Early Autumn Smoke

Cigarette between two fingers in the darkness no longer enveloped in humidity that had bathed the city for the past three months. The invisible smoke felt only by the nose and barely by the eyes. The orange sky polluted by the city's energy shrouds the weak blue fading into the horizon. When he pulls the air through that invisible roll of broken dried leaves, his small world likes up a bit by the faint flint at its end.

The shouting had ended behind him, where the living room now stands silent, divided from him by the patio doors. For a moment he can hear the humming of this mega city. For a moment, he discerns a sudden scream of a taxi usually drowned out by his preoccupations and their endless shouting matches. For a moment, the sound of a truck's gear break on the big avenue behind the role of brownstones reminds him that he is in this sea of people with no knowledge or interest in the strife he feels is tiring him out every day. As he inhales another breath through those crumbled leaves packed in a factory far away, he hears a distant plane flying over. He looks up and see some blinking light moving across the dark, orange sky.

His thoughts return to the weight he feels is getting heavier on his shoulders. Then suddenly, they fly off like a horde of pigeons startled by a menacing, aimless child, when a horn blows in the distance. That sounded like the horn a ship blows when backing out of a harbor. Is it so strange that he now realizes he lives close to the sea. It would take him half an hour to walk to the sea but somehow, all these years he had lived he, he at some point has forgotten that he is close to the sea. He smells the invisible smoke in the darkness, and tries to imagine the smell of the sea, tries to imagine the vastness of the ocean into which this boat that had just blew the horn would be entering. He tries to imagine the world that is larger than this city, which is already infinitely larger than his world of bickering and egos and self-pity.

He closes his eyes after the the distant boat makes another bellow. He doesn't know anything about navigation or boats, besides how to step onto one and getting off it. But he imagines being somewhere else, far from the living room behind him, even farther from the cigarette smoke he is smelling now. Another truck accelerates and then putters again with its engine brakes. Another plane passes over, leaving a wake of mechanical noise. The sky seems to get only more orange while also darker. Yet, his thoughts take flight into the distant ocean where the cold, salty waves give comfort by dissolving his thoughts and giving them volume.

I moved here a little under a month ago. How time flies.
On the morning of the 1st of April, April Fool's day, I was all worried about the movers not showing up, or showing up late. They did the latter. And then it took twice as long to load the stuff.
I took the G train, arriving a little later than they did. I took the G train from Queens, perhaps for the last time. The connection from the 7 train was still broken and so I had to take a bus.
That evening seemed so long ago.
That evening Evi's sister along with her fiance also came. They came to the City to pay a visit to the Swiss consulate, and wanted to see my new place, which would soon be Evi's new place too.
That seemed so long ago. That night was raining a lot. I was sitting in the van while the movers moved. I remember feeling anxious in the rain, wondering when the move would be over.
Now I am sitting here, with that move, that evening, seem so distant.
And since then I haven't really enjoyed the neighborhood much. What's the hurry? I don't know. My life has been, since then, mostly dominated by work and cultural events.
This new job is quite interesting. I am learning a lot. There's even pressure for deadline, which I haven't felt in a while. In many years. And yet, I am not working as much as I thought it would be required of me. On the first day I didn't have to arrive too early because my future boss had a morning meeting. But then he gave me the impression that I had to come to work by 8AM. I did the next day and the whole place was empty. Eventually I learned that people didn't come in before 8:45. And little by little I have been coming closer and closer to 9AM. These two days even a little after.
And I don't actually have to leave late. Same time as when I was working in Connecticut. But by the end of the day I am exhausted, so much thinking involved, so much staring at the computer screen.
The best part of the work is the learning, of course. But a good runner-up is the view. The location. I don't sit next to a window, but I can go to the windows and see the Statue of Liberty, the sea, the sunshine. And when it's not too terribly cold, I go outside, sit, stroll, even stretch. To feel the sun. To bathe in it.
After work I am rarely home like today. I have been going to a lot of theater, a lot of classical music events. And when I am not, I have been out of town for one reason or another, interestingly so far all in Connecticut.
It's good to actually spend some time in this new neighborhood, the highlight of my non-work life. It has almost everything I like, including theater (just 15-minute walk from the Brooklyn Academy of Music). Restaurants are everywhere. And there are many cute little places waiting for me to discover and get to know, like a pottery workshop.
The neighborhood is very mixed in a way I didn't expect but don't find it too unfamiliar. There is the hip neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Brooklyn Heights, full of young professionals and their strollers (also known as Yuppies). Then just the next block from me is Downtown Brooklyn, mostly cheap shops frequented by African Americans. Each morning I see people standing in line outside what appears to be the welfare office. There isn't a line outside the Department of Labor across the street. But on my street it's the start of Yuppy-land, where the streets are made into a green tunnel by tall trees and the as far as the eye can see the roads are lined with brownstones. There is organic everything, including two organic cosmetics stores; I didn't even know it is important to use organic cosmetics but come to think of it, if you really hate chemicals, you would not want to put that stuff on your face.
One of the best meat market is within 10 minutes by walking from me. That is where I got my 7-pound leg of lamb that I roasted for the Easter Brunch.
And yet, there is still a lot for me to get to know. Not just to get to know by location, by its existence, but also to get to know so it becomes part of my life. To see what I like, try things out and decide. To discover places beyond the realm of restaurants and shops, which is the realm of tourists. This weekend I have more time here alone. I have actually two tango acquaintances who live just a block from me. It was pure coincidence that I found a place so close to tango people. I am hoping if we click we can be actual friends.
I didn't actually find this apartment. Evi found it by cleverly joining a neighborhood discussion group and the landlord just happened to be looking for someone to fill the vacancy.
She's the third big event in my recent life, of course. Just a little before the move and before the job, she and I started a life together, very quickly, almost hurriedly, with not a few stumbles and scary falls. Everything is happening fast in all these new ways; it is sometimes nice to just stop and breathe.

Children

The little girl I visited this weekend, Evi's godchild, suffers from congenital muscular dystrophy. She was born with dysfunctional muscles, all of them, from the ones she can control, like the ones on her arms, to the ones she can't, like stomach. And of course, there's also the diaphragm that you can sort of control. She was born unable to breathe because the diaphragm did not work enough to catch the first breath. She was attached to a machine for months.

I wonder how parents deal with their children born with enormous challenges, for the children as well as for the parents. This little girl's parents work full time outside their full time job to keep her alive and afford her the best care possible. While her muscles are improving, they will soon begin to deteriorate inexorably. I am not only thinking about the value of life, but also about being a parent. I see my nephew running around being unruly or uncontrollable, at least for me, not sure about the his parents. And I see that at least he's a normal child with normal challenges for parents and for himself.

