality I am parting with my car. It is "my" car. Unlike my computer or even my house, my car has been the vehicle, figuratively as well as literally, of many of my memories. Driving down to New York for tango is an obvious piece of memory. But also, all the complicated memories that makes the chapter in this little city so complicated. All the romance, the true ones, the false ones. All the talks, late night. So cold, I remember those late night talks in winters, and yet I didn't want the talk to end. Discussing life, philosophy, sharing each other's past. I remember the first time I told someone what a monster my mother was when she tried to ruin my sister's wedding. That was many years ago, I mean, my telling someone for the first time. That was a turning point in my life because I finally started to share me with others. I wasn't just the listener constantly, I also shared my stories with someone I trusted. It was also in my car that so much anger had transpired. The latest was when a woman walked out of my car in anger, leaving me perplexed and shocked that such histrionic maneuvering actually could happen in real life. I am sad to say that I never made out in the backseat of my car, if one wants to live in a movie. I guess I am never that wild. I guess I am always the talker. But to compensate for this lack of Hollywood imbecility, I have done a few interesting things in the front seats.

Putting aside embarrassing moments, it was in the front seat I held hands with a girl I finally won over after so much struggle (why do women have to struggle so much to give me a chance?). I remember it was a cold and rainy night (sounds like a movie already). We were supposed to go inside a milonga. I was, at least, supposed to return to the milonga. But I stepped outside and never went back in so I could be with this woman. How sweet it was to have someone hold my hands and lean over my shoulders while we both listened to the rain dance on the glass sunroof. That was my car.

When I was vacuuming the car (all this cleaning, mind you, isn't for appreciation of the car, but rather to prep it for its sale), I found hair clips that belonged to one woman and long strands of hair belonging to another. It was as if I was going through the strata of the sedimentation of my life in this little town. And each little token reminds me of some story. And it was not without feelings that I vacuumed those relics into oblivion as I prepared myself for a new chapter.

Leaving this place still is fraught with anger and frustration. I am moving alone. I have friends, of course, and not just the close ones, and they are ready to help me. I am not speaking of moving alone like I did in every one of the moves between college and coming to this little town. I mean, as I was cutting through the strata of my memories, I realized that each layer had its sweet side, but each layer was exactly that, a layer. No woman really stayed behind with me. No one let me stay with them, at least not until it was too late.

But not all strata are about failed romances with fossils of good memories. I remember even recently sitting there in the front seat with one of my closest friends. We were sharing our anger and frustration with imbecilic people in the world who can't appreciate us. It's all subjective, of course, but in the end, through our connection, we were able to find the strength to move on, find the wisdom to make important and difficult decisions. That's perhaps the most beautiful thing about life: making connections with someone you love. This little blue car has been with me through a lot, and I prefer to remember it as the place where important bonds were forged, those of permanent friendships or even those temporary ones, romantic or not, that brought meaning to my life in the past eight and a half years.

Micro and Macro

There's the world inside and there's the world outside.

El mar adentro, el mar afuera. That sea inside you, its own weather, its own profundity, its own superficiality. Then there's the outside, the sea outside.

The brother of a Canadian friend posted on facebook about the continued plight of the Native Canadians, the "First Nation" people, in a country I often find morally superior to the cocky warmongering country I claim my own.

The people in northern Libya continue to have to endure the tug-of-war civil war that is slowly becoming forgotten by us.

Even more forgotten are the African economic and political refugees who use Libya as a springboard to a better life in Europe, now suffering even greater pains and facing greater risks of death with their route cut off by that war.

And even here, in the land of supposed plenty, more and more Americans are finding it hard to meet their basic needs. They aren't living in refugee camps where torture and rape occur in dark corners ignored by the rest of the world, but still, because they are here, their plight more approachable, their story therefore not less moving.

These are the storms, just a tiny set of examples, in the sea beyond, El Mar Afuera. It's easy to read the headlines, on facebook or on the New York Times, about all these depressing events that leave us all roiled up but really in the end we do nothing about it, and that doesn't count those who don't care at all. In my last weekend post, I mentioned discussion with my art buddy regarding the hypocrisy of the self-declared left or progressive people who in the end really do nothing more than venting their frustration and helplessness, and that many of them belittle those who seem not to bear that same frustration and feeling of helplessness.

What about the sea inside? The sea inside seems different and connected in not quite so obvious ways to the violent sea outside. Last night I spent the evening with this woman discussing mostly about he sea inside, though I didn't use that term. The turmoils inside us have everything to do with our inability to cope with the storms outside. To make this claim more concrete, when you haven't found the connection within yourself, you won't find the connection with others, friends, family, or strangers on the beaches of Lampedusa where the North African refugees are stranded between Europe and Libya. Or put it even more simply, when you haven't fallen in love with yourself, you won't really fall in love with another human being, be it a partner or a Palestinian boy born and raised in a refugee camp in Lebanon.

