Rid Me of this Torment

I slept about 1.5 hours. A tango song is in my head. "Quítame de este tormento..." are the words (the song's name is "Fueron Tres Años", or "Those were three years"). The words means "Rid me of this torment". I am not tormented. Not really. But I am thinking about this verse of this dramatic song (typical of tango) as the sun slowly rose.

We saw the big fireball rising over the Grand Central Parkway. We were both sleepy. I slept, as I said, 1.5 hours; she slept none. She said by the time she was ready to go to sleep, she realized she would have to wake up 18 minutes later.

My heart felt sunken. Like a ship looking for treasure it is itself sinking into the depths along with other ships of treasure. It has been seeking treasure when in the end, along with its own undiscovered, unrealized treasure, it sinks to the bottom, too.

After getting out of bed with 1.5 hours of sleep, I found her climbing out of my kitchen window out to the fire escape. No one has ever done that, not even me. She sat out there, alone. I left her alone, her last moment with New York City on this trip.

I didn't dance with her. I avoided her while not making it obvious. I did it out of spite. I wanted her to know.... But no, because I didn't make it obvious, she shouldn't know. I wanted her to miss me. I wanted her to remember that I was one of her top favorite dancers, even though she had never commented directly how much she enjoyed dancing with me. I wanted her to miss me. I wanted her to miss me and in doing so feel sorry that things didn't work out, to feel regretful to have rejected me. She would prefer a boring lame musician over me; and she preferred an unattractive tango teacher who ended up hurting her, than me. From her I learned that I, yes, I, have to get over the reality that a woman will like a man who is unfit for her, and more importantly, in so many ways not as a good fit as I am. Logic cannot prevail when you like someone because you never really have control over whom you like.

So I didn't dance with her out of spite. But I wanted her to miss me. I didn't talk to her much after the milonga. I paid a lot of attention to her friend. And why not? Her friend was flirting with me. It's such a great feeling to have someone flirt with you when you find her attractive. So I look at this woman, this petite musician whose voice managed to grip my heart ten days ago. I look at her and I realize I am fortunate not to have gotten anything out from her because, if I had gone any further, my heart would be now in ruins. It is still in little pieces after the disaster with the last woman, and it doesn't need to be smoking in powder now.

But the farewell was difficult.

There was no drama. I got up 1.5 hours later to take her to the airport, through Grand Central Parkway, where the fiery ball rose imperceptibly before us. There wasn't much talking. My heart was just a bit squeezed. And those Spanish words of that tango song were ringing in my head.

My art friend was frank with me yesterday after getting know this girl a bit more. She said very tersely that I was making myself a third of what I am worth while making her three times what she's worth. She, and my other friend, couldn't understand what I saw in this woman. But she warned that I was doing the same thing again: picking woman whom everyone else liked.

So that was part of the spite from the milonga: there were too many women at the milonga but still she managed to get a lot of dances, everyone liked her for her charm, her body, her smiles, her bedroom eyes.

I complain that it takes too long for a woman to realize what a gem I am. But do I take the same amount of time to discover the hidden gems around me that other men don't realize at first sight?

I complain that this woman prefers these imbecilic men over the amazing me, but if my art friend is right, then I seem to be preferring women who are not as beautiful as I am.

None of this, now, matters. I realize miss this girl. We hugged before departure. Longest embrace yet because, besides when we are dancing, we don't really hug each other. Now we hugged. She didn't want me to stay with her in the airport. Would I really have wanted that? I wanted drama. I wanted to be part of the movie where the ending is a sweet, long goodbye. I do that a lot with movie endings. I remember with that Polish woman I imagined going to JFK to say goodbye to her one last time and dance with her just before the security check because that was the connection we had deepest. So silly, now that I think about it. I don't know why I have such silly fantasies.

This time I imagined just reconnecting with her after being so spiteful in reactions to her rejection. But it didn't happen. What did happen was that I drove her to the airport. I hugged her. There was no cheesy words about the future. I didn't even ask her to let me know when she arrived. No mentioning of talking more.

Because there is no point. That's what I am learning in a bitter way now about real life. In real life, especially in the real life of tango, you meet a person, you may or not may fall in love with her, but you in any case go through a deep and meaningful experience with them. But it takes certain maturity to accept the end of that experience and move on. No more sentimentality after. Most relationships we make in life are transient, and lasting part about them is the memory and experience left in our psyche.

She and I organized a dinner party last night. She played the guitar and sang her songs at the end. Before the milonga where I avoided her. She sang one last song that she had told me about earlier. It was a song about the only long term relationship she had had. And it was one she didn't want to have dragged out so long. But it affected her immensely. She thought she could eventually love a man with time, but in the end, time simply made the breakup infinitely more painful, and the man apparently is ruined by the experience while still in love with her. The song was her way of telling him through the echos of time that he had to move on, and not hope that he could make her happy, "to set her free." I felt she was singing that to me.

When she captured my heart she was also singing, about two weeks ago, singing this tango song with her amazing voice. I felt she was singing to me. Now this last time she's singing on this trip, I also felt she was singing to me, but in a way that meant closure. Don't fall in love with me, don't give your heart to me. That's the lesson I am supposed to learn, not just with regards to her, but with everyone else in the past and in the future who isn't ready for my love, my heart. And whatever experience I have built with this or that person, I can't keep lingering around hoping that the experience will eventually become the fairytale version I want.

She took her baggage alone and went inside the terminal alone, without turning around. And that was the end of that. That's the painful part. To learn this new lesson is the painful part. To learn to say goodbye without any more thoughts of what had happened between that goodbye and the hello before that. Life is too beautiful and too short to have to linger around the old bus stop of memory.

So I got in my car, and drove away from the sunrise back to my house, where there's a girl that makes me feel happy just because she flirts with me.

Saturday Morning

Last night, at about 4 in the morning, I made a comment, and I can't remember what the context was, but this morning, sitting in my brand new papasan inside my bedroom, I remember the comment. "It's not every day that I get to be with two attractive young ladies."

Taking out of context, I can only imagine what one thinks of me. For those who know me, I wonder if they feel sorry for me, because in some ways, it's pitiful. The context was something funny, because I remember my two guests laughing about it. I have two very beautiful and young tango dancers hanging out in my living room. There seems to be some ideas in the heads of men that I am always with beautiful girls. That's the impression I get from the short comments I hear from men at milongas every now and then.

It's Saturday morning. Really, it's past 1PM. I've managed to sleep past 11AM, the dreaded deadline for my body to wake up. I cheated by taking sleeping aids at 9:30AM when my body wanted to get up after going to bed around 4:30. My throat hurts and I fell asleep twice at the milonga last night. This is because I have been sleeping for less than 4 hours each night for the past week.