I watched the little girl swing her little arms and legs. She started to smile, a behavior requiring facial muscular movement. She will have trouble speaking, and learning to speak. There is a tube attached to her trachea as if she was some patient suffering from lung disease after a life-time of smoking. She was still a little child, having spent first half her life so far in the hospital. I looked at the mother, and I saw no room left for grief or worry, just constant flow of tasks to keep her baby alive and in the best condition possible. What does it mean to be a parent? Is it really for the process? Or is it also for hopes and goals, goals of bringing a human being into a normal, fruitful life. Perhaps, not normal.

That was the preoccupation of my weekend in New Haven. And they were also seeds of thoughts. I haven't really let them grow into anything concrete. It was also a long weekend spent with Evi, nurturing that sapling called our relationship, building a connection that is just starting. The exception was a couple of hours in my old tango haunt, the place here I spent most of my Sunday evenings until I started driving down to New York City to dance that day of the week. Most faces were new but a few ghosts stubbornly clung to the tree of time. But there were really just two friends, one was the Indian man I had mentioned a few times, the man who stopped talking to me because I dated his ex-girlfriend without telling him. The other was a woman I went to Montreal once in her car; we also went often to New York City to dance. I caught up with both of them for a bit. I sat most of the time on those familiar steps that divided the dance section from the section where food and water was available and people gathered. I was the one who baked goods and wowed people for a few years. I was the one sitting there being too afraid to ask a better dancer to dance with me. I was somewhere around being upset amidst some drama with some tango dancer. I was everywhere in so many moments of those five years of dancing in this hall.

A Brief Return

I just missed the diesel train. I haven't been on that diesel train for nearly a year. Ten months. Since April. The diesel train between Stamford and Old Saybrook, passing by my Pink House. It's the train I took to work and sometimes back from work when I was still living in New Haven. I started taking that train, going on that route, after starting my transition toward New York.

I remember writing my blog on the way home, passing Bridgeport, watching the cars whose existence was indicated only by their taillights. There is the big factory with tall chimneys that bellowed out white clouds in the chilly morning sky. Now, as I pass them by, they are quiet giants falling into sleep along with the sky. A drop of nostalgia, perhaps? But I don't miss that commute, and I don't miss the town I had stayed in for so long. It was never a "home"; it was more like a Hotel California, a temporary place that you can get stuck in permanently, a middle point that can become the end point. There are memories in that Hotel California, memories that shaped my journey, but there's nothing to return to. Not like New York, which is at once forever changing and forever the same.

Now I am looking for a job again. Another move closer to New York. I moved my home to New York, but the job was stuck halfway. I am going through the whole recruiting process again, trying to show off how smart I am while discovering where my limitations are, and in those limitations I learn where I want to go next. It's been more than a year since I was going through my first job application in nearly nine years. Now looking back, that one year in this job, compressed, seems so brief and short. But like New Haven, it is just a stop, and a stop I refused to allow to extend further. That is why I am searching for another job. It's because, yes, I am tired of the commute. But also, there's a strong desire for motion after nearly nine years of stagnation. New York was going to be an endpoint, but then life opens finally the door of romance to me and now I don't know how long I will be in New York. I don't feel that obsessive attachment to it that would make me feel sad to leave. But the feeling of constant motion is made even stronger now that I am not sure how long I will be in the place I didn't think was another Hotel California, but a home.

The recruiters are interesting. I never saw them in this way before. What I mean is, somehow with some deeper sagacity, I can see how their words and persuasions are tailored with one goal in common: getting me a job so they get their commission from the hiring firm. They won't declare this intention, of course, but they never sugarcoated anything to make themselves sound like they are doing me a favor. The less experienced ones just want to throw me as many opportunities as possible, even if they are not so relevant. I have learned to set limits, be assertive in what I want and not tolerate compromises. There are the more experienced recruiters who is more discerning of what I can do and where I would fit, and they try to get me the right jobs while doing their best to convince me to follow their path.

I am likely to get two offers soon. Already the HR managers of the two companies have spoken to me about compensation. I am learning the art of negotiating, if just a little bit. A year ago I was willing to settle for whatever that would help me get out of New Haven and get a pay raise. Now I want to be more discerning myself. When I listen to recruiters speak, to HR people speak, to interviewers speak, I hear more than just the words they utter; I start to see their intentions, understand their private motives, and then, hopefully, I have a better idea how I should go about getting my own goals. In that way, perhaps, I have grown up a little bit this past year. And I see my own limitations, I sense them. I don't mean the technical limitations. I mean personalities that impede me from getting the best offer in the best place. Worries, ego, uncertainty, self-esteem.

But what is the best offer, the best place to work. The two places that are ready to give me an offer are on diametric ends of many spectra. A bank that would offer more money but has had a worsening reputation for the past many years. A young company with young developers that are serious about building software for educating school children. But it's not so simple, as I am learning more. Nothing is so black and white. The bad bank is so large that it's difficult to judge any part of it for the misdeeds of a few sections. The young company is young also in a bad way, or possibly, like poor management, unrealistic about compensation, chaos. Besides all this, I don't really know what I want, and am afraid to do what I had done in the past: pick something and go with the flow. This is likely my last job in this country and after that I will be away for some indefinite amount of time. I feel I need to be careful what I choose, not only for current aims but for later, for starting a family, in terms of salary, skill set building, and other factors about my career.

I guess I need to write down the pros a

And so fast, this year has indeed flown by. I wonder what the next year will be….

End of Vacation

Two weeks away, now, a new year starts. Last year I returned to the US on Christmas Day from Buenos Aires. This year, on New Year's Day. Is the flight cheaper, is that why the coincidence?

I wonder what is going on with the Swiss pianist. She seems to be going through a tough time, based on what she says in her latest poem. I am worried, but I guess this is a battle I can't help her in while I am still an "outsider".

Last night walking in Madrid I realized that despite having been here twice before, and that the first time I was here for actually a whole week, studying Spanish, despite all this, I didn't know the city so well, not even the touristy places. I had to ask people who currently live here where to go for the little narrow streets, an image not from my previous experience in Madrid, but more because I assume all old European cities had such a thing. Walking around last night I did remember many things, the Royal Palace whose picture with coffee tables in the foreground is found on one of my photographs in the New Haven kitchen, the Plaza Mayor that I always seemed drawn to, and other touristy places. But not only touristy places; I recall this entrance to an underground parking garage, for some reason, and the hotel next to it brazenly advertising "Do you want to sleep with me?" in English. It's not a weird hotel, but in fact a very chic looking one. I also recognized the movie theater where I met up with a Spanish woman to see one of the most disturbing movies in English, "Dogville". It was obviously not a date. I remember what she looks like, sort of, dark eyebrows, very beautiful smile. But I can't remember where I met her from. She and this sort-of boyfriend came to New York once and I remember showing them around before running for a train back to New Haven. Still, for the life of me, I can't remember how I got to know them or what her name was, even.

