I just finished reading an article about this undocumented Filipino, who boarded a plane when he was six with a coyote, a man who traffics illegal migrants, hired by the boy's grandfather. It's an article about his successful life as a journalist but whose growth was always under the cloud of his illegal status.
Different people have different challenges in their lives. Some get to put it in an interesting story. I mentioned a little of my own immigrant life to my new New York friend, about my family, about my grandmother. Just a little, both the past struggles and the present quest for peace and reconciliation. I wonder when I will write about all this. There's so much to say, so much to share.
It's Thursday. It's my night off from tango. I decided to not meet anyone, not really even planning on talking to anyone on the phone, and go home. Then on the subway back I thought about getting to know someone: my neighborhood. It's late, but still, I want to get to know it a bit more. So I decided to go check out this cafe that the guy who also lives around here told me to check. It's called "Marlene". I went. It's quaint, but not very warm. I later found another coffee shop just down the block (from the owner of Marlene!). That looked and felt more like a coffee shop, called Aubergine (which is the name I gave myself at some point in my New Haven life, and if you're not French, you wouldn't know that it means an eggplant; don't ask me why I called myself Aubergine.).
There's a blackboard, and on it was written a quote from Robert Heinlein, "Love is the condition in which the happiness of another is essential to your own."
This morning I found a trickle of peace when for some reason I started going through the text messages I have stored in my phone. Some are sweet messages from friends, like for my recent birthday, or just wanted to leave a note for me about how much they loved me. There were also some from those that I wanted to be with, but are no longer is in my life for one reason or another. Instead of feeling sad or nostalgic, I felt some serenity. I didn't keep confrontational messages, and there were plenty before they were deleted. I kept the nice ones, the ones that either directly showed love or told me how much they appreciated our connection. What those messages made me feel was that after all the turmoil and drama, after the final cut in this or that relationship, these people did make me happy in some ways. Of course that must have been true; otherwise why would I keep going back to the relationship, creating more drama in the end? Still, I don't always remember that: the simple reality that not everything was dark and stormy. The reality that I really did love these people, and that they, at least sometimes, at least in their own limited ways, loved me. I didn't feel sad that they are gone, either left me, or were expelled, or both. That didn't matter. The text messages weren't about the end. They were about human connections that forms the basis of all our happiness and love.
I remember that they told me at one point or another that my happiness was important to them. My Dad told me this once, too. I am grateful even for these broken relationships that at one point made me feel loved.
Tonight I do need to write a letter to my Grandmother. I told her when I saw her last weekend that I was sorry I hadn't had time to write to her. I will have to do that tonight. When I mentioned her to my new friend, I mentioned my driving to the old lady's house just to get stories from her. I wonder how I can get other stories. She's having trouble hearing, talking, and walking now. She suffers from huge headaches. I am afraid that a piece of me would be forever lost once she leaves us, and I don't know how soon that will be.
For now, some music (at least to drown out Mr. Softee outside with its annoying ice cream chime!), some simple food, and some time for myself.
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