It's Saturday morning, and I have that feeling again. It's extremely annoying. It's like a cough, which has dogged me the whole past few days. It is not something life-threatening, but I can't resist it and it really annoys me. That feeling, that famous morning feeling of extreme loneliness and hopelessness. I no longer blame it on anyone, not even myself. I just get annoyed that the visitor comes again and again every morning when I get out of bed. Part of remembering the comment is this morning desire for self-pity. If I am always surrounded by beautiful women, why not a single one of them wants to be with me? That's the thought for the morning. My sister, the lawyer one, once asked me if I really want to be with someone. The answer is obvious, but stepping back, I watch my life and I can see how some people can't imagine the I actually want to be with someone, one person. And the reality is that sometimes I struggle to "enjoy the moment", enjoy the experience of being with different people. These two ladies are like most people I "experience"; they leave something beautiful in my path of life but I will probably never interact with them much again in the future, and unlikely in the same way. A few people, like my close friends, are my permanent companions, not just a trading post of experience on the desolate road of my life. So I try to always enjoy the moment, be grateful I meet people.

But at some point, damn it, I want that different experience, the experience of being with a woman for a longer journey. It is one of my deepest realizations from the last drama in my life: even though she and I might not be the most compatible people, I believed we could learn so much from each other through a partnership as well as struggles with each other. I know that romance for most people starts out with a big bang and excitement and the shaking of the heart, but a long-term romance for me is different from other relationships in this way: this very different way of experiencing life than with friendships or dating or family. There is a lot I haven't learned about myself because I haven't been in a long term relationship in a while.

My neighborhood is quiet, even on a Saturday afternoon and with my windows open. Two friends from New Haven are coming to visit me, today or tomorrow, making this place even busier. I am grateful whenever I slow down and notice. Last night that girl from my last drama sent me text messages comforting me because she knew I was having these morning anxieties again. I am grateful for that too, without having to remember that she and I aren't talking to each other again. And I am even grateful that this young girl who is leaving Monday is still smiling at me despite knowing that I wasn't happy with her rejection, so that in the end, we have avoided drama and will enjoy each other's company for the remainder of our "experience" together. We had a lot of fun last night after her friend from Massachusetts joined her in my "harem", as some people have joked about my company of women. I am grateful for the lack of drama. I am grateful to know another tango dancer. I am grateful I get to hear their stories, their thoughts, and to be made to laugh with their youthful attitude about life. They are as far from me as one can imagine in terms of how to live their lives. They both want to become poor tango teachers, but like any artist, they will enjoy life in a very different, and perhaps more fulfilling way, than my finance peers. Their life isn't set. There is no bag full of structured goals. The girl told me that she wanted to be a tango teacher because that's the feeling she has, a strong feeling, which, she said, is more important than any rational planning.

Sometimes I just want to sell my house and everything I am responsible for to be free like that. Free to following my feelings without many of the shackles of society. Perhaps that's why I am tempted to go busking in public and pretend that the few dollars I will earn will mean I am free. My heart isn't always here. Sometimes I read about China and I want to do something there. When I saw the Tibetan prayer wand on my radiator I want to be there. I don't regret starting my life in New York, working in finance, which is almost as exotic to me as traveling in Tibet. But I should remember sometimes to take that lesson from this cute girl and follow my feelings.

The morning visitor has come and left, as usual. I am ready to start another crazy day with these young ladies.

Rising on another Morning

The other day I was talking to one of my New Haven friends about relationships. In the end, after talking about her uneventful adventures with the same guy with whom she had had this ambiguous and frustrating relationship, she said to me, well, I wish I could like someone new so easily. Yes, it seems a deceptive gift I have that I can fall for one girl after another when the previous didn't work out. But when every morning you wake up feeling the pain I feel, you realize that isn't a gift, but more like a liability. A liability on the heart. This morning I woke up with that same feeling, and then I started to think about returning to my apartment empty for the first time since last Saturday. Of course, I have come back to an empty apartment many nights during the week because this girl was always out taking classes, part of her goal of becoming a "world-class tango dancer/teacher in five years." But her stuff was always here. Yesterday evening, the evening after we had a short and tough talk about her lack of reciprocation of my feelings, I came home and saw the sofa bed all folded up. I was a little taken aback. I thought the whole awkward situation had made her move out without notice. My reaction showed how sensitive I am about returning to an "empty" apartment.

That is not to say that I want a roommate. I have lived with someone, first my sister, then various roommates, for nearly nine years, and the year before that I was living with my parents. And before that a girlfriend for more than a year. I don't mean I want someone to share the living space and cost with; I mean someone I had feelings about. Maybe that's just a way to lie to myself, to make up the illusion of having a relationship. It becomes a little more obvious when I leave the apartment each morning. I look at her sleeping there in the folded out sofa bed and feel the slight pang of not being able to come closer and give her a kiss goodbye, even if she's sleeping. Not even the thought of doing so because it would be inappropriate.

Part of loneliness is the inability to show your love. Obviously, loneliness is about not feeling loved. But while I don't know if others feel the same, loneliness for me is also the giving part. When I like someone I want to hold them, and show them how much I want them. That's perhaps part of the problem. Whenever I like someone remotely, I jump all over them, showing them everything, instead of playing the game of courtship. And there is no patience, no letting the relationship develop. There's the worry that it won't develop into the way I want, and there's the impatience to see how it develops. There isn't an appreciation of the road but the insane eagerness to reach the finishing line. I care too much about the sweetness of the fruit unpromised and don't really notice the green growth of the sapling.

I know I will forget about this girl soon after she boards the plane back to the land wreaked havoc by tornadoes. I remember feeling the same sentimentality in the same degree with other similar situations. At least this time there's not much drama. Far from the examples with women I no longer speak to, no longer have the compulsion to speak to. I think about the girl I went to India with, shared so much with, and I remember all the pain and hopelessness and exaggerated self-pity, but now I hardly think about her, and the pain merely has found new green pastures to grow. Like I said yesterday, "this too shall pass." And I know it's more important to enjoy the moments with her. Last night we went out to this bad milonga and we had a great time making fun of it. And brief as the break we had back home before going to bed, we got to know each other a bit more. Or rather, I got to know her a bit more.

So I know what the right thing to do is. But when you wake up in the morning feeling you still don't have someone to love, it's hard not to wonder about the future, hard not to feel sad about another missed goal.

The most difficult life lesson here is to overcome these moments of self-pity and fear of the future so I can do what I know is right. Here's a girl that is fully willing to connect with me, as one human being to another. She simply can't give me the fairytale ending I want, and too often, at least in the mornings, I think only about that fairytale ending and not all the words between the moment and the unknown future.

Today a friend of hers will come join us in my new apartment. I made the suggestion of busking in Central Park. It has hence been downgraded to busking in the subway train. I have never busked before, and always wondered what that feels like, at least when you are doing it for fun and not, as is the point of busking, trying to make some bare minimal income. I don't know if we will do it. But the fact that she welcomed my idea and even added suggestions is an example of how we connect. It is also she who suggested throwing a dinner party at my place before the Sunday milonga, her last one this trip. This enthusiasm is so attractive that I wonder if it also obscures what I really want from a woman.

