The Box

I am boxed in. There is no heat in this box. There is fake leather. There is cold metal. There was a man, but now the space he had occupied becomes cold air again. There isn't much light, at least there is no view of the freezing landscape outside. People coming into other boxes bring that freezing temperature with them, having scraped off the ice, almost, and brought it in to the already cold car.

I ran this morning because I got out of bed late. I woke up at the usual time but I couldn't get myself to get out of bed. I got seven hours of sleep, that's about the average, which is less than what I want: eight hours. That's more than what I got when I was in New York this weekend. Four hours each night. I felt I was in a tango festival, going bed super late and waking up at a normal hour.

I got out of the house two minutes later than the latest I've ever gotten out. And that was after rushing to get my lunch, breakfast, and four-o'clock tea treat packed up. (I baked yesterday, a lemon yogurt poundcake, French style. Smells great; can't wait to eat it. It was my second try.) I ran and ran with the heavy bag of food. The worst that could have happened was that I arrived on time and the train actually left early. I got the second worse, which was the more likely event, arguably more likely than the "normal" event of the train arriving on time just like me. The train arrived very late and then it would only take me to the main station where I had to transfer to the train that I am in now, where the box is. The train is crowded. I had no choice but be in the box or sit next to the bathroom. I preferred the box.

This weekend I learned a few things. Among them I learned that I have forgotten how fast New York is. I am used to looking for apartments, or more likely, looking for tenants, with a month or two of space. But New York, it's just a matter of weeks, or less; apartments come and go like the fast money of Wall Street. I was surprised that I found that surprising; how much of a New Yorker am I?

I learned I am very much enamored with India and the related cultures. I went to Jackson Heights to check out apartments. But instead of finding any apartment, I found a piece of my heart there. I got excited, like a boy developing a crush on a girl. I got excited recognizing the the letters if not the meanings of the words, smelling the food, drinking the chai, being surrounded by the produce that most of my peers understand. Someone asked me why I could get so excited when all I talk about regarding my India experience was sadness, bitterness. It's true, the thing that stands out most in my experience there was suffering, both mine as well as the thousand-times worse ones experienced by the poor people there. But India did me no wrong; it might have stolen ten pounds of fat from me, but it had put more than that weight in gold in my heart. It's the complication of my experience from which I develop this love. Most love, most romantic love, has its basis on something complicated and messed up; my infatuation with South Asia is no different. One day I will resolve my feelings and the past about India. But even after than I will be just as excited to hear them speak Hindi or Punjabi or Bengali.

That made me want to live in Jackson Heights even more. I would love to get off the subway and be immersed in that love every night. Sure, I will eventually get used to it, probably pretty soon, but you get either get used to something but no longer noticing it, like traffic jams on your commute, or you do so by giving it a permanent place in your heart, like family. However, I am also practical. If I find a nice apartment in Sunnyside, I would live there, and take the eight-minute train ride (I timed it!) to Jackson Heights whenever I want (yeah to 24-hour subway system).

Sunnyside was where I went afterward. I came here once in my life, when I wanted to find my disappearing piece of the heart for Romania. When I was in college my geopolitical infatuation was Eastern Europe. I was in love with the food, the politics, and of course, the Romanian girl that gave me the gift of the first and worst broken heart ever. I came to Sunnyside to find the food that I remember having when I was in Romania, what was it, three, four times. I remember when I was in Romania last time, in 1999, I ventured out to some suburb just to look for the stuffed pepper, which I had first time in Hungary. I failed, but the adventure was worth any failure of the goal. So I came to Sunnyside looking for Romanian food. I failed to find that elusive stuffed pepper, but I got to have some treats and listen to women speaking a language I used to speak some, too. And yes, I think, though my memory may deceive me, I think I even met up with that same heart-breaking ex girlfriend here to have Romanian food. I remember the restaurant had very much the Communist-era style you would find in Romania during the times I visited.

But now, history repeats in geography but not in anything else. I am back and not looking for anything Romanian, though I passed by a shop with Romanian words. There are also plenty of Arabic, Korean, and of course, English all over. It's a diverse neighborhood, and the diversity can be seen right away in the "Chinese-Indo-Bengali" restaurant, or the one I went to, a Nepalese-Japanese restaurant, basically a Nepalese place with its prayer bells and prayer flags sitting side by side with the usual poster of different sushis. It doesn't have that energy Jackson Heights has, but then again, I didn't go everywhere. It's very quiet but not like my little town where there's no shops around. It's midway between Jackson Heights and Grand Central. It's idea in terms to getting to work, but Jackson Heights has better access to other areas of Manhattan and to the airports. So I don't know yet if I want to live in Sunnyside. I checked out one apartment and it was nice, very sunny, small but not like a box, not like the box I am in now. I was so excited to be in an apartment in New York a part of me wanted to just take it and start moving in.

I realized, and I don't know why it surprises me to realize it, that I have never lived in New York. Not on my own. Not as an adult. The one year I lived in New York as an "adult" I lived with my parents and their drama. I looked for apartments to buy that year, but it didn't feel exciting; it felt scary. I was alone. I knew no one except a best friend who didn't want to talk to me. And on my shoulders I had the weight of my sense of duty to my little sister, for whom I was looking for an apartment to share with. There was no tango back then. There was no unreciprocated love. There was no boredom with jobs. There was just my sister and loneliness with family drama.

Now I get to chart my own future, no more responsibilities for others.

Not really true: I still have to take care of my tenants, but that's a different kind of responsibility, different story.

The slow, local train is finally approaching work. After this three-day weekend I am ready to get to my projects. It's a sunny start, even if freezing cold start, to another week. In a little more than a month, I hope I will be coming in from the other direction, from an apartment of my own in the city that has taken too many pieces of my heart.