Funny how I remember little things, like the Spanish word "Empresa", meaning "company" or "firm", this word I learned from this Spaniard because she was explaining to me what she did. She and that same sort-of boyfriend invited me to some restaurant at the top of the ubiquitous department store, El Corte Inglés. I remember these things. I can't, however, remember her name.

I didn't recognize much of anything else in my late night walk in the quiet streets. Most streets were quiet because people were in their homes celebrating New Year's Eve with their families. It's more like Thanksgiving than the party mode North Americans are familiar with. Of course, after they do their countdown with the family they go out and party until the sun rises. But before that, the streets are empty. Empty except those in the touristy areas; there you hear a lot of Italian and Portuguese. Of course, I heard a lot of other languages too because the first place I "landed" was Lavapiés, the immigrant neighborhood. I walked down a street lined with Bangladeshi and Turkish shops, and the people on the street were mostly Africans. I hardly heard any Spanish walking there, or for the most part, walking that night.

I didn't know how I felt about Madrid. When I was in Buenos Aires, or in Paris, I felt in love. And it wasn't because Buenos Aires was new to me, or that Paris has its reputation. Sometimes you just bond with someone, or some place. I didn't feel very bonded to Madrid. I don't know why. The streets are cute, the buildings were beautiful and interesting. I can't remember if I felt more bonded in the past visits. If not, then perhaps that explains why I can't recall much.

However, I was impressed by the huge presence of immigrants. I remember visiting the old Atocha train station and chalked up a conversation in Spanish with this man. Was he from ex-Yugoslavia? Slovakia? I ended up giving him 10 euros and my address that he asked for so he would pay me back. I didn't expect he would pay me back, and I never did get it back. Still, I remember him and many others that were not from the country. That was my first time in Madrid; it was between Christmas and New Year's. That time I also spent New Year's in Madrid, doing the touristy thing of joining a crowd of thousands in Plaza del Sol for the New Year's countdown. I remember that. I remember the roasted chestnuts I got from one of the many stands found in just about every corner.

And I wonder what I will remember from this brief visit. I am afraid I will remember the circumstances surrounding my visit more than the visit itself. I left Tenerife with a heavy heart because of a poem the Swiss pianist sent me. I thought it meant she had decided and I believed her decision was to stay with her boyfriend. I couldn't focus on much after that poem. My farewell with my Spanish family was very much distracted by my preoccupation with the poem. I wanted to be alone and could hardly muster the attention for the farewell. I didn't even realize the little girl, Marifrancis' niece, wasn't there to say goodbye until I was already in the airport. Of course, my best friend tried to pay attention to me. But in the end, I wanted to be alone. Get on the plane to Madrid and be alone. Before I left for my night walk in Madrid I got a text from the Swiss pianist that she has still yet to make any decision and begged me for patience.

That was the context in which I visited Madrid. It was good to know she hadn't made a decision, so my old year didn't end with such a sour note, and neither did the new year start in this way. What I will remember for sure about my walk is how I celebrated the New Year's arrival. I walked to Chueca, the gay area. And yes there were plenty of male couples, hands held, walking around like any other couple, nothing eccentric, nothing to show off, as I often find in, say, Greenwich Village. I went there because people told me there's night life there, and I was advised to just go to a bar and celebrate New Year's there. So I walked around that neighborhood and settled for this tiny bar that seemed very traditional. It wasn't a party scene, which I saw in other places. There were plenty of restaurants and bars open for the New Year's Eve despite what I said earlier about the local customs regarding New Year's Eve. But I picked this little bar and I got myself a local beer and some fried calamari. There I chalked up a conversation with this American who lives in South Florida. He was a character. He was very secretous about what he did, or for that matter, what his son did. He said he was on a layover from Riga (Latvia) to Florida, but when I asked him what his son did, his answer was "He does very well what he does." Then later he would say he knew a lot of famous people, like Lady Gaga, Donald Trump, Madonna, and an actor whose film he didn't like but he wouldn't divulge his name because he works with him. He asked me if I was working for Donald or Gaga; I thought he was joking but apparently he had had spies follow him before, sent by the very people he worked with. Maybe it was still a joke, but his secretous air made it not so funny. I just thought he was crazy. And if he is really such an important person, I should stay out of his way, especially after he started talking about how there are more banks in Panama than in Switzerland and many of these banks were funded by money laundering from the drug cartels down south in Colombia.

I did my 12-grape eating countdown to the New Year, as it is customary in Spain. My grapes were in a ziplock bag provided by Marifrancis' family. It was not trivial to dig inside the bag to retrieve the grapes, more difficult than eating one per second for twelve seconds that mark the 12 months to come. Perhaps I will be lucky as a result. My first month is already quite lucky. (More of that in the next entry.)

I did not want to dolly much longer; the weird company was reaching the end of its interestingness and I wanted to catch the metro back to the hotel. So I walked through Chueca and soon found myself in the Madrid metro system again. It was a special night in that I made it. Since I left home I have spent most New Year's alone. This night I was in some ways alone because my friends were far away, but at the same time, I had this weird company. I also thought about the times I did have my friends with me. Two new year's eves with my Swiss girlfriend, first time in Vienna, then in Cairo. There was the New Year's Eve with Rose in China; I remember upsetting her by calling Marifrancis from China. I can't remember now if I spent other New Year's Eves with someone after my independence from my parents. I suppose in college, once? That seems too long ago. When I was alone, I remember before I started traveling over New Year's Eve (alone) I would spend the evening alone in my apartment, recalling the old times, reading through old letters. This New Year's Eve I didn't do that, but I did when I returned to the US, unintentionally, started to go through the old emails from the first few years of my life in New Haven. There were contacts I had nearly forgotten. I finally found that Spanish woman's name, but her email was no longer valid so I couldn't contact her. There were others. So many faces, so short of a time. I can only wonder who else will be in my future. I can only wonder where I will be the next New Year's, and with whom, if any.

Black Sand

Yesterday was my last full day on the island. Marifrancis drove us along the northern coast, just the two of us. The first stop was a cliff near where we would later have fish. I listened to the whispers of the sea, as if longing for a message, a voice. And I looked stark into the horizon, and noticed that not all the parts of the horizon are the same. Some parts have a brighter illumination on the sky part than others, some parts are blurred by whatever meteorological event that was happening there.

After lunch, we continued driving. We saw a great little town with its famous balconies. We've come here many times before along with the rest of her family, but it was always at night, after dinner or something. I realized I no longer thought everything was amazing, just appreciated everything I noticed for what it was. It was a strange sensation. Perhaps I am done with the kind of traveling I had been doing before going to Buenos Aires, which was the first time I didn't go around snapping pictures at everything that was different.