Like I said, like my friend had noted with some jealousy, I easily go for the next girl as soon as I am tired of the drama with the current stubborn girl. As another friend noted, I don't really spend the time to heal, time alone to heal. Of course, when I am alone, that's when the pain is the most raw, but that's the beginning of the healing process. Instead of doing that, I run to the next person, and seek a temporary bandaid on the wound that can only heal when exposed to the cruel simplicity of bare nature, no antibiotics, no coverup. I started this new life wanting to have just friends for a while, and not allow myself any drama with anyone. We can't control who we like, even if there are reasons why we like one person and not another. But we can control how we approach the situation. There are other girls I like, as you know if you have been reading every blog entry. I would do myself a lot of injustice if, now that this girl is leaving without leaving behind even the tiniest morsel of her heart, I will jump to the next. But I am not entirely optimistic that I would succeed in breaking the pattern.

Post Kiss Attempt

What happened that night?

I am in the train now, thinking back. The train is making this very deep sound somewhere beneath us. It will pass. "This too shall pass," is the phrase tattooed in Hebrew on the left inner wrist of the girl staying at my place. It is based on a story with King Solomon who learned humility from this phrase. The sound shall pass. And so shall all the annoyances or hurts we encounter. We just need to have faith that this is so.

Nothing happened as I had imagined. There was no rain. There was no waiting beneath that awning of my apartment building. In fact, it was a nice, cool early summer night. 1:15 in the morning, or night, and we were dropped off by the organizer of the practica since he lives just a few blocks away. He's settled enough in this neighborhood to have a car here. I was tired, but still I wanted to chat with her. I offered tea and she accepted.

The story isn't so interesting. What I learned from it isn't that much more interesting either. It's about my struggle with not getting what I want, how to behave as a response, and dealing with the even more important point of friendship. Smaller realizations were that I can't be that Don Juan I imagined I could be. I just don't know her enough, and as such I don't have enough confidence that a Don Juan would with a stranger. We aren't such strangers; we're quite comfortable with each other, except when we see each other. There isn't usually a hug. But beyond that, for two strangers who had met only a couple of weeks ago, we are pretty close, we click pretty quickly. That might just be because of our flexible personalities.

I didn't know what to say. How to behave. I just told her whatever she told me last Monday didn't matter. What does that mean? She was more puzzled than I was. I wanted to say that when you like someone, it isn't conditioned on whether the other person likes you back. However, hopefully, if the other person doesn't, you soon will stop liking them. I couldn't figure out what I liked about her. But I was more preoccupied with the reiteration of the lack of reciprocation. She simply said that she couldn't control her feelings. It's true, even if that's an overused reason, it's that simple. At the given moment, no one can really control his feelings. We don't consciously choose whom to like romantically or not. There could be psychological reasons, but at the given moment, we don't control whom and when.

I tried not to be upset, but I couldn't help it. There was no reason to be upset. There was no surprise. But the ego is powerful, especially at 2 in the morning. And the next day I wanted to talk to her now that I was a little more awake, but she skirted the subject. In the safety of text messages, she told me that she was avoiding talking to me about it because it wasn't easy to do so, though she understood well how I wanted to talk about it. I understood well too that it was unnecessary to talk about "it", because there isn't anything to talk about. I understood that a rejected person's need to talk about the rejection is a way to find closure, find healing, immediately.

That too shall pass. My anxiety grew and I called one of my friends. She told me to stop hurting myself by jumping from one person to the next, to give myself some time to heal. And I felt better. I just needed to hear my own wisdom from someone else's mouth. There are only a few days left before she leaves and I might not see her again (though very untrue since the tango world is so close-knit). I could be grumpy and needy around her to make her pay me more attention to compensate for the hurt, or I can enjoy the time together with her as much as possible. Life is about enjoying the moment, and one of the worst things you can do is stop living for a moment because you've closed yourself inside a big dark box of your own self-pity and resentment.

So last night we met up at another milonga. I wasn't going go. I needed to recuperate from the lack of sleep that is contributing to my incessant coughing. It was also my childish way of convincing myself, and her, that she was the cause for my lack of sleep and that she was no longer worth it.

I took a long nap and woke up past 11PM, and the next thing I knew I was on the 7 train, meeting the city at midnight. When I saw her I wondered what I liked about her. I think she's very sexy and beautiful, but there was something else. Her mannerism, her artistic mind, the tranquility in her voice, in her gestures. That's another thing about life: learning some new personality, new way of behaving, moving, talking. If I just stop looking inward for pity and look outward with observing eyes, that would be better than meditation. Although she'd been dancing for only one year, her dances are very sexy.

So those are the reasons for which I like about her.

I am thinking about sculpting. It's a metaphor loosely borrowed from a line from that movie with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. I saw it in college. My metaphor is that each time we meet someone, we learned something new about ourselves through them by taking our experience with them to chip at the crass stone that is us. Without any experience in life, we are just a stone like all else. But it is the chisel of experience that shapes us, but each strike can be painful, and there is always the danger of breaking us into pieces. So that's how I see this and other experiences I have with a woman. It's painful, but the experience shapes me, and in this case helps me understand more what I like, what I find attractive. Discovering what attracts me is itself a step closer to understanding myself.

And even with the pain, it shall always pass. I will be sad to see her go. But that sadness will pass and leave behind indelible memories. This girl has gone through a lot of heartaches. Not like mine, her being an attractive woman. But still, a great deal of disappointments. But in the end, she is still open, optimistic, happy, glowing. She's still young, but that doesn't mean her experiences have aged her. I can learn from that. Learn from the Hebrew words on her wrist.

The History of Kiss

I was told that if I like a girl, I just have to try to kiss her.

And I wonder where all these voices come from. Voices of restraint. All just excuses to avoid rejection.

Last entry I made was so blurry. I was tired. It would have been all very unnecessary if I had tried to kiss the girl. But I was also very tired.

I am always tired. I wonder how I am supposed to kiss a girl if I am so tired. How do I become spontaneous if I am tired? Too tired to overcome those voices. Too tired to do the simple thing as a man: kiss the girl you like.

Perhaps a scenario, to feel the impact of those voices. It is drizzling. Or it has just stopped raining. We're both a little tired after returning from the milonga. Or the practica, as it is Tuesday. My building has an awning not typical of the area. It isn't interesting or beautiful, just that I don't see that style anywhere else. Under this uninteresting and unique awning, I hesitate a little. I start imagining, even then, not just now in the narrative, that I will ask her and she will say no. But really? Would she? Only twice in my life I have tried to kiss a girl. Just twice. Oh wait, three times. First time was on my way back to Switzerland, where I had a girlfriend. Yes, bad. How old was I? Twenty-four, I think. Thirteen years ago, really? I was in the car with my best friend, then, and we both felt something. Something from so many years of friendship with undertone of tension. I gave her a small kiss, on the lips, and she responded, before saying jokingly that she'd tell this to my girlfriend, whom she hadn't then contacted.

A kiss isn't like some commitment to do anything. I didn't know that.

