I am on the local train now. I've decided that the imbecilic "express" train is just too much trouble. In theory, as I have mentioned, it arrives only about 6 minutes after the earlier local train arrives, even though it leaves about 20 minutes later. But more times than not it arrives in Stamford at least 10 minutes late, and yesterday, some police activity caused it to leave another 15 minutes later. I got home past 8, leaving me less than 2 hours to relax, cook, and talk briefly to my sister before running off to dance.
I realized going out to dance isn't just for dancing. It's for me to relax. I know that people usually think of their home as a place for relaxing. Well, when it's hot and stuffy, it's not so easy. The subway is air conditioned, but moreover, when I am in the subway it's almost like meditating. I am calm. (Granted, being a true New Yorker, I am always hurrying once I am outside the subway.) I read the advertisements as if in a trance. They are always stupid and always the same. In fact, that sexual impotence ad has been around for as long as I have been coming to New York to dance. At least!
And watching people (without staring) also relaxes me. Wondering, and wondering where those lives go, how they are shaped, what await them the rest of eternity after I disconnect from them.
There are some people I see repeatedly, especially in the commuter train. There's this man around my age, with very short haircut, and he always boards at 125th Street with his folded up bike. I think he needs it to get to work from the train station in Stamford. There are shuttle buses that take finance people into areas in Stamford not within walking distance. I guess he chooses to bike. His bike is funny to me, a fold-up black little bike. I have been meaning to bike to Manhattan one of these days, when it's not too hot and, well, when I actually have a bike.
There is this woman that works in my company. In fact she gets on the same subway train stop I do. We've never spoken. But I see her often. So these are some of the connections I have. Unlike when I started commuting from New Haven, it's much harder to connect to strangers here because there are just so many of them. Maybe it just takes time. I imagine that New Yorkers, being like any human beings creatures of habit, would be boarding the same area of the same train every day at the same time (assuming the trains run regularly). Still, I haven't recognized anyone. I haven't seen that Asian boy again. I remember connecting, without words, to those four five people waiting for the commuter train at 7:30AM at the little station near my New Haven house. I remember the cold, the frost, the twilight that heralded the sun, and of course, the faces. I remember the strange man in leather jacket that insisted on sitting at the same seat at a corner in the train designated to him by God, apparently. I remember the black man that always smokes on the platform before boarding. Then there's the woman with the funny pink hat, large non-sexy legs covered often with thick tall socks of equal pinkness. The man that tries to talk to him all the time about their respective romantic partners. The South Asian man that never smiles. In a small town like New Haven it's much easier to remember faces. I don't always remember faces even in the New York tango community. "Remember" means recalling a connection. There are people I recognize, but I don't feel anything for them the same way I feel for those four or five commuters. The same thing is true for the surroundings that the train cuts through. I remember writing a lot about what I saw, how I felt, each morning and evening that I travel between home and work. Here, I can't really tell you about the landscape and its transformation between New York and its financial satellite where I work. I wonder how deep a connection I will make, how each will feel.
My new New York friend, that teacher, made me happy with something very minor. Last week I was telling her and someone that I needed stamps. The only time I can get stamps is Saturday mornings, and so far every Saturday morning I have been busy. I wasn't in dire need, and my complaint that I needed stamps wasn't even serious. But she said she would get me some and I thought it was nice, but I totally forgot about it. Today she got me stamps. Little details that make friendships so sweet.
There are quite a few people I want to be friends with. Including men. At the same time, I don't really have time. I want to do so many things, it's crazy. I am starting Kungfu this Saturday. But I will need to find time for singing lessons, for guitar lessons (I imagine myself singing tango songs accompanied by a guitar, like the old times when Carlos Gardel sang with the guitar before the iconic bandoneon appeared). I want to allot time to practice tango alone. And to add more to tango-centricity, I want to learn the names of the popular songs, and be able to pick them out by name. I want to study finance, at least going through that text book. Of course, I want to hang out with friends. Not to mention spending some time alone. And not evening mentioning dating.
For now, I am all right. I went dancing last night but spent most of the time practicing. I have a goal for my dancing this year. And for the future, I just want to be the best amateur tango dancer in the city. Ambitious, why not. After all, I am doing Kungfu mainly for tango. It's very tango-centric, my life.
And yet, I never stop imagining one day in the mountains, with my walking stick, with the humility that I had grown up with, and with my legs not to dance but to walk a piece of life in those mountains high up in Tibet. And in doing so, I hope, as I imagine, to make some deep connections, with the people, with the mountains, with the rivers that carve and caress them, with the clouds and the blue sky watch over me. I look at the watch, and being a good New Yorker, I wonder if I am running out of time.
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