The highlight of the day trip was at the end. We found a beach that Marifrancis didn't know about. It was a small black beach, completely black, black from the eroded lava rocks that you see in many architectures this part of the island. She didn't want to go down to the sand because she had a cold, and going down to the sand would only be fun if she took her shoes off. So I went down there alone while she enjoyed the view. I wanted to feel the sand, and more importantly, the water, the warm Atlantic water (warm here, not back in the Northeast). I ran for a minute on the waves that reached that far to the damp sand. Then I stopped and walked slowly, letting the white foam of various heights engulf my lower shins. Then I stopped and looked at the sea again. It's simple, and yet, there're many parts to each wave if you just notice one. Back on the top at the cliff before lunch, the waves looked different from the bottom of the cliff; they were in slow motion, and yet, I could see the details evolving, also in slow motion. Here the waves were fast, in front of me, threatening to surprise me with a big wave that would wet my pants. Here the sound is loud and awesome. Here I could feel the waves, not only the temperature of the water, but their pushing and, even more interestingly, dragging of my feet, and when they drag my feet I sink a little into the black sand.

I turned around and walked toward the other end, where surfers were preparing their entrance into the infinite body of water. The sensation of being pushed and pulled by the waves, the view of the water, the evolution of each wave, this cannot be easily described, cannot be easily written in a poem; it can only be felt. Right away that beach became one of my favorites, and it became a highlight of my trip. I yearned for the sea, just as I yearned for the mountain, which I walked in yesterday. And I felt a slight tinge of sadness when I compelled myself to leave the waves. I turned around a few times and saw my footprint on the damp sand; they seemed so lonesome, in a good or bad way, I don't know.

I joined Marifrancis in watching the sea dance. We both noticed how the sea that was emerald earlier in the day when appeared from the bottom of the cliff now had a coat of golden shimmer. It was, in my mind, stealing the sun that had already descended behind the mountains behind us. The sun's rays traveled over the mountains and bounced off the clouds only to land like fallen leaves on the blue sea, floating, glistening.

The sea calms me down, just as the mountain delivers me peace. I was waiting still to see what the Swiss pianist would decide on. The sea reminded me the simple ways to find myself, that life's drama needs not be greater than the constant evolution of the waves, which is itself very beautiful. And I was with my best friend who would miss me dearly. We half joked that if I ever marry this Swiss pianist, I would be moving to Europe and we would be neighbors, finally (sort of). Who knows what the future brings. But for sure it brings surprises when you have an open heart. This discovery of a black sand beach is certainly a great surprise.

Return to Tenerife

The last time I was in Tenerife was just about exactly three years ago. Last time I celebrated New Year's Eve here. This year I will be alone, in Madrid, just as I did the first time I came to Tenerife. The first time I came to Tenerife I came right after New Year's Eve, some six years ago. Then, and as always except this time, I would miss Christmas in Tenerife because it's a family time for Marifrancis and her family. This year I arrived with her on Christmas Eve.

And I arrived with so much on my mind, perhaps so much that I just collapsed in bed and slept more than three hours.

The night before I hardly slept. Partly because I had two shots of Scotch after a few sips of wine. Partly because I couldn't stop thinking about the Swiss pianist, about the decision she is about to make, or has already taken but hadn't dared to tell me. And of course, it was really unusual time of sleeping for a week of an already unusual sleeping patterns. I was supposed to sleep from 9PM to 4AM, local time, a time when I usually went dancing or not sleeping at all if you translated it to US time. On top of that, the sofa bed of Marifrancis was never conducive to sleeping for me.

So it was a night of lost sleep. And I managed to doze off in the airplane, despite the heavy sound of footsteps every time someone walked by on the shaky airplane floor. But dozing off didn't count. I slept a few hours after having arriving and having lunch.

It's been three years since I was here, and I am remembering many things as well as learning new things. Not just learning new things, but also deepening what I have already learned. I mean, about Marifrancis' family, about their interactions with the surrounding areas bound by the limits imposed by the Atlantic Ocean. For some of her brothers, the island seems like a prison. For at least her youngest brother, it is home and he volunteers to stay here as long as his mother needs. This is especially true now that the father had passed away in February.

The eldest brother is still working hard to provide for his daughter, and both of them live under the same roof as the rest of the family. The only member missing, besides the father now, is Marifrancis, the only one to have left the family and island more than eight years ago. When I first came here eight year's ago (exactly so starting next week), the family didn't have that brother and his daughter. The daughter was a shy little three-year-old, as unfamiliar to me as was the island. I remember coming off the plane from Madrid and discovered a lot of warmth in the air but also more coolness from the clouds than expected. The island, like my friend's family, was much more complicated than I had expected. But isn't that usually the case? You get some impression at first, some hearsay, some expectations, and the more you spend time on this subject, the more complicated it gets.

Today (being a few days since I started this blog) Marifrancis and I went to one of her favorite spots, which tourists don't usually visit since it's in the northern part. There are no beaches here, but lots of black rocks from lava and white waves smashing onto them. I sat there with her, taking some distance for our own space, and I tried to let myself go, mentally, into the emerald sea with its emerald waves. I thought about the problems each member of her family faced. Not just the eldest son with the daughter, but also the son who had been trying to get a governmental job for as long as I had known the family, or the mother who had just lost a 40-year old relationship to cancer. These things gave me some perspective in a time when I am trying very hard not to think about the Swiss pianist. The bliss with her in the final couple of weeks before my vacation is becoming a distant memory. I don't feel as desperate as before to have her in my life, but I don't want it any less. I just don't feel as desperate, either because I am calmer, or because I am suppressing that feeling better.

With the perspective I am gaining from interacting with and observing the family that has welcomed me at each visit, I gain also a sense of peace with respect to the Swiss pianist. I am thinking more about what I want to do besides worrying that she would not want me in her life the way we both wish would happen. I am still disturbed that she has gone off to Hawaii with her boyfriend without making a final decision, but at the same time, not only do I trust that she has some good reason that I cannot currently understand, but also, well, it doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme of things. My life can't revolve around her decisions about her own life. Perhaps one day my life will intertwine with another person's life, but right now, that's not the case. Being away from her, being with people whom I care and who have real dramas and difficulties, helps me move forward with my life.

Tomorrow (really officially now) is the birthday of the eldest son. I will take them out for lunch and hopefully will have energy to make him some spaghetti alla vodka. To give love to yourself, and to those who have become a part of your life, helps you feel more grounded. With this thought I hope I can sleep!