Second time? In Thailand. In the darkness of a private bungalow. It was warm. The sweet smell and soothing sound of the tropical sea just a few feet away was in the humid air. And I asked my best friend, a different one, if I could kiss her. It was another culmination of years of tension in an otherwise platonic relationship. She warned me that if we kissed, I could never ask her of it again. Strange request, now that I think about it. And I didn't keep my "promise", nor did she stop me the next time a couple of years later. Funny how life works. I think there are rules. I try to obey what others ask of me, especially if they ask me to promise something. But life doesn't have nearly as many rules as we think, and even those rules aren't as strictly enforced as I sometimes dread them to be.

Again, the anti-rule: kissing is not step into commitment.

What is it, then? Just wanting to be close to someone you're attracted to.

The third time was not too long ago. I almost insisted on a kiss. The girl kept moving away, but not really. I say "not really" because she wasn't upset about it, and later, she told me she was amazed. Amazed? Because I am not like that. I am not the Don Juan that can risk a beating on the ego by doing what girls both desire and reject. But sometimes I am. Three times.

And so under this awning, just when we're about to open the door, I ask her. Or I imagine asking her. Those voices are clamoring. "It's not fair for her. She's your guest, now you make her feel trapped." "She's too young for you, what are you thinking?" "You're taking advantage of her." "It will be so awkward after she says no." "You're not grateful that she had helped you so much?" "What do you really want to come out of this? She's leaving in a few days."

Voices that have convinced themselves that a kiss is the biggest deal in the world. When did I stop relaxing about life? Before the first kiss in my life, I suppose.

So many voices, but now that I think about it, they reflect how I protect myself with respect to women. I want to be with them. I really do. I want to be with one, really. But instead of ripping my heart and soul out for them to see and perhaps pulverize with a rejection, I repeat the same pattern of being there for them, making them feel safe and comfortable, because that's the only way I know to buy me an entrance ticket to a woman's companionship and, less obvious, approval. In this case, a young woman finds herself in a stranger's apartment. She feels totally at ease here. I never sense much tension between us. Only time there might be some awkwardness is when I give her a hug. Is that the best I can do? A hug. I want to give her a hug as the most physical contact I want from her.

What about that other voice?

The lone voice: she's beautiful, are you insane? You're in a room with a gorgeous young woman, and you don't even ask for a kiss? It's not like you want to jump at her like what that former IMF head did with the maid. When you look at her, you can't help noticing her big, brown eyes, her sexy curls, that smile forever printed in your mind, and her voluptuous body. What are you doing just sitting there talking to her about the interior design of your new apartment? Where is the man in you?

Where is that man in me? If I don't see it, I don't think she can. I don't think others can. I make people around me feel comfortable, and that, according to my art buddy, is a major reason people like me. But the cost? The cost is simple and big: loss of manliness.

The subsequent cost is that loneliness and disconnectedness I feel so often, especially in the morning. I wake up still feeling spiteful. This morning I walked through the living room where she's sleeping, and I saw her peaceful face under those sexy curls. Where is that me that tried to kiss a girl I was very attracted to each of those three times?

There are too many rules set up for me. I can only be allowed to manifest my manhood under specific circumstances: if I am on an explicitly obvious "date"; if she is of a certain age within some predefined range that is safe from any scandal; if she's not a friend for a long time; if she doesn't depend on you in any way. And more. These rules have boxed in my expression as a man. I've always wondered why there are men who aren't as attractive as I am but still managed to smooth-talk their ways into a kiss. This girl, for example, had a fling with and in the end felt used by a guy that most of us don't think is attractive. (Another rule, don't kiss a girl that just had her heart broken. Gee!) But he is not like me at all, not really considerate, not trying to make anyone feel safe, can sometimes be really rude. But also, he walks with a lot of male confidence, he is funny in a way that is unique only to men, not just men biologically, but men who are in touch with their manliness.

All these rules just to avoid doing the obvious: putting myself out there, being a man that has a good chance of being rejected. So I hide behind these rules. It's easy to hide behind rules because they all sound so rational under some given circumstance.

I forgot about the fourth time. Not long ago. We were saying goodbye after a few weeks of adventure together. I knew she wasn't interested in me (not sure what that really means). But still, I gave her a hug, then I tried to kiss her. Do I really know what a rejection looks like? Like in the movies? The girl pushes me off? Screams? She turned her face away a little, but I insisted. I did? Amazing. And she let me kiss her.

Still, nothing happened afterward. Nothing in either direction. We were still friends. We never brought that up again. Why? Because it was just a kiss. Not some turning point where we would have to stop being friends or start dating. So dramatic I have made the world to justify my hiding behind all those rules. Until a certain point I had felt a little guilty trying to kiss her again after she turned her head a little away from me. But I got over that.

What makes a kiss a big deal isn't that it could tip the balance of a looming big future. For me, on a personal level, it represents how disconnected I am from doing what a man naturally wants to do when he finds a woman attractive. He wants to connect to her, show her boldly what his intentions are, and have the confidence to move on after that point, whatever happens. In this scenario, under the uninteresting awning on a misty, humid night, my heart would be racing, but that's not really because a woman was about to be assaulted with my lips, but because I am walking into the unknown. An unknown about myself, and it is scary as hell.

What it means to want someone

Sometimes when I find myself asking simple questions I wonder how deep a hole I have dug myself in life to make it so complicated.

What does it mean to want someone?

If I find a woman attractive, I want to date her, call her my girlfriend, why? And if she refuses, I get all upset and don't want to have anything to do with her, the question begs again: why?

This girl is helping me with decorating my apartment. She is also going beyond any obligation to help me get this desk up to my apartment. Yes, I bought a desk that doesn't fit inside the elevator and unlikely to fit through the apartment door. She is determined to make that happen. We also spend a lot of time together talking. Going to places. I am introducing her to the New York City tango scene. Why can't I just enjoy what is happening?

See, the answer to my simple question isn't easy to reach, not just me, I don't think. I think the answer has to do with a desire to be affirmed that I am good enough of a man. When a woman says no, then I question myself. Maybe there's something missing in the manliness part of me. I start to doubt myself. I start to play games to change the answer to a "Yes" because I have given up hopes that being myself would ever produce a "Yes."

Of course, in attraction, there's also the biological part to it. But then again, what I want isn't just to sleep with the girl I like and that's it. I attach a lot of fantasies to the realization of a "Yes" answer. Fantasies of us being together, making daily decisions, etc. That is a clear sign that I am not just looking to conquer her body.

These are my dreamy thoughts and I must go to bed so I can get up early to drive down to New Haven for my art friend's graduation.

Some piece of peace

My sister reminded me to stop and smell the roses.

There is a 24-hour supermarket right next to my building. I brag about that a lot. It's a huge change from having to drive to the supermarket before it closes.

I haven't felt this huge euphoria of now living in New York. Do people have this feeling? They have feelings. I guess the point is that I don't have any feeling. I feel like I never left. I am very comfortable here. I know a lot of little things that people who just moved here have no clues about. And more interestingly, I am very used to the massive stimulation of information.

