Lost Eyes

Today was the latest I've arrived at work. (Actually, I am still in the train.) I had to move my car. This time I had to move it. It is the fourth major snow storm and I am tired of dealing with the snow burying my car. But that wasn't the only reason I was an hour late. I wasn't sure if I should go to work, or that I could stay. It wasn't so bad yet, but I knew the return trip would be terrible, with ice and rain very likely to disrupt the trains. So I dawdled with my indecisions.

Now the poor car was safely and comfortably sitting at the train station garage, safe from the blanket of snow and ice. But I was also worried about the roof. The mayor advised people to clean their roofs as the accumulating snow would only get heavier with the rain and ice. I imagined the worst; roof collapsing, tenants out of a home, damages, repairs in the middle of winter, lost rent revenue. I imagined being alone in my misery and hatred for the house. I tried to imagine loving the house, that any problems it would give was not its fault, not my fault either. But the frustration of even imagining the worst was too strong to let any loving thoughts to come. I know, from experience, that what I would hate the most was being alone in all this. I imagined a fairyland where someone would take my hand and say, "We are here with you; you need not be alone in this."

I remembered my best friend, the one who no longer talks to me. She would say such a thing to me, if we were still talking. She would sit with me, watch this child in his tantrum and speak with respect due for an adult, and assure me that all was going to be all right. But because she no longer would do that for me, I can easily get bitter about friendships.

It's true, though. Even if the roof collapsed and misery is born down on my tenants and my serenity, the world wouldn't end, not even my world. Life was like that; misery is more in the mind, in the darkness of fear, than in reality. It would be like that food poisoning; it would be difficult, painful, but it would pass, and really, there are worse things in life than a collapsed roof, assuming no one is injured.

I will call roof cleaners as soon as I settle down at work, and have it all taken care of. From the train I could see that most flat roofs, which is what I have, aren't cleaned. That's not to say I should pray for luck, but rather, that I shouldn't be so hard on myself, which is really the strongest source of my anger; that I should have been more prepared, as a homeowner and a landlord. Whenever the house causes me to worry, I wonder how bad a job I am doing as a homeowner and a landlord.

From all these dizzying thoughts I was sporadically distracted by this Asian man in his late forties. He was wearing this fluffy dark blue coat lined with fake fur. He was a little hunched, as I feel many Asians of his age would be, but maybe that's because my deepest impression of aging Asians is my Dad, who is now very much hunched. He had salt and pepper hair, but still a lot of hair. What was most striking was his eyes, so timid, even lost. He was wandering in the station, and then in the train that I took. After I sat down, I saw him in my car and looking around. His eyes belied deep thoughts and betrayed a strange sense of lost. I couldn't figure out what he was looking for. There were plenty of seats, but it took him some time to decide on one. After he sat down and disappeared from my sight, I thought about him in relations to me. I thought about me at his age. I wondered if my eyes would tell how lost I would be. Would I be so lost? I've oscillated a lot between feeling lost and feeling back on track. Now, of course, with the worries about the house, in the wake of a heartbreak, I am feeling still somewhere in the woods, facing identical trees wherever I turned.

What I really need to do is be a little more present. Stop this nonsense with regretting not doing enough in the past for the house or fearing for a collapsed roof in the future. I caught myself yearning for my relocation to New York, wanting so much to have that fantasy come true, the fantasy of being in a cozy apartment, being visited by someone I really liked, preparing food for her, having a great time chatting or watching a movie. I didn't realize until recently how much I automatically evade the present by being bogged down in the past or getting lost in fantasies of the future.

Yesterday I had a brief lunch with one of the people I work with. He's the only person so far who knows that I dance tango. It's not meant to be a secret, but he interacts with me enough, being open and friendly enough, to discover things about me. I also learned a bit about him. I asked him how he met his wife. I only realized how personal of a question that was for a coworker after I posed the question. But he showed no signs of discomfort. He is the kind of guy that says "What's up?" "Sure thing!" with a lot of enthusiasm. He speaks still with a noticeable Asian accent, being Korean who had come probably at an age a little more than mine when I arrived in this country. He had lived in Connecticut, this part of the state, all his American life. He talked about the school he had gone to with the other guy in the project, who has a son going to the exact same school. His openness and unabashed attitude both annoys me and inspires me, for the same reason that he's an Asian immigrant who for some reason doesn't fit the stereotype I have for Asian immigrant men.

He told me he met his wife on a blind date setup by his friends. He told me she had spent some time in Brooklyn, and that he would drive two hours from the comfort of his little Southern Connecticut town to see this lady. I thought about my sister and her stories about courtship between her and her now husband. I thought about myself, my unrealized fantasies, and I can at least say I am glad I didn't become sentimental. My sister wrote me an email, long email, which started by saying how lucky she felt having met her husband, that before meeting him she had plenty of bad experiences with dating. She was trying to comfort me, of course. It worked; I hope my nine-year bad luck with women would end soon, with or without fantasy. But at the same time, I only felt sad in that I didn't know anything about my sister until now; I didn't know she had bad luck with relationships. I always thought once she found God in high school everything was all right, as far as relationship with non-family people was concerned.

I am glad I have made some non-work connection at work. I feel lucky, albeit mixed with annoyance, to have met an Asian man who is so different from me. He also looks different. He is big, chubby, really, but being chubby and Asian didn't make him feel self-conscious, when being Asian itself should be enough to make you feel self-conscious, like that older Asian gentleman now sitting somewhere in front of me. Today is the first day of the second month. Knowing that I have made this connection so soon gives me some hope that this new life would start all right, after all, with or without a collapsed roof, with or without love whipping up some realized fantasy.

The snow had stopped. Supposedly, the rain and ice would come next. If it didn't, I guess I paid the parking for my car as an insurance premium against snow troubles. But hopefully that also means I can go home without trouble tonight. There are so many ways to look at life. I should stop viewing it so often with worries and pessimism. But I also know that it takes more than shaking my mental self and forcing me to see things through a pair of rosier spectacles. Liberation from gloom comes from reconciling with a past, without living in it but also without running away from it. This man hiding somewhere in front of me reminded me of my Dad as well as making me think about me in the future at his age. My Dad is like that; worrying all the time, fearing the future, fearing responsibilities. This man in front of me represented demons of both my past and future. But what I really have now is another Asian man, sitting behind me at work, reminding me that I can be better than where I have come from and where I fear I would end up with.