The evening was at times very tough. I realized how much strength is needed to listen. By "strength" I mean really love. Love for a human being, love in the form of self-confidence. The first part has always been obvious to me. When I listen, I put away all my own issues, embrace the person in front of me, take in what they say without being distracted by analyses or worse, judgments. I don't always do a great job, but I get a B+ overall, I think.

But the second part, it occurred to me last night, is tough. It wasn't a new challenge to me, but this time it became very obvious to me. Enough to make me want to re-evaluate my listening capabilities.

This challenge of listening is when the other person is so overwhelmed with the topic that she can't trust I am on her side. In this case, she began to turn defensive, felt very ashamed, felt pain that she couldn't tell if it was caused by me or if it was simply resurfacing. She started accusing me of reaffirming her fears, in this case, the fear of being rejected by people, being a freak, an island. At some point it became a fight, instead of a way for me to be supportive through listening. That's when I realized it was going to be difficult. The major storms in her that were picking up now were also causing weather changes in me. I couldn't just listen; I ended up feeling I had to justify my questions, or even just my presence, my listening to her. It was hard not to feel disheartened when she wanted to give up because my listening was causing so much pain in her. At the same time, my feeling of needing to justify my presence undoubtedly disrupted any sense of safety she originally felt.

In the past this was a problem already when I tried to listen to someone who for whatever reason started talking about difficult issues. They end up challenging me, the listener, causing me to doubt not only my abilities but also my motives. Was I really there to listen or to challenge her? Did I really believe she was a good person as I kept saying or I just wanted to show how bad a person she was? I know my motives are loving, but at the moment, when the person manages to corner me with her own demons, I don't always succeed in realizing it wasn't about me. That the only thing I could really do is be present, listen and show my attentiveness, and not take it personal when a volley of assault drops on me.

To be a good listener can't just be about loving the other person; it has to start with loving yourself first. Maybe sometimes I overestimate my abilities. Still, last night, at the end I walked her home, during which she fell even deeper in her self-hatred and she continued to blame my attentiveness as the reason for this drop in her mood. But I held my ground, I didn't retreat by arguing with her or throwing my hands up. I just listened and told her repeatedly that I was saddened to see her suffer like this. I could see that she didn't really feel alienated from me. She didn't walk into her apartment and left me out there. She stayed a little longer to try to sort out her feelings in front of me. I knew at that point that finally I did something right by not interfering while still listening, not to take anything as a personal attack even if it felt like it, to really stay with her while her storms crushed through the fragile landscape of her world.

I remember one time with my best friend (now ex-best friend). She was the person who taught me over the course of a few years how to listen. But one day she was feeling really down. Felt rejected by the world, extremely hopeless. I didn't know what to do. I just listened but then she said why I was so quiet, why I said nothing. How do you say something without interrupting their feelings, without turning it about yourself, without making them feel defensive? I was nervous. I had no confidence with my listening skills in front of more or less my guru of listening. She asked me to leave. I didn't know what to do. Did that mean she was just giving up on me but really hoping I would stay to challenge the age old pain she had regarding people always leaving her? Or she simply at that point wanted her space? Or both. But when she repeated again in a shout that I get out of her apartment, I left. I was angry, ashamed, hurt, and sad. That was the hardest day in my days of listening to friends.

When you put your ear to a conch, you can hear the sea inside, the sea whence the conch when it was alive had come. When you put your ear to the heart of your friend, your partner, your children, your parent, you hear the tranquility of the sea inside, the sea full of love, the sea that welcomes you to its chest. But when you are standing in front of someone you care about, and you hear only the storms raging inside her, when do you have the strength and the wisdom to hear your own sea?

When you read about the atrocities, the injustices, the brokenness of the world, again, when do you have the strength and wisdom to hear your own sea? Today is a nice day in this little city. I will be leaving soon. And I won't have a place to return to. I will walk around downtown that I know so well. I was driving through the medical campus where I spent many of my years. I remember the drama, I remember the smiles, I remember the sadness, I remember the gratefulness. Nothing changed except that the people in my memory no longer work there.

Whether I am trying to connect to the sea in another person or the sea out there in the world, always, I need to spend some time on the cliffs over my own sea and look into it, look beyond it, smell its wind, imbibe its azure. Every now and then, I take a dive into the deep blue.

Micro and Macro