Pause, Restart

I want to fit my camera with a 50 mm lens, fixed. No zoom. Just a few pieces of glasses, no extra complicated gears, between me and my subject.

In the city of New York, there are many subjects to photograph. But the soul of the photograph is forged in the limitations imposed on the photographer. Without a zoom, I can't take photos of what I see at first sight. I have to be creative with the framing, and I even may have to change the way I see things. That's the secondary reason I like photography, with the primary being the pure enjoyment of capturing my heart in the photograph. The challenge of seeing things differently, seeing the world differently.

Reinvigorating my desire to photograph is one of the reasons that I have started enjoying my new home. I don't listen to music normally, as readers of my blog know. But here in New York, even more so. There is the cityscape, especially its silhouette against the setting sun I see from the Queensboro Plaza station. I just melt. Fall in love. It's the people, in the subway, on the streets, buying groceries. They all have a story, and unlike many people in other places, the stories exude out of the New Yorker's pores and form part of the aura that is this city's charm.

When I come back to my elevated subway stop, I feel some peace, especially when I walk down the quiet streets that start the tiny area called Sunnyside Gardens. I still sometimes am reminded how on the other side of the train tracks, the other side of the Gardens, is that man, and possibly that French woman. The hurt comes but subsides. It's like this bruise I have on my finger I got when I cleverly tried to scrape off some human flesh into my Indian chai with a cheese grater. It still hurts. The wound is still painful (in its very minor way), but I can see that it's healing, and I know that if I take care of it, it will not leave a scar.

This past few days, this past seven days, have been crazy, more than ten days. I had one guest from Upstate, and we went out almost every night for tango. Then I had another guest joining us over the weekend. I love tango more than I think sometimes, more than I should, I sometimes feel. When I hear the music, I am mesmerized, my heart melts in the same way New York melts it, but more intense. And I feel completely comfortable in the New York scene. Even when a woman declines my offer to dance, I don't feel weird. I feel at home and I bear no ill feelings.

Still, the dance drains me. Tuesday I skipped tango after having slept about 4 hours a night since the previous Tuesday night. But last night I still went out. I went out because, of course, I can't resist tango. But I went out because I wanted to see this dancer. She was leaving for ten days and I wanted to be silly, I wanted to feel romantic and show up to see her before she left. It doesn't mean anything, and it likely won't mean anything. But I want to fill that wounded heart with some degree of romance, the kind that is without expectations, just free to love. I write her poems, not the dark or upsetting ones, but hopeful ones, cute ones. Not because I think something will happen, but rather, because I want to feel romantic again after becoming disillusioned again with romance. I didn't even expect to dance with her, especially since she's in the "alternative" music room all the time. (This milonga has two rooms, one with traditional Argentinian music, my preferred one, and one with more modern, often non-tango music, which I avoid very much.) Although I had to get up at the usual time of 6:45, I couldn't allow myself to leave the milonga. Again, it's partly because of tango, partly, because I enjoyed her presence. She has one of the most beautiful smiles in the world, and to enjoy a beautiful smile is like enjoying dancing tango: it comes straight from the heart, unadulterated.

And so you can imagine how happy I am that she asked me to dance as soon as the two rooms merged and only traditional music was played. She and tango, two merged together, and the music was good, very good. I danced like I was trying to tell her something, something obvious in its subtlety. I wanted to tell her through our dance that I enjoyed her presence, that her response to my poems meant a lot to me. Tango is often about love that never really comes to fruition, and that's what I feel I have for her, something that will never happen, but at least I can enjoy the moment.

Love is complicated, that's no big discovery. Over the past week that I have truly settled in this city, I have gotten to know about other people's drama. I actually met up with a man! We had tea at this Hungarian bakery and he told me his whole romantic adventure in Europe. I was happy for him that the adventure had a good "ending" (in quotes because, really, romance has only one ending, when someone dies). I was happy to have won the trust of a man. I also learned about some deeper drama with a friend; it is worse than whatever I have experienced, certainly worse than what I had just recently experienced. Puts things in perspective. One of my visitors touched my heart for a short moment. We were all waiting for a transfer to the N train at Queensboro Plaza, where the silhouette of Manhattan always greets me. We were talking about her different boyfriends. Then we talked about her Argentinian man, the one I actually met when I was there in December, the one who can't come to her because Argentinians love their country more than their women. When that came up, I could see that she could barely hold back her tears. So me and the other guest huddled around her, in the middle of the platform, and made her cry the needed cry.

Even though I have been busy with people, hardly sleeping, I am reminded this past week that one of the most important feelings in life is feeling connected to others. Not in the needy way. But in the way that is a connection grounded on the connection with myself. What I mean is too often we seek connection to others for selfish reasons: to avoid loneliness. But this week I felt connected because I was giving, not asking for something back.

So I am dancing a lot. I am talking to people. I am connecting to my old city that is my new home. And whatever I can't capture in a camera within the confines of a 50 mm lens, I capture with my eyes, my heart. I think about that guy friend who found love in Europe. I think about my friend who is now hurting because of her man's manly mistakes. I think about my guest who must think about her Argentinian man more often than she should. I feel lucky to have all this and more. My Dad is coming in a few hours to help me put together the last two pieces of IKEA furniture. I am grateful, always, for that.

Still, sometimes I feel sentimental. At the Saturday milonga they played this song, Mil Pasos. And me and the two guests were trying to sing it all weekend. I finally figured out the lyrics, mostly in Spanish, partly in French. How many steps, Mil Pasos? (one thousand steps), before you either let me go completely or come running after me? I realized at some point I never really had "love" these past few years. Not the love where a woman really wanted me but just couldn't make it happen. Not the love that these three characters of my past week chapter had, whether it was new, old, or broken. I never really had this kind of love. Love might have been in me, but it was never in the relationship. I have wasted too much time framing a loveless relationship into love. It's better to spend time feeling love than to pretend there's love where there isn't. It's better to lose sleep so I can be at a milonga where I can savor the presence of my favorite dancer with my favorite smiles. Better to do this than to endure another relationship with a woman who doesn't enjoy my presence, my smiles in the way that I enjoy hers.

PS: this is the first blog entry I have written in the train back to New York. Fun!