The warm draught was welcoming, very much so. I, along with a half dozen other commuters, had been waiting in minus 1-degree temperature (-18 C) for the train that had arrived seven minutes late. Those were seven extra minutes of being in ice hell. My fingers were in pain by the time time I arrived in the unheated waiting area, and I had to make a fist of each hand inside the pathetic gloves. I thought about my socks. Those woolen socks were no match against this New England morning cold. We waited in the waiting area so in our mind we think it's warmer even though, without any wind pulling down the thermometer, there was little difference between the area and the outside. I heard the humming of some electrical equipment next to the ticket machine, and I convinced myself that anything with electricity produced some heat. I thought about penguins and wondered if the seven of us couldn't just huddle together, with me being in the middle. The wait was progressively becoming agonizing as we didn't know what was happening; such a small station didn't have anyone to inform us of anything. And so when I saw the train's engine coming quietly, without the usual whistle blow, I couldn't help but feel some degree of euphoria. And that euphoria was felt all over my body when the warm draught poured out of the door as passengers were leaving before we could get out.
For this Monday morning I had decided to take the later train from the little station closer to me. I wanted to sleep a little more, squeezing out any precious minute to add to the incredibly short four hours of sleep. I always want to get to work by 8:30, which is the time my manager told me that he expected people to get in (even though he confessed he never did and that I for now didn't work for internal clients that came in that early). But for this Monday, I had to make an exception.
I went dancing last night, and got home after 2 in the morning, and I didn't get into bed until 2:30AM, despite all my efforts to get to bed immediately. I knew the next morning I would have 15 to get from the bed to the house. But then I couldn't sleep.
We will see how I feel at work today, after just four hours of sleep. It is too bad the best dance night for me is Sunday. I can't wait to move to New York so I can get an extra hour and a half to two hours of sleep. But when I couldn't sleep last night, I wondered what it all meant, this needing to sleep. This failure to sleep.
I woke up after a bunch of dreams, or maybe all the same dream just broken up by my worried mind. What was I worried about? Those dreams, or that dream, said something. This morning I woke up feeling grumpy and sad. Mornings do that to me. I didn't feel this way because I only had four hours of sleep. Or that it was very cold in my room. Or that I saw the temperature reading for the outside on my alarm clock. I think it was because of the dream, because of what I've been feeling that engendered the dream. For some reason, and I hate when my mind does that before I go to bed, I thought about the unpleasant subject of going to bed alone. The prospect of waking up alone.
"There's rose upon your pillow…" was the line from a duet a woman had given me, a popular song from her country. I tried to joke and make it light by saying to her how one could sneak a rose on someone's pillow and leave while she's still sleeping. But of course, being the sentimental me, I wondered if one day I couldn't make that happen for someone. The song, of course, is a sad one, about separation, about saying a goodbye that is too premature.
In my dream there was someone I knew, someone who made me unhappy in real life but in that dream, she did the opposite for me. I was cautious, weary that it was another one of life's tricks. And so when I woke up by the insistent, impatient ringing of my alarm clock, I realized that it was the tricks of dreams, tricks to make me believe it was real. So I got grumpy. But putting aside my grumpiness, I managed to rush my breakfast and yogurt for my afternoon snack and run out to catch the late train.
Before you think this is turning to yet another self-pity rant, let's make a balance. Saturday night, after ranting about spending a Saturday alone, a friend called and said her plans had changed and wanted to watch a movie over the Internet with me. It was strange how life was like that; when you've given up on it, it gives you a chance to re-evaluate. But really, I think, the lesson is more that we can either make the best of things and see that whatever happens is a good thing in life, or we can constantly be disappointed because we have expectations on how life works. I tried to accept that my life on weekends were lonesome, but deep down, of course, I wish my friends would be "reasonable", and come to the conclusion that since they don't get to see me during the week, they should make plans with me for the weekends. I think too much about what other people should be doing, fantasize too much about the ways in which I want life to be beautiful.
"I love life" was a graffiti I saw when we passed by some house by the train tracks. I wasn't sure if it was an anti-abortion message or just someone who really loved life. Loving life, in the context I am writing now, means you really accept it for what it is. The theme of love is what I want to counter-balance my apparent self-pity with. Funny how it all came together. Last night, prior to the dances, there was a class that went too long, so that when we arrived I caught glimpses of it. The teacher was talking about "love" all the time, that tango is about love love love. It drove one of my tango friends taking the class crazy. She felt she didn't learn anything but that somehow tango was about love, when the groping squeezing man she had to endure being a partner with wasn't really helping her with that message of love.
But tango is about love. My tango buddy was touched when I told her that when I dance with a lady, I feel I am dancing with the love of my life, that I want to make her happy, make her feel free, comfortable, but connected to me. She responded by saying that she was usually too busy worrying about her dances. Of course, I worry, too, about my dance when I dance with even beginners, but still, every half a minute, I remember I was lucky being given a chance to dance with this beautiful human being.
The movie that that same friend had invited me to see on her computer appealed to me in many ways, and one of them was the strong message of love. For a woman, the main character went all the way to Bagdad that was being ravaged by the American invasion of 2003. He didn't have to think twice. He did all he could to get to Bagdad to keep the woman alive, even though she wouldn't know it was he who was there all day and night for her, when not risking constantly death being outside looking for help for her. It's a fairytale, of course, but like the poetry that the main character writes and professes, it is through exaggeration and simplification that we rediscover the meanings of basic concepts in life, and in this case: love.
I told my friend at the end that I was sad even though the movie was upbeat and beautiful. I couldn't explain to her why, then. I was sad because I realized how much the world doesn't understand the simplicity of love in real life. How much I have forgotten it myself. I complain about being alone on weekends, when really, I had interacted so much with friends and family and beautiful tango dancers that I didn't even have time to make food for the week. I complain because I have turned love into such a complicated matter. I have made it about me, about how others could serve me. My best friend told me once, after I had calmed down from being heartbroken (again!) that I should really consider looking outward, that I should stop thinking about myself. I couldn't really understand. I always believed that we are the most important people in our lives, we were the center. And it took me some time to realize how my belief and her exhortation were compatible. It is when we fail to place ourselves in the center that we try to make other people do it. It is when we can't focus our love on ourselves first that we expect others to forget about themselves and focus on us.
And then I thought about the image of me being friendly, being open-minded, laughing, being beautiful. My tango buddy told me that I was a really beautiful person, generous, charming, and very fun. It's funny that for someone who demands so much time from his friends I found it very hard to believe her. That's because instead of doing what I demand of my friends, she came straight to the source of the problem: that empty seat of love in the center of my world. She wanted to put me, force me, to sit back in there. I have done the same for my friends, but I often forget to do it for myself. Too often. But last night, I felt I was back in my throne. I was happy. I was in the mood to connect, to be a good human being for everyone around me. I think they, strangers or friends, deserved that from me, and most important of all, I deserve to live like that. And that how I live like that depended only on me. Tomorrow morning I might wake up feeling lonely again, being sad and angry that I had no one to give a rose to, no one lying quietly next to me. I do wish for many things regarding love and companionship, but for now, I need to sit back in that throne before I could accept guests.
An ex came to my room one time (I can't remember why) and saw the flowers I had given her once. The story was that instead of letting the roses I had given her die and rot with flies, I would take them home, hang them upside down until they dry, and then put the fossil back in a vase. She commented that it wasn't exactly a smart way to get over someone (her). She didn't understand that the fossilized roses never reminded me of her. But rather, they reminded me of how much love I was capable of giving, the real kind that didn't require something in return.
It's scary to love and feel the risk of betrayal, of empty reciprocations. But to love is really to live.
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