Some people, like the little niece of my best friend, wonder why I pronounce everything I see. I wonder too. Now, I wonder if the reason is that having grown up in the overstimulating world of New York, I have to restimulate myself in less interesting places. Here I don't pronounce anything out; there are way too many things for that. Everywhere I go I find something visually or audibly interesting. My own neighborhood, or in Mid-town. Or in the belly we call the subway.

I don't feel suddenly like a New Yorker. But that's probably because I always have been one.

I have also been very tired. Sleeping about 3-5 hours a night.

Why?

For a girl. Of course. A girl with a voice that enchanted me again last night. I told her it was perhaps better to say that her voice was bewitching. She sang for us a tango song I have never heard of, but that was because the versions I have heard were very fast, tough, and even fun. But when she sang it, it was soulful; her interpretation of it, without instrumentation, carried the exact degree of sadness the words mean. The song is appropriate to the weather now. The song's title means On this Gray Afternoon/Evening. The raindrops remind the lovers what they had and what they no longer can have. All because of a mistake of leaving.

I almost allowed myself to pretend she was singing to me. It has been a long time since I was so genuinely touched, straight to the heart. I know that falling for a musician, an artist, is to say the least extremely dangerous. Not to mention that this is the wrong time to be with anyone, having still to struggle so much with that French woman and her rejection.

But maybe not. Maybe, if I don't make anything out of my feelings, something good will happen. Maybe the enchantment will help me heal. It's like a fairytale; a woman's voice carrying the weight of my wounds, my past, my sorrow. I would listen to her over and over again, to cry over the words that are so sad because we can all identify so well with their simplicity.

Yes, I have to be careful not to let this become more than just a hidden crush. I have a way of letting things go out of control. I almost did last night. I was hoping to spend some time talking to her on our way back to my place (she sleeps in the living room). But then she realized it would be easier for her if she went back with this musician (a guy she found in the subway!) who lived close to her friend's place. I was disappointed. I started acting like a child who didn't get his candy. I was feeling guilty being so childish, but I was also upset that I wouldn't get to talk to her or see her until maybe Saturday.

This is what I mean. The childishness, the exaggerated disappointment. These dark demons often prevent people from seeing the beautiful me.

I complained to my art friend about how I am always repeating the pattern of getting excited and getting disappointed and getting no woman. She told me I should, first, stop feeling guilty, and second, stop thinking I am stuck with a pattern, and third and most important, keep loving myself. She spoke with no hesitation and difficulty about all the beautiful qualities I have, qualities I so oddly forget when I am depressed and pessimistic.

Find yourself first, and others will find you.

I complain that women don't see me, don't appreciate me. Well, d'uh, how could they if I don't see myself and appreciate myself.

This girl, this singer, artist, future superstar tango teacher, my feelings for her are becoming intense, but I can let it be, let it make me a better human, not turn me into another monster I am ashamed of. I know almost always what the right thing to do is, but I don't often do them because I am afraid, because I am afraid of myself.

Anyway, because of me trying to see this girl as much as I can, I end up going to all the milongas during the week, and still having to get up at 6:45AM. Tonight she is with her folks for her sister's graduation, so I get a break. Still, her voice, singing about the raindrops, about regrets, about a beautiful future that will never come, that voice that made my heart weep, that voice still rings in my mind. Nothing will really come out of this. She will be leaving soon to go back to a different timezone. But life is about living the moment, not being afraid of yourself, of the future, of what others think about you. I believe my art friend is right; "people love you, G." They do, even the strangers, the once-in-a-while tango dancers. I don't know why they do. I guess my ignorance stems from my disconnection from myself. Maybe even the women I no longer talk to love me too. That girl from North Carolina, the India-trip girl, it was her birthday yesterday. I said nothing to her. But I wondered about her.

Tonight I get to sleep the normal time, hopefully, and I will have no trouble sleeping. Tomorrow I will have guests again, who are looking to move to New York, too. And my art friend will be coming to visit too. The house will be full. I am already invited to some pre-milonga BBQ Saturday. People really do like me, "like" in the sense, at least, that I am a welcoming presence in their lives. I hope I will learn to like myself, too.

For now, I count myself lucky to have such intense feeling for the owner of that voice I can't believe is used also to talk to me about life, about dancing, about hopes. I am lucky to be in this city where I meet people like her and feel loved, by the new people as well as by the old friends I don't get to see much anymore.

So what is there to complain about?

A leaky roof, I suppose.

When it rains, it pours!

It's past 3AM and I am still awake. When it rains, it pours, they say, and it has been pouring continually for days now. My third floor tenants are suffering from multiple roof leaks. How will I sleep?

Tonight was not a good night. The loneliness is barely tolerable. I just want to hide, from the roof problem, from disappointments, from the world. The milonga was not so interesting, but I went there because I wanted to be with this artist-singer-dancer.

I am jumping from one boat of trouble to another because I can't bear the thought of diving into the cold water for once.

I need to take care of that roof and forget about everyone.

Fragmented Thoughts

A woman holds my hand.

I don't want to hurt you the same way he hurt me.

There was a boyfriend sometime ago. She stayed with him because she couldn't believe the only way response to lacking love for a beloved was a breakup. But then.... The longer you stay together, the harder it becomes to break apart, even, or especially, in the absence of love.

Why should we not break up? Friendships. Romance. Even family.

Why do you hope to be his friend one day?

Because I like his company. He makes me laugh.

I thought about that girl; I never made her laugh except when she laughed at me.

You're not ready for me. Just like those others before you. Why does it have to take so long for someone to become ready for me? Why have I never met someone who just jumps at the first sight, or even the tenth sight, hundredth, of me?

But at least she's mature. She holds me hand and speaks from courage and experience. She is so young, but so full of both. There are lines around her eyes, though. Are they lines of age or lines of courage and experience? I am impressed. But also my ego is bruised. Again. But I knew I was getting into trouble. So soon after that last woman. Jumping from one hot pot to the next. Hoping for what? I knew about her story, or stories, about that last man who used her, leaving her now so hurt and broken. What did I hope for? And yet, broken and hurt, she has the courage to take my hand and let me fall gently.

We saw our respective ghosts just half an hour earlier. That's what tango does to people, bringing ghosts into their lives. I saw her, but we again didn't even make eye contact. There is no room for the dimmest ember of love when I could easily tell myself where she was going afterward. She saw him, an unexpected appearance. He tried to ignore her. He pretended not to see her, and then pretended to be gentle and loving to her. Why people do such cowardice things?

And having seen our own recent ghosts, what did I expect? From an artist, a singer, a multi-talented human being. My art friend told me the obvious: it's too soon. Heal first. Heal first.

My best friend told me the same. Learn to be alone.

"Alma". That's the name of the central character in a book I read during my first trip to Buenos Aires. It is a gift from the ghost I saw. It is the name on a storefront this artist and I have passed by twice, and twice we mentioned the book. Like Alma she's a soulful, small Jewish woman.

She came for a reason, even though she will leave soon. She came to remind me that even a small woman like her who has experienced much more romantic pain in the fewer years she have lived on this planet, she managed to continue to be optimistic, hopeful, and beautiful from deep down.

