Rain on Window

When you look outside through a window pane painted with the tears of the rain, the blurred vision is like looking through a gray veil. Nothing is sharp, nothing is bright. Most of the colors have been washed away. In photography we say something is saturated when there's a lot of color. Looking through the veil of the trails of raindrops the world has lost its saturation. The green grass that lines the train tracks lost its meaning of color when there's nothing to contrast it. My art friend told me when commenting on how we dress with color that colors lend their power when there's little of them in the context of monochrome. When everything is more or less the same color, or too much color, none of the color strikes our eyes. The world out there is colorful, but the gray has leveled all their importance. The red looks green, and the blue looks yellow.

I wanted to go for sushi tonight. I invited the friend that moved at the same time I did from New Haven to Queens. She's busy. It's all right. She's a friend, so my disappointment is barely noticeable. I wasn't too anxious about spending tonight alone. But not at all alone because at 10PM I will meet up with another ex-Nutmegger, the man I had the grilled meat with. What I mean by "alone" I mean just a few hours alone. Which is really what I need. I had a good day at work, as most days have been during the past five and a half months. Last night I spent it alone. Thursday, along with Monday, is my day off from tango. I was tempted to go just to hang out with my ex-visitor. But then I already hung out with her in Chinatown, where I invited her to dinner at this place my parents and I frequent. She was dazzled by the food I got for us. Very simple, very good flavors, very fresh. My kind of food. And I was happy that she was so excited about it, gobbled it all down, ate more than me. I have taken other friends there before, but no one appreciated the place as much as she did. She and I don't really connect that well. But if I am wrong then it's because I haven't given us much time. We still don't have a lot to talk about. And I don't completely feel comfortable being with her. Am I not looking broad enough for a connection? Have I gotten too used to certain kinds of connections? Or I just don't know really how to be friends with a woman within the first week?

But I shouldn't really care. Give it a rest.

When the train accelerates you can hear the raindrops crashing onto the window pain, erasing old trails and marking new ones. Whenever I hear the rain hitting on the window pane, I remember the song that that girl sang that was so mesmerizing for me. It's the voice of that song that made me like her, be attracted to her. I've mentioned it in a blog entry, and I will mention it again; the song is about a man listening to the sound of rain striking the window panes, and remembering, with regret, leaving a woman who loved him and whom he, realizing too late, loved too. That story doesn't apply to me, but its raw and simple sentimentality creeps in as the forceful rain is subdued into gentle trails on the indifferent window pane.

Someone died. Someone I didn't really know. Someone I have seen the face of. Someone who came up to me a few months ago to say, "You look great. I want to dance with you." I said, "I guess I will have to ask you." "No, I will ask you!" she responded with that joking but serious smile of an Argentine. She's the organizer of my Friday milonga. She died Wednesday. I found out from that teacher, the girl I said I have decided to be friends with. This woman died of what, I don't know. But it's so strange that the owner of that voice is gone. That, no, I will actually never get to dance with her. That she will never ask me to dance. It will feel so strange tonight when all the regulars come and celebrate and commemorate. I don't know how to handle death. The death of my best friend's father was too strange to me. I didn't know how to behave properly, only cried for my best friend.

The rain came after a full display of lightning bolts accompanied by cracking thunder outside our office building. I saw multiple times bolts coming down behind the train station. The infamous I-95 that divides us from the station was a parking lot both directions. Beyond the lightning bolt was this strange formation of white clouds coming down from the gray sky, as if it were a tornado funnel but not spiraling. It was the first curtain of rain when I saw it. Summer is here. Summer is, however, cold. Today was also the funeral of that woman, taken place somewhere in Washington Heights. Today is a good day for a funeral. I have never been to a funeral. I feel old knowing that people around me have started to die. I have no doubt that soon I will go to a funeral. I wonder if I will cry. I guess it will depend on who it is.

My car is still waiting for me somewhere in Sunnyside Gardens. Some people have shown interest in buying it, but so far, no real bite. I may have to spend even more money on keeping it in a garage because the wonderful drivers of New York don't do what is right and legal after they hit a parked car, if you know what I mean. Of course, I have owned a car for many years in New York, in Brooklyn, actually, when I was still going to school here. And nothing bad happened to it, except when I reversed it onto a fire hydrant. No, it didn't break the stupid thing, but the bolt on the metallic junk bore a dent, nearly a hole, on my trunk door. That was my fault. I did get two robberies, had to pay for the window. I remember my Dad looking at the damage with dismay, and all he said was, "They only did this to us because we are Chinese."

Was he right? I didn't question then. I assumed he was right; he was always right, in my eyes. Like the Jews, we Asian immigrants like to think we are the victim of everything.

That car was a gift from my Mom. I never thought of it as a gift. I hated driving in New York before I even had a license. I failed my first exam. I got nervous going anyway. I almost crashed onto a pole coming off the highway too fast when I was out looking for a job. Back then, there was no Internet search, no online resume posting. I found a summer possibility from a newspaper listing, and it wasn't the New York Times, either, but rather, the pathetic Daily News, or even Newsweek, whatever was the cheapest. I drove to a place where they were recruiting salespeople for vacuum players. I was so lost, as a teenager, about to go to college. So frustrated.

And so lonely. No one was there to help me find a job. I needed to make money, not for any reason other than keeping myself busy. How was it that a boy about to enter Harvard University ended up nearly crashing onto a pole on his way to a vacuum cleaner salesperson job?

The woman sitting next to me is reading a book about a man that started a school for girls in Pakistan, in the Himalayan areas, so the area you hear about in the war on terror. She told me that the man tried to climb K2 and failed. But in his failure his true mission was realized: helping girls who are otherwise not permitted to be educated in this orthodox Islamic area.

I want to be there. I want to make a difference. I want to connect to strangers and make them smile from their hearts.

For now, I am looking out to the suburb of the city I live in, the city I love, the city that has finally opened its mysteries, little by little, to me. It never opened up when I lived here as the boy that was trying to find a job the summer before he entered the Ivy League. It only showed its cold shoulders, its hateful racism. For now there is no K2, there is no conflict with religious extremists and collateral killing of the innocent here. Here I am starting a likely brief but interesting chapter with finance, and in the meantime, a curious exploration into tango, into the city. Tonight I will see the familiar faces. Tomorrow a friend from Chicago is coming, my first "real friend" I made in New York.

The rain stopped and it washed away a lot of my thoughts, my worries, my insignificant dramas. Soon the sun will come out, I can feel it. The train is moving toward greater light, leaving the gray veil behind. This weekend starts now.