Returning to Paris

I've returned to Paris many times, especially when I lived in England. Leaving Gare du Nord on the Eurostar to cross the Channel into London, I watched the dark, northern landscape of the city disappear. I saw the illuminated Sacré Coeur in the distance, waving goodbye. I saw the rundown hotels disappear too; one of them was probably where I stayed once when I was coming from London with the girlfriend at the time.

But the memories that stood out most on this brief trip belong to the first time I came to Paris. It was my second trip to Europe. It was the summer ending my sophomore year, there I waited in the French capital for my college girlfriend who had just broken up with me to be with this other guy. It was at times a little awkward, I mean, we were sharing the same bed though nothing weird happened. It was nonetheless difficult. Looking back I realized I had already put myself in such awkward situation early on. That was 1995, June.... More than 16 years ago. I was there. She took me to see all the different places, showed me tricks on saving money, saving time, being a good Romanian used to circumventing "the system".

I went to a lot of places she had taken me. Some places I had revisited a few times since then. Some, like the Musée de Rodin, I had not been back since. I remember taking a picture of her next to the famous "The Kiss" sculpture. I remember, in my head, we were standing in front of the "Gate of Hell", Rodin's rendition of Dante's "Inferno". There were more flowers and the trees had more leaves that summer; now it was cold and the trees were stripped of their grandeur by the recurring winter. And, of course, I was alone.

But life wasn't so different. I was in a similar situation, in that I was involved with a woman who had a boyfriend. Difference is that she is making her decision on what to do next. And I was kept in suspense throughout my trip in the French capital. If she decides to be with me, then good chance that I will be returning to Paris many times as she intends on moving back to Switzerland, or Europe, at least. That was on my mind, too. A future with her, if she so chooses.

I didn't do much site-seeing. I went to touristy places, but not snapping pictures at the oft-snapped sites. I went to Montmartre, recalling the "Fabulous Tale" of Amélie (that's the approximate translation of the original French title). Some people's love stories are simple. Mine, for some reason, has to be incredibly complicated. I don't choose simple people, simple situations, or life decides that I deserve something more than the simple mundane thread existence.

I also went walking around Quartier Latin with another old friend who had been living in France for a while. This area also helps me recall the first trip in Paris. It's where I had cheap canteen food at a university cafeteria. The friend this time also happened to be Romanian. We met on a train in Romania, and we don't write to each other more than once a year, but we're close. Still, I know she likes me still, after all these years, since that train ride to a German-speaking Romanian town in 1999, I know she likes me, and we know I never felt the same way. Nothing weird happened between us, but with her I know how it feels to be unable to return love. At the end of the afternoon walks, she had to return to her city of Reims. From the TGV train she repeatedly asked me to come back with her, visit her place, her life there. She knew I was madly in love with a woman who would either bring me heavenly joy or abysmal dejection, but still, she begged me to go back with her, assuring me that there were two beds. I had visited her once in her native town in Romania back when I was living in England. I never stayed overnight, but I saw her small, sad-looking apartment in a sad-looking Communist style building. And when it was my time to board the train to leave her town, she kissed me. I felt very sad for her. She is the total opposite of me: expecting nothing complicated, nothing serious, from life. It doesn't mean she doesn't get into complicated situations, but we are too different; I seek adventures in the world, no matter the cost; she is happy being in one little, quiet place, being a surgeon.

The major difference between this trip to Paris and the other trips is that I danced a lot of tango. Four nights out of five. I tried dancing last time I was here, but I was still not confident enough. This time I was more open-minded and more confident. I had a good time. I was also curious what I was getting myself into, in terms of tango, at least, if I do move back to Europe. It's not as fantastic as New York, but still.

Tango or no tango, I found the love of my life, in the most complicated, tangled web I can imagine my life to get into (I guess at least she's not married with children). This suspense of not knowing what her decision process is like, not knowing the final result, drives me crazy. I try not to think about it. I try to assume the worst. After all, she is going on a New Year's trip to Hawaii with her boyfriend. I don't quite understand what that means, why she decided to do that. At the same time, she is writing me poems everyday, and the two times we actually chatted, she reminded me how much she missed me.

She will decide soon, it's just me having to cope with the unknown. It's better if I can just not think about it and enjoy my time here, and I am enjoying my time. Paris I felt in love with the city again, as always. Today's my first day in London and I met up with another old friend (this one there is not an iota of drama with). Now I am in a cafe with bad hot chocolate, waiting for my best friend to come back from her work. I don't know what we will do, but we will see. She knows about my tangled web of events, and she, being very emotional of a Spaniard, is all confused and frustrated and happy. She doesn't want me to be hurt again, of course.

But as I told her, whatever happens, I am blessed with one thing: for the first time, the woman I am crazy about is crazy about me. And I know how that feels for me. And, from now on, I won't settle. Before her I always had to work very hard trying to convince the girl to give me the same attention back. And it never worked, often backfired. Part of the problem is what my friends always told me (and many of these "friends" were actually the very same girls before becoming friends): I need to know I deserve better; I need to believe I am damn good. For the first time in my life, I realized, yes, I am really that good; I don't need to go running after every breadcrumb that comes my way just because she's beautiful. Dignity in myself. As another friend told me, let the girls come to me.

I used to have as my signature a quote from a Portuguese writer: Take care of your garden and the butterflies will come to you. I always ran after girls trying to prove I have a lot to offer, when I didn't have to do that; I already had a lot to offer. Their failure to see my beauty is not my problem. Having met a girl who absolutely adores me makes me see what it feels like to be myself while still being in love. Being in love doesn't mean I have to work so much.

I have one more week left before going back to reality, and by then, hopefully, a decision is made. But what I really should do is not think about that decision. It's her decision, not mine. I have already decided on spending my life with her. It's time to move on.

Late Entry

It's been a while since I've written anything here. I've been busy writing a novel for the November Novel month.

I wanted to put a few notes here.

The plan was never to date someone who has a boyfriend. But life never goes as planned.

Where do I start? I mentioned her. Pianist, also. Coincidence? Probably not. So many people date someone looks just like the one they broke up with if they don't wait a while before jumping back into the dating pool.

But the coincidence is not important here.

She's really amazing. I know, I always say this about everyone I am interested in.

But listen. We clique easily. We know what the other person is thinking most of the time. We make each other laugh (and now cry for the first time). It's like we've known each other for a while, and we both know we've only known each other for a few weeks, meeting usually just once a week.

But every time we meet, something even more amazing happens. The latest is this phenomenon I had only dreamed but never done it with anyone. It's intense. It's looking at each others' faces, communicating by reading that face and letting your soul seep out to be read. For the first time I feel I am getting to know a woman as a woman, as a human being, more than just friendship or anything else. I am often tempted to touch her face, but then I know that's just me wanting a shortcut, being impatient, not letting myself become absorbed in this connection.