"Do you know what Alma means in Spanish?"

"Yes. That's also the name in a book."

Multiply by two.

My best friend told me to give myself space. So I can remember to fall in love, remember I can fall in love. There is no reason to let those I wasn't in love with to ravage my life. She reminded me that the last time I fell in love was not a bad thing. That it didn't work out doesn't mean it was a bad thing. The only bad thing that could come out of that experience is to forget to fall in love first before letting someone hurt me.

Now I need some sleep. I woke up this morning thinking about the Alma in my living room. I tried to leave without disturbing her, but she sat up and asked if I wasn't going to say good-bye.

Sometimes I want to live in a story, even if it is hurtful every step, but at least every step is walked with love. It is terrible to live a life with so much hatred, anger, and the absence of hope and forgiveness.

Forever, and For Now, One Step at a Time

I am reading a new book, called "forever". It's about New York City, specifically, Manhattan. But it starts with 18th century Ireland. I don't remember where I got this book from, and why. Was it gift? Was it my idea from reading something that won some big prize? I can't remember. I remember a lot of things, but I don't remember a lot of things also.

It's about a man that lives forever as long as he never leaves Manhattan. For now, the first ten pages, there is a lot of charm. Ireland always makes people, at least Americans, think about enchantment. So far I like it. I only wish I can find the time to read it.

I have been sleeping in the train these past weeks that I have had guests and dancing. At least I am not losing sleep over a broken heart. That's a horrible feeling. Not being able to sleep because someone dug a hole in your heart and filling it only with unfulfilled wishes. I don't think only about myself. I think about my former best friend, who, I am told, lost her last cat recently. I remember that cat. When she decided to talk to me again after our second break, she got that cat. I think about the death of that cat, and I remember my friend's dog that died in front of my eyes, that terrible, dramatic death in a very undramatic setting that morning.

I think about disappointments and I think about my former best friend. I wonder if I should write to her, at least to show my condolence for the death of a common friend. But nothing will come of it. Sometimes a break is a break, permanent for no other reason than the human will.

The whole day I've been humming this song I mentioned in the earlier blog. The song my guests for the weekend and I heard at the alternative room of the Saturday milonga. One thousand steps. Now I know the lyrics, mostly in Spanish, but a few lines in French to show the dichotomy of the two people in a broken relationship. The words aren't too deep, but as a song, it made me think. When someone doesn't love you the way you love her, in the beginning, you take steps back, but you also take steps forward again. You vacillate between hope and defeat. But what happens after one thousand steps? You come to a point where you feel foolish standing there, alone, realizing, finally, that you have walked those thousand steps back and forth for nothing. She won't return. And the distance is already too large. You could only get lost trying to go back.

I am in the train again returning to my city. I thought I will have the weekend free but someone just asked if she could spend the night here. And tomorrow I will spend some time with the friend who lost her dog. I am all right with this. I like it, actually. I just hope I don't forget to spend some time for myself. This weekend I've invited people to see my new place. Sadly, probably no one from New Haven will come. Too far. Strange how two hours makes a difference. But at the same time, a lot of people I hardly know at least expressed interest in coming, congratulating me. I remember my art friend telling me that people love me. I have this charm, I guess, of making people feel good being with me. I have come to terms with the flip side of the charm: safety doesn't earn you any good girlfriends.

At least I am trying to come to terms.

Speaking of my art friend, she called me today. She misses me. I miss her too. I haven't called anyone because I've been busy. It's not just that I need time for myself, but also time to do other things with deeper meaning. A chat on the phone with someone I love is meaningful. A letter to my grandmother.

Soon I will start doing other things. The point of getting to know more of the tango people isn't to do more tango. God knows I do it too much already, four to five nights a week. I want to go to concerts, I want to see experimental art and theater. I want to live in this microcosm that seems bigger than the world around. But no rush, one step at a time. It's Friday, time to start doing some relaxation.

Pause, Restart

I want to fit my camera with a 50 mm lens, fixed. No zoom. Just a few pieces of glasses, no extra complicated gears, between me and my subject.

In the city of New York, there are many subjects to photograph. But the soul of the photograph is forged in the limitations imposed on the photographer. Without a zoom, I can't take photos of what I see at first sight. I have to be creative with the framing, and I even may have to change the way I see things. That's the secondary reason I like photography, with the primary being the pure enjoyment of capturing my heart in the photograph. The challenge of seeing things differently, seeing the world differently.

Reinvigorating my desire to photograph is one of the reasons that I have started enjoying my new home. I don't listen to music normally, as readers of my blog know. But here in New York, even more so. There is the cityscape, especially its silhouette against the setting sun I see from the Queensboro Plaza station. I just melt. Fall in love. It's the people, in the subway, on the streets, buying groceries. They all have a story, and unlike many people in other places, the stories exude out of the New Yorker's pores and form part of the aura that is this city's charm.

When I come back to my elevated subway stop, I feel some peace, especially when I walk down the quiet streets that start the tiny area called Sunnyside Gardens. I still sometimes am reminded how on the other side of the train tracks, the other side of the Gardens, is that man, and possibly that French woman. The hurt comes but subsides. It's like this bruise I have on my finger I got when I cleverly tried to scrape off some human flesh into my Indian chai with a cheese grater. It still hurts. The wound is still painful (in its very minor way), but I can see that it's healing, and I know that if I take care of it, it will not leave a scar.

This past few days, this past seven days, have been crazy, more than ten days. I had one guest from Upstate, and we went out almost every night for tango. Then I had another guest joining us over the weekend. I love tango more than I think sometimes, more than I should, I sometimes feel. When I hear the music, I am mesmerized, my heart melts in the same way New York melts it, but more intense. And I feel completely comfortable in the New York scene. Even when a woman declines my offer to dance, I don't feel weird. I feel at home and I bear no ill feelings.

Still, the dance drains me. Tuesday I skipped tango after having slept about 4 hours a night since the previous Tuesday night. But last night I still went out. I went out because, of course, I can't resist tango. But I went out because I wanted to see this dancer. She was leaving for ten days and I wanted to be silly, I wanted to feel romantic and show up to see her before she left. It doesn't mean anything, and it likely won't mean anything. But I want to fill that wounded heart with some degree of romance, the kind that is without expectations, just free to love. I write her poems, not the dark or upsetting ones, but hopeful ones, cute ones. Not because I think something will happen, but rather, because I want to feel romantic again after becoming disillusioned again with romance. I didn't even expect to dance with her, especially since she's in the "alternative" music room all the time. (This milonga has two rooms, one with traditional Argentinian music, my preferred one, and one with more modern, often non-tango music, which I avoid very much.) Although I had to get up at the usual time of 6:45, I couldn't allow myself to leave the milonga. Again, it's partly because of tango, partly, because I enjoyed her presence. She has one of the most beautiful smiles in the world, and to enjoy a beautiful smile is like enjoying dancing tango: it comes straight from the heart, unadulterated.

