The 7 train goes about 30 mph maximum speed in the Steinway Street Tunnel that connects its Vernon Blvd Jackson Avenue station and the Grand Central station. I am guessing it can go a little faster because it didn't feel fast. The tunnel is unlit except by the lights of the subway train. And it isn't on flat grounds. You can see the tracks rise and dip, and the train makes a final ascent to the hallo of the Grand Central train stop some two minutes after it leaves the last station in Queens.
I was watching all this unimportant drama through the 5x5 in plexiglass window of the door to the engineer's compartment at the front of the train. Unless I am late getting on the train, I am always at the very beginning of the train, the first door to the left of the first car. But it was the first time I watched my life move through the 7 train track on my way to work. I felt like a kid watching with fascination the evolution of the tracks and their surroundings. I saw the lights change from red to green. I saw in the beginning the express train that got in front of us and made us wait a bit before Queensboro Plaza. I saw us submerge into the dark tunnel that started with the Hunters Point station. I didn't see the rats that are as busy on the tracks as are the human beings on the platforms, and those I didn't notice either. Just the tracks and the mechanical parts that make up the tunnel. The drama that they quietly weave when I stop believing that it is I who is moving.
I got a text message during this watching of the mechanical drama. Well, two. Both were late. Both were in response to messages I got. One was sent last night right before I went to bed, before 11PM. It was from a friend, the friend who was leaving, the girl I was walking all over town about a month ago before she went to visit her family and boyfriend overseas. I wonder when she's leaving. It's imminent. She's the person who reminded me to be more open minded, to look through all the superficial expectations and see the human being a woman is. There is actually something sexy and attractive about kindness, something beautiful about generosity and smiles. She was the person who without hesitation welcomed to take my guests so I could make room for my parents' evacuation, which didn't happen in my apartment, as you read in the last post.
The other message that was sent while I was sleeping was from the pianist. That made me happy.
But I wasn't so happy this morning before I got those text messages. It was another moment of some internal crisis. I remember that time, before I moved to my house that I am trying to sell now, when I told my best friend, whom I had known only a year or two ("only"!) that I missed her. She didn't say anything in response. And I got upset. I even confronted her about it. And she said of course she missed me, but didn't think she had to say it just because I said I missed her. It's childish on my end, and such situations remind me of some deeper problems. Before I continue, I must say that I am not trying to be harsh on myself. I am aware that many people have these problems; here I am articulating them and perhaps can find some perspective that would allow me to deal with them. The biggest problem is needing approval. Needing to hear the other person say she misses me to feel it's not a one-way street. And what's disturbing is that the motive for saying I miss someone might not purely be expressing a sentiment, but to check to see what the feelings are on the other side.
The pianist started a brief chat with me on gmail, and at some point I told her I missed her smiles, but she said nothing back, and I was a little miffed. But this morning I felt foolish. And that feeling of foolishness grew into fear. I look back into all the troubles I had with different women, and while it's true they had their own baggage, their own problems, their own walls, the scariest thing about all those experiences is my own walls. While I can quit any twisted relationship, that I can leave them, I can never quit myself, I can never walk away from my own walls. Every hard cold stone that builds the wall is an integral part of some corresponding cell in my body. From as early on as high school when I had all that trouble with the girl with the longest and most complicated best-friendship with me, I can remember the struggle with my own walls, and watching almost helplessly how the walls prevented me from being happy, from developing the kind of relationship I want. And when I meet someone that makes me very happy, someone without all the complicated walls that others before her had, my smile slowly fades in the storm of fear that things would fail only because I can't deal with my own insecurity.
I need her to say "I miss your smiles too" in response. I need her to write to me something more than two sentences so I have something to look forward to in the morning. I need her to dance all night with me so I feel special. Just among many "needs". And in the beginning I can handle it pretty well, but that's only because I am more in control in the beginning, not because the walls are thinner or shorter.
Some personalities of the women in the past would serve to provoke some of my shortcomings more likely that other personalities, but there are indeed some problems I have internally that would surface regardless of who it is. This morning I wonder how I would deal with these problems. I wonder if I would meet someone who would deal with them with me instead of running away from me altogether. My best friend tried to reassure me that they aren't really such big problems, that everyone has their own insecurities. Perhaps that's my first step: come to terms with them instead of antagonize them. I won't overcome them tomorrow, not before anything serious happens between this pianist and I would develop. I can only keep trying, and if I am lucky, she'd be patient enough with me to deal with my problems with me. We will see….
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