And it's natural. We look at each other and we don't let go. We don't look away until something external pushes us (like it's time to catch the subway or we'll be late for the milonga).

I remember feeling a newly deep connection a long time ago with this woman from Lithuania. That was after college. We had a deep connection, talked so naturally. But then one day she announced that she was going to see this boy she was interested in all the way in Seattle. They ended up getting married. I was devastated. I never looked at my own feelings, inspected them, but then when she told me she was going to see someone else and going to marry him, my world collapsed and I stopped talking to her.

And that's sort of what this pianist did. She told me after I pressed her that she was going to start a new life with her boyfriend, start a family.

I felt so lonely. I asked myself what was the point of this connection. I wanted to never see her again.

By talking to friends (well, really just shooting one friend with lots of emails whenever I had a thought) I slowly realized how much I wanted to have someone, to have a family, and how that desperation always prevented me from enjoying what I currently have. I don't know if I will ever find someone I can connect with so well, on sense of humor, on philosophy, on belief system. And this connection through the face. I am afraid of the future, afraid I won't find someone.

But I am not enjoying what I have now. This is the girl that randomly sends me a text to tell me to look at the moon because through that silver disk she thought about me. The girl that brought my treats always as a surprise. The girl that took me to all these places in New York I didn't know about. The girl I am never bored with and whom I never bored.

And then to hear her lay out her plans in the backseat of a taxi in front of me. My world collapsed.

Making Peace

Today was the first time I saw snow on my commute since April, when the last dusting happened. Today was the first time I saw snow on my New York commute. I wonder if there will be more a year from now.

The sun has gone under its blanket about half an hour ago. The sky is still a dark blue, illuminating the white strips of snow along the tracks. The cars that race past the train, at least those on the fast lane, all have their lights on, and from the comfort of my seat, I see them as alien spacecrafts in the sky. The commute to New Haven didn't have cars along the train track like this, and I usually saw them with their red tail lights glistening like Christmas tree lights.

Making peace is the step I am trying to take today. "Making" peace, not just talking about it, analyzing it, but rather, making it, making it with myself, with the life I have now.

Just before I started writing this entry, I realized, already thinking about peace, that I have spent much of this year being away from peace, or having no peace because I was busy in the war with the French girl. She is constantly surprised at how long it is taking me to get over my anger and frustration with her. Just this past Friday I got upset that she chose to spend Friday night with her guy than with me. She doesn't understand why I was still upset.

You can't blame her; it's been so long, this relentless war. But luckily, it is dying, breathing its final months.

What I was thinking wasn't really about her. It was about how I have preoccupied myself with tension all this year, so out of touch with peace. Watching the snow, watching the anonymous cars and their headlights, I remember the feeling of peace when I started commuting to Stamford. But I also remember the weekly battles with the same French woman. It was a proxy war with my past that I couldn't fight then, as a child, as a teenager.

Saturday night I went to a concert with the pianist, who gave me free tickets to hear one of the best known violinists play with a pianist at the 92Y. Afterward we had a poorly prepared dinner at a nearby restaurant and then the battle started. The snow was falling heavily when she refused politely and indirectly my entreaties to go home with her. She tried to make the best out of the walk to the bus stop, but I was upset. I told myself before hand to not get upset if she said no, but as always, I couldn't take a rejection. It didn't matter that nothing good would have come out of going there with such an ambiguous relationship, as I could tell first hand from many experiences in the past few years. It didn't matter. A rejection was a rejection.

Peace was nowhere to be found inside me despite the quiet streets, the quieted city blanketed by a quiet blizzard. I couldn't sleep that night. The heat was making whistling and clanging sounds, but the loudest clanging came from inside me. I spent the night absorbed in my own chaos.

The next day we followed up on our plans to go to the opera house to see a recital by an upcoming male tenor, the next star, the next Pavarotti, perhaps. We enjoyed it. But afterward I had to tell her, simply, but not without immense difficulty that it was best if we didn't have any communications at all. She stood up and was about to leave. I touched her hand without really knowing what I was going to do. She gave me a hug when I told her that in the end she needed to know at least that I liked her a lot. She said she liked me too. But without words we knew that was somehow not enough.

Then she left. This time her back to me.

She wanted to be friends. Like all these other women who somehow couldn't handle what I wanted to give and what I wanted from them.

This is how drama permeates my life.

I walked from Columbus Circle where I saw her last all the way to Herald Square where the milonga would be. On the way I picked up a lamb gyro from what I was told the best street car in the city, a block from Rockefeller Center. That made me feel better. The City, I could always count on to make me feel a little better. It was cold. My winter clothes were still in New Haven. I was wearing my corduroy jacket for the opera house. But I was sad. I felt numb inside. I couldn't understand why it always happened to me that women in the end wanted to be my friend. But I was grateful, and I told her too, that she didn't try too hard to be my friend, like the French girl did. She is a bitter Russian woman from the middle of Siberia. She knew that life was never fair, that she could never expect much good from life.

And if I am not her knight in shining armors, there was no reason for her to be in my life.

There wouldn't be drama in a person who lives with peace. I am full of drama and of little peace. I realized it slowly. I got to the milonga before the pre-milonga class even started and I felt an urge to explode, let me feelings go. There was a friend who didn't take the class and who was just hanging out. So I had her sit next to me and I asked her if she had ever been in a situation where she wanted to be the friend of someone she didn't want to date but that he refused that friendship. I asked because I wanted to sympathize with the pianist. It hurt me to see her turn around and leave.

Drama is for those who can't just let go, who hangs on the sentimental for as long as possible, making a taffy out of it just so he can drag it out a little longer.

It was good to be with my friend. She was, to my surprise, going through her own drama that she didn't want to specify either. At least we commiserated each other, and we reminded each other that in the end friendships are important, and we were the living example right there.

The turning point for my decision to make peace was this morning. On the train I realized I couldn't understand and therefore couldn't accept that a woman who likes me would still not date me. She felt guilty she couldn't give me what I wanted when I was giving her more than she could ever expect from a man. And her guilt materialized into sharp pain whenever I showed disappointment with her distance. She couldn't take it anymore so she had to cut it off. I thought that was such a stupid reason to break up. It would be my reason to break up with her, not her reason since she was the one getting the better end of the "deal", if that is the best way I can put it.

At work I couldn't take it anymore so I got myself a notebook, went up to the cafeteria, and wrote an imaginary letter to her, demanding that she explain to me why her guilt was the reason we weren't together. Why it could be accepted as a reason to break something that had so much potential. As I wrote it out, I started to make peace.

I realized making peace is not about making sense of the nonsense. It's about letting go of things. Letting things be. Not controlling everything, not even to comprehend it, for the desire to comprehend is very much a form of desire to control. I started to allow the reality that people will do what I might not find reasonable, and no amount of reasoning on my part, overt or just in my mind, would change what other people do. The best way is to accept it.