And so you can imagine how happy I am that she asked me to dance as soon as the two rooms merged and only traditional music was played. She and tango, two merged together, and the music was good, very good. I danced like I was trying to tell her something, something obvious in its subtlety. I wanted to tell her through our dance that I enjoyed her presence, that her response to my poems meant a lot to me. Tango is often about love that never really comes to fruition, and that's what I feel I have for her, something that will never happen, but at least I can enjoy the moment.

Love is complicated, that's no big discovery. Over the past week that I have truly settled in this city, I have gotten to know about other people's drama. I actually met up with a man! We had tea at this Hungarian bakery and he told me his whole romantic adventure in Europe. I was happy for him that the adventure had a good "ending" (in quotes because, really, romance has only one ending, when someone dies). I was happy to have won the trust of a man. I also learned about some deeper drama with a friend; it is worse than whatever I have experienced, certainly worse than what I had just recently experienced. Puts things in perspective. One of my visitors touched my heart for a short moment. We were all waiting for a transfer to the N train at Queensboro Plaza, where the silhouette of Manhattan always greets me. We were talking about her different boyfriends. Then we talked about her Argentinian man, the one I actually met when I was there in December, the one who can't come to her because Argentinians love their country more than their women. When that came up, I could see that she could barely hold back her tears. So me and the other guest huddled around her, in the middle of the platform, and made her cry the needed cry.

Even though I have been busy with people, hardly sleeping, I am reminded this past week that one of the most important feelings in life is feeling connected to others. Not in the needy way. But in the way that is a connection grounded on the connection with myself. What I mean is too often we seek connection to others for selfish reasons: to avoid loneliness. But this week I felt connected because I was giving, not asking for something back.

So I am dancing a lot. I am talking to people. I am connecting to my old city that is my new home. And whatever I can't capture in a camera within the confines of a 50 mm lens, I capture with my eyes, my heart. I think about that guy friend who found love in Europe. I think about my friend who is now hurting because of her man's manly mistakes. I think about my guest who must think about her Argentinian man more often than she should. I feel lucky to have all this and more. My Dad is coming in a few hours to help me put together the last two pieces of IKEA furniture. I am grateful, always, for that.

Still, sometimes I feel sentimental. At the Saturday milonga they played this song, Mil Pasos. And me and the two guests were trying to sing it all weekend. I finally figured out the lyrics, mostly in Spanish, partly in French. How many steps, Mil Pasos? (one thousand steps), before you either let me go completely or come running after me? I realized at some point I never really had "love" these past few years. Not the love where a woman really wanted me but just couldn't make it happen. Not the love that these three characters of my past week chapter had, whether it was new, old, or broken. I never really had this kind of love. Love might have been in me, but it was never in the relationship. I have wasted too much time framing a loveless relationship into love. It's better to spend time feeling love than to pretend there's love where there isn't. It's better to lose sleep so I can be at a milonga where I can savor the presence of my favorite dancer with my favorite smiles. Better to do this than to endure another relationship with a woman who doesn't enjoy my presence, my smiles in the way that I enjoy hers.

PS: this is the first blog entry I have written in the train back to New York. Fun!

Snow in the Spring

I've finally started feeling settled in my new place.

Why did I move?

I don't quite remember. I just now have acknowledged that most of my important material items have arrived in this new apartment. It's one of the best neighborhoods I can find, and I am grateful for it.

What else am I grateful for?

That I have tango, and it had brought me two friends to stay with me this weekend.

Then, I wonder, where are my New Haven friends? They couldn't come this weekend. They have helped me move, but they can't be here. I wonder if they will come. I miss them. And sometimes I feel I need them. Sometimes I feel I am lost at sea again. Like when I saw that French woman in the milonga on Friday night. I was surprised how I still had a great time, but I couldn't help feeling lost in knowing that we couldn't even look at each other in the eye. But the sails really flew out into the sea when I had the fortune to find her and her man in the same diner I had invited my tango friends to. There are thousands of diners in New York City, and I picked the one diner where we got to sit in the same booth that they had previously sat in. I was feeling lost. I needed my friends. I needed a new set of sails, to navigate me back on course.

I am grateful for my little nephew. He adores me, but unlike other people in my life who adore me, he is not complicated, not the kinds of complication that brings about heart-breaking drama. Being with him and other little people today when I visited my grandmother for Mother's Day, I felt slightly back "on course."

I shouldn't complain. A friend of mine had broken her engagement but still is trying to figure out how to live with her ex-fiancé under the same roof. And a friend of hers is a single mother who can't really blossom in her creativity because she had to take care of her son who is the center of her world.

I am grateful to have my Dad. He never complains. He wants to spend more time with me, but never shows neediness. He is content with whatever amount of time I can offer him. Today I could sense that he would have preferred to go all the way home with me in the car and take the long train ride back. But he didn't say anything. No pressure. I was feeling too lost to really make an effort to do the right thing, to spend as much time with him as possible. I was still affected by the diner incident from yesterday. But my Dad reminds me over and over again that real love is unconditional. My nephew's love is also, at least for now, unconditional. I didn't even give him a birthday present this year. I was too much in the clouds with this French woman. It's my fault. I shouldn't have and should be letting my ghosts exaggerate the situation.

Being with my Dad reminded me of that night, I think it was the night of Boxing Day (that's 26th of December, for you non-Brits). That was the night the French girl was finally coming back. I had waited forever for her. It felt forever. I was finally breathing a sigh of relief when I learned she boarded the plane, though even at that point the plane wasn't going to where it was going to go. I decided to drive from New York to Hartford to get her. I purposefully drove to New York partly to see my grandmother but also partly to pick her up from New York. Wouldn't it be grate if she could meet my parents again. She even said she wanted one of my Mother's soups.

But the weather was not cooperating. It was the blizzard of December that rerouted her plane to DC and then to Hartford. It was also the blizzard that stood between me (along with my car) and Bradley Airport of Hartford. Still, I was determined to defeat Nature and go get her. It had been too long. I had spent more than five months waiting for her. We had gotten in (yet another) argument just a few days earlier because she refused to spend the entire New Year's Eve with me and reminded me that the real reason wasn't that she was busy but that we weren't "together." Despite all that, I was determined to defeat Nature and be the first to see her, to give her a hug, to be in her presence.

Why do I do this? I don't know. I seem to do it a lot....

What I remember now is not so much my determined will to intercept her, to help her get back home after all the obstacles. She wasn't going to have a way to get from the airport to New Haven. And so cavalier as I was, I wanted to be that knight in that blue horse of mine.

The streets were full of snow and full of cars stuck in the snow, owned by people who thought they also could defeat Nature. So I went anyway. Thinking I could be an exception. I could get out of the damn streets and onto the highway. And my Dad came with me. He didn't ask why. He did say it might be hard, but he didn't stop me from doing one of the dumbest things in my life: to kill myself in order to get to a woman who didn't even want me. There he was, a man who had recently turned 70, pushing the car behind me while I tried to get out of one snow bank after another. I remember seeing him, a small man, in a big coat twice his size, no hat, no gloves, pushing that metallic blue horse of this knight armored with all his ghosts and faults. (I couldn't the one pushing because he didn't know how to drive a stick-shift.)

He had met this French girl a few times. He's getting a bit old to keep clear memory, and one time when he saw her at his bookstore he mistook her for another girl, another girl who got me into adventures while not daring or wanting to pledge any romantic connection with me (what's wrong with my life??). I felt sorry for him. I knew that though he never said anything, he would really like to see me with someone loving before he leaves me permanently. And I wish I could say to him that I would take care of myself, that being single isn't such a bad thing, my opinions and philosophies of being single being often superior to having someone (certainly having someone who doesn't love you). But the only thing I can say to him, if I have the chance, is none of this complication. But rather, that for his sake, for him, I would meet someone who loves me, because it is because of him that I realize how important it is to have someone who loves you without condition, without pressure, without walls and tricks. I learned that from him. My art friend saw it, as mentioned in the last entry. She saw that generosity, love, selflessness in my Dad that she had been accustomed to finding in me. That's what I mean that for my Dad's sake, as a tribute to what I have learned from him, I want someone who loves me, someone selfless and generous. I have spent too many years wanting just any (pretty) woman without respect to how good a human being they really are. I want a woman who is at least as good a human being as my Dad.

So I remember that night of snow on this spring day. I remember more about my dad than my foolish romantic adventure for a girl.

Oh, incidentally, I finally have internet and a computer. I hope to be able to start writing on a daily basis again.

Morning after Dad and Art Buddy

I can't sleep past a certain hour, with very few exceptions. Even though I was up till 2 last night, I still woke up before 9AM. This is the first of May, end of 36 years on this lovely planet (or more if you believe I existed before birth). I woke up again feeling the same longing and frustration and anger. I know it will pass in an hour or so. And I know soon I won't even remember waking up with this terrible feeling.

Today I get to drive to New York, drive back to New York, alone. This is the fifth drive back to New York for my dragged out move, and it is certain the last one. I question the wisdom of moving without a truck but instead with my car for multiple trips. I wonder if deep down the real reason was that I wasn't ready to go so quickly, wasn't so ready to arrive in New York and leave my people in New Haven. Of course, maybe I was cheap and didn't want to rent a truck for over $100. Maybe because it was hard to organize people to help me when the building doesn't allow moving outside business hours. A bit of everything, I suppose.

But as I remarked yesterday with the last person from New Haven to help me, this move reflects so well how I interact with friends: one at a time.

Yesterday, the last move with help, was with my art buddy. We both noticed that it was the last time we were driving back and forth to New York while listening to tango. I've known her for nearly two years now, and we've been driving like this to New York milongas for a year and a half. I can't remember the first time we went. But I think I will remember this last time, and we didn't really go to any milonga. Nevertheless, like just about every time we meet, we got closer.

On our way there we talked about life, not always in the context of love. We talked about how to bring changes we want in our lives, how merely our brains can't do the job, that our hearts have to move, too. For both of us, there's great upheaval happening inside us, even though not much happens outside. The drama in our lives have mucked up old, unresolved obstacles inside us. And we count ourselves lucky that in this moment in our lives, we have an amazing friend to lean on and to share our feelings and thoughts. This was the first time I shared with her my philosophies on listening, and how I developed it when I started "co-counseling", which I have stopped long ago. That's another story.

What brought us even closer was her meeting the man that made much of the foundations of who I am now. My Dad insisted on coming to help. I feel always a little uneasy having him meet my friends. And talking to my art friend, I realized the reason is that he is so much of my the very part of my identity that I often try to hide. I don't just mean being "Chinese" or "Chinese immigrant," but more importantly, his personality, that of not really saying what you really mean, not expressing your feelings, always be available to help (this part has, as I am realizing, made me the least sexy heterosexual man on earth!). Of course, the way he eats and just behave like he was still in Mainland China doesn't help me, who still tries to be "white".

But my friend loved him. Not only did she love this seventy-year-old man, she saw all the beautiful things in him that she had known in me. An amazingly caring man, generous, and selfless. My Dad didn't say much, but half the time he was worried about this or that concerning my friend. My friend, on our way back, said she wished she knew Cantonese so she could ask him more questions. She said that he reminded her of her beloved grandpa, which is a huge compliment for me because I am in love with her grandpa only through the stories she had told me about him. She said my Dad is actually very expressive, even if he is a reticent man. Maybe I haven't really paid a lot of attention to him, despite me being a very observant and attentive person, and that's because, I think, I have been trying to avoid him all my life in this country.

"You should be proud of him," said my friend. I realized to be proud of my Dad requires that I be proud of myself, and vice-versa.

One of the topics we talked about on the way to New York was for me to make a concerted effort to making new guy friends. Part of that effort would have to be getting closer to my Dad, the first man I have known, and equally obviously, the man I have spent most time with in my 36 years so far. It is obvious that I need to be closer to my Dad, but to have one of my closest people in the world to fall in love with him means a lot to me. Encourages me a lot. Makes me want to demolish all the walls and barriers I have set up since I was a child.

Every moment in my life has something beautiful in it. It's true I wish I didn't have to wake up with this anguish and frustration. But at least now, I no longer wake up wishing someone were by my side. Talking about my Dad, I realized that this man had it worse in his life, thousand times worse, and yet, in the end, he is perfectly comfortable being alone, and always did. I suspect that if it weren't for social moors, he wouldn't have chosen to get married and have family. He loves his freedom which he had very little opportunity to savor. But he does have a family, and at least for his children, he would love to see them a thousand times more often. Nevertheless, when he doesn't see them, he is perfectly happy to be alone.

I want to be like that. To be happy alone. To feel comfortable with my own companionship. As my art friend and I have agreed not long ago, if we can fall in love with ourselves, we can fall in love with someone else. And when I fall in love with myself, I will be happy to be alone. Love is beautiful. It's beautiful with family. And it is beautiful with a woman. Even with this latest romantic drama, I remember, seeing my Dad and one of my closest friends together, last Fourth of July and this woman that I stopped to talking to met my parents. Their interaction wasn't as intense and soul-searching for me, but that evening I felt was one of the few occasions we were really connected. Our own family conflicts and unresolved issues are one of the bonds that brought us really close, sometimes made me feel she was my best friend, when we shared our feelings. But that isn't enough to keep us close. Not enough for me to forgive her for pushing us apart. And I wonder, sometimes, if I should be careful falling for someone who has this kind of family-conflict connection with me. I think like any single but strong connection, it can skew our feelings and perspective of whether this is the right person or not. This happened with the woman before the one of the current drama.

I will probably see my Dad again today. I will drive alone with the rest of my stuff, leaving behind hopefully a cleaned apartment, and I will meet him to have him help me carry the stuff up again. I wonder if he remembers tomorrow is my birthday. I always make a big deal out of it with parties, but really, that's just an excuse to see friends, not because I truly think I deserve or need all that attention. Whether he remembers or not, I will remember to be proud of him. He's truly great!