And slowly, I started to let go of the past, the future that I fantasize. I started to let go of the beautiful few weeks we had together, minus the very few battles. The images that had been hurting me started to find their places in the peaceful seats of my heart. The image of us posing for the New York Times photographer as we looked at the twilight over the Washington Bridge that evening before the hurricane came. The image of all my poems I have written to her. And many more. Many remain difficult, and just the thought of them creates a constriction in my throat.

But at some point, I was started to see the phrase I think she deserves to know, that I think I deserve to hear from myself. "Don't feel guilty about not giving me what I wanted. I never thought you took advantage of me. I always felt grateful to have the opportunity to show my love." It's true. No woman I can remember had allowed me to go so far, to be the gentleman I wanted to be, to treat a woman the way I wanted. All these women were so afraid of what I was offering that they just fought back much sooner than the pianist did. It's true I deserved someone who liked me just as much, who lived up to the erratic and irrational expectations I had at a given moment. But I wasn't focusing on that then. Having written that imaginary letter I started to remember how happy I was, how I was looking forward to writing her the poems, to getting her the flowers, or just opening the door for her. My happiest moment was when she told me that no one has ever made her feel so special before. She gave me that chance to be the boyfriend I had always wanted to be.

Making peace means letting go. It means not let the ego get in the way. It kills me to know I have failed. I have failed to build a long-lasting relationship. It kills me that a woman I cared about could just break something I thought we were both building, willing to build. Obviously, as with the French and India girls, it was torture to see them choose someone else before my wounds had healed. But whatever right I have to be angry, the problem is that it doesn't do me any good. It doesn't matter if these women become my friends or not; I am tired of spending another month being angry, being spiteful over a lost past and a forbidden future. I just have to live in the present.

One day can't change everything. I wish today I can make peace with the French girl and not let her current relationship get to me. I wish today I can see the pianist and not feel regretful that we couldn't build what we wanted. But I am not so far. I will see her tomorrow because she is coming to the practica now. I wonder if by then I will have made enough peace to offer her my olive branch. It still feels like defeat: friendship. It still feels like it is the best I can get from not winning. A consolation prize. But my anger, my frustration, can't compare to that with the French girl's even before I started suspecting her nascent relationship. I hope I am maturing in this sense. To let things go. To live in the present. To live in the present for my own sake, not for someone else's, not for someone else's desire to be my friend, to have my company. It is for my own peace that I will decide how I interact with these people who just couldn't handle my love.

Fast Mover

"You write so fast, I can't keep up with my responses." That was more or less what the Swiss pianist said. I admitted and I am admitting now that that's one of my problems in my interactions with people. I send them a million emails, one for every tiniest thought. I answer right away, as if it were a conversation. This in itself isn't a bad thing, but in my case it reflects a degree of longing for company, longing for attention.

I had dinner with my Italian friend last night. She had just moved to New York last week. We went to a bad Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. It was bad to me, and imagine what it was to her, an Italian cook herself. We talked a lot. She is the one person who is most aware of what I have been going through with women. She has known about this part of my rocky life for eight years, more or less. And so she was confident to tell me what she thought, although being Italian, she is confident to say just about anything. (In front of the waiter she complained nonstop about how much burned garlic her spaghetti had as she spooned one after another out onto a growing pile in front of the poor man.) I like her unrestrained frankness. We Chinese, and Americans, like beating around the bush a little too much.

She told me that she was worried. Not so much that I would be single forever, as I joked, but worse, that I would suffer forever. And why? She thinks my problem is I only go after pretty girls, girls who put a lot of makeup, shameless in showing skin. I realized she was basing all this on the India girl, and on that one occasion, my birthday party, where she showed quite a bit of skin, but that was because she wanted to look like that for my party. The point is I realized my friends are helpful not only being there for me, which is the only thing I ask for and is the most important thing they do for me, but also they offer perspectives that I don't see because I am not outside. Nevertheless, I have to be aware of what they see from the outside because, even with this friend who knows my fiascos best, they only see a small portion of what I go through.

Having said this, their perspectives help me a lot. The French girl the other day gave me an interesting analysis of my current pattern, which is a desire to reconstruct the pain from the loneliness of my childhood. It's an irony that when we suffer, some of us seek a future free from that suffering, while others, more complicated people, I would say, seek a future to reconstruct that suffering. The two aren't contrasts if you look deeper. The point of reconstructing the suffering isn't just masochism, but rather, there's a secret desire to see if the past can be undone by reconstructing it. You repeat a pattern hoping magically it will stop on its own. The tragedy is that you try so hard to reconstruct it that you will never actually permit it to be the exception you're seeking.

So regardless of whom I meet, I will do my best, unconsciously, to make her do the same things to me, make myself suffer for the same reasons. Maybe that's why I never have this kind of drama with my friends and family; I don't seek to reconstruct this kind of environment.

Last night the Russian pianist wrote to me about her day. And in it she asked me to call her the next day. Then she added that I could call her now if I wasn't too tired. I didn't call her then. I was tired. But also, I didn't want to repeat the pattern of super-availability. Of course, things would be far simpler if I just focus on myself. When I do, I will naturally be less available. There's a part of me that made me want to see her. Then again, I knew that I wasn't feeling the same enthusiasm I did when I was dating.

I told her the day we broke up that I was giving her space, that my door was open when she was ready. That implies I would wait for her. I suppose that's not something wise to say the moment you break up, but it's in my case the expected thing to say. That is why I don't take back the opera concert we are going to see in December. Or the recital this coming Sunday. It may have been a mistake to promise my door was open (for how long?), but it would be much worse to take it back, to break it. There's an expiration, of course. We weren't married and had a lot to build on to justify some eternal promise. But it has only been three weeks, nearly, and I can live a few more with this promise. I don't suffer from the promise. Curiously, I don't ache from her absence. I am happy when I see her. I even wonder if we would get back together. I wonder if I will be happy with her if we were together. But I know that I can't repeat the pattern. I can't be running after her and forget about myself. Or after anyone else. To lose myself and watch the other person leave me, that's the pattern. My sister told me I should have goals and stick to them. If I must have a goal in my love life, I think it should only be this: stop reconstructing the pattern. It doesn't matter how pretty the girl is, how soon I want to sleep with her, if I want marriage or whatever else from the relationship. It will all fall into play, it would all make sense, if I make the effort to stop the pattern. And the simplest way, though so difficult that I haven't in all my adult life succeeded, is to be present with myself. When I do that, I will not be answering emails with lightening speed.

Forgetting

I forgot about my little sister's birthday. I haven't checked on the emails concerning the sale of my house, or the deadened nature of even starting the sale. I am neglecting a lot of things. I don't know where my time goes. I don't remember the last time I ate at home. I cook lunch and then I eat it at work. Every night I am meeting someone. My nights have disappeared. Often I am not even aware of my absence in the house. I go home and I check what's happening to my "friends" on Facebook, see what emails I get, and what horrific news on various websites. I have forgotten even what it means to be home. Perhaps a tea alone, without the computer, just with my thoughts.

I do that already in the subway. I don't listen to music; I often get lost in thoughts watching the different faces in the subway. My mind wanders and I forget to leash it so it doesn't go too far. Many things I am forgetting to do, even though I know perfectly well how to do most of them.

Tonight I am meeting up with my New Haven Italian friend who has just also moved to New York. She is the demanding one, but somehow I have grown out of being the one that always accommodates to her demands. It's ironic that while she always complains that my problem with women is that I am too accommodating, she is the most demanding of all, even though she was referring to my romantic problems and she and I have no romantic problems. She is Italian and it is in her nature, it seems, to be demanding. But even before I moved to New York I have learned to stand up on my own and not buckle under pressure. After all, she is my friend, and I don't need to be anyone except myself. She was unhappy that I wouldn't be able to stay long in our meeting tonight. I told her I shouldn't stay late anyway, but really, I was hoping to see the Swiss pianist one more time before she goes off to see her boyfriend this weekend. I don't think that would happen since she will be done teaching very late and very far away. Still, while I would like to see my Italian friend now that she's finally moved here, I want to do what I want, not what is convenient for her. She lives many blocks away from the nearest subway. She said I could take a taxi, and I realized she doesn't know that's not something I do.

Tomorrow I will not have any plans, unless the Swiss pianist decides to go away Saturday. I will finally have a night in my apartment, that foreign, expensive dominion of mine. Perhaps then I will get to collect my thoughts, sort out my feelings. Last night I went to the 92nd Street Y to hear a reading by this Israeli author who was presenting bits of his new book. I had never heard of his name until yesterday, and the excerpts of his book reinvigorated my desire to write. It is the style I enjoy. The style of details. The style of describing ordinary things. It reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the fantasies and everyday details in that One Hundred Years of Solitude. The details, the solitude, the disconnection, especially that of the family, resonated with the chords of my soul.

I am tired of my job, less than ten months later. I am not learning new things. I am finding myself fixing a lot of things, investigating problems, most of which I didn't create. Solving problems is a joy in my life, but that's only because it requires creativity. Somehow I am feeling tired and discouraged. If I am doing these little things with requirements of little creativity but results of much frustration, I would at least like to get paid more for it. I am not getting paid what I should in finance.

I feel the channel of my creativity is all cluttered. Cluttered by the mundaneness of everyday life, by being absent from home, by fear of doing something different. Don't get me wrong; I like the time I have spent away from home. Not only for the attention. More than that: I like connecting with people. Nevertheless, I think it is time to rejuvenate the connection with myself. I was going to do nothing this week. I succeeded in not going to tango last night, to probably my favorite milonga. But I still went out last night. Listening to the writer read and talk about Israeli life, being among American Jews and Israelis, all had a positive effect on my connection to the world, my own life.

I was told of this reading event by the Russian-Israeli pianist, the one who broke my heart two weekends ago. She was there, of course. And we went out for a short dinner afterward. It was natural. As promised to myself, I haven't made drama out of anything with her, never mentioned about "us". We reconnected, through the topic of the reading, of Israel, of Jews, and about what she's doing now. She was happy to see me, it was obvious. I didn't allow myself to think much further than that. Each moment as its own event, disconnected to the past and the future. I enjoyed being with her, talking to her. And now I realize I am capable of living in the present, if I give myself the space to do it.

Morning for Patience

It's morning again, and the rain is playing drums on my windowsill. I woke up with that frustration again, though this time it wasn't directed specifically at the French girl as it had been a few months ago. On the 7- train platform I didn't see the twilight that engulfed the Manhattan skyline, but rather, those glass behemoths were blindfolded by the low hanging rainclouds, standing erect, looking like prisoners waiting before the firing squat. The sun that had faced them yesterday morning was nowhere to be found. Everything was gray.

My frustration came before my ascent to the 7-train station. It came before my eyes were open. It came sometime around the torturously slow sound of raindrops outside my window. It was new. Droplets from the eaves above drumming outside my bedroom.

I don't know where this came from. Perhaps it started last night. Last night the pianist invited me to a concert at the newly renovated Alice Tully hall for the Chamber Music Society in Lincoln Center. The music was flawless and amazing. I was happy to be there. I was happy to see her. I wasn't sure if I still liked her, but when I looked at her, I was sure. But that wasn't necessarily good. I have started to think that perhaps it was no longer a good idea. She's taking her time, taking advantage of the space I am giving her in whatever unnamed relationship we have. In the meantime, I am not sure that I can really be as patient as she needs me to be. After the concert there was some awkwardness. We weren't sure what to do. Before we left the concert, an elderly woman fell on the marble floor and became unconscious with a small pool of blood around her head. The EMS came very quickly, but that shook us a bit. Now she was going to go to the practica that I wasn't planning on going because I hadn't thought about how late the concert would go. I wasn't sure where the awkwardness came from. I sensed that she wanted to spend more time with me. In any case, I took the train with her and we went to Chelsea, where the practica was. We grabbed a slice of pizza each and both went to the practica. But there I was sitting a lot. People go to the practica to practice and they spend a lot of time dancing with the same person. When I went I usually make sure there were people to practice with. She was going there to practice with someone.

That put me in a bad mood, sitting there not dancing, knowing I hadn't planned to come. We left earlier and left together. I walked her to the train station and took the same train together. But I left her in Time Square to go home. I wasn't sure if she wanted me to come with her, and of course, if she offered, and she wouldn't have, I wasn't sure what I was going to say. Not sensing any hint from her that I should come with her, I just big her farewell. There was some silence already in the train ride. We were talking about the whole Shalit prison exchange that happened the previous night in Israel, but that was before going to the practica. That connection was over. Now we couldn't really find a connection with this awkwardness lingering in the air, the awkwardness of not know what the other person wanted, or what each person wanted for himself.

It's all stupid and it in the end made me feel strange. Sometimes I just want to be left alone, away from all this stupid awkwardness. I don't have the patience I need. I want a girl to like me and be with me right away, and if she doesn't I want to move on. Often times that didn't end up like that; often the girl wanted me to be friends and see. I lack the patience, but at the same time, I am not entirely sure what I want. I think I am impatient about not getting what I want, whatever that is. It's that feeling of not getting what I want, and not really about what it is that I want.

Post Recovery

In a few weeks, couple of weeks, really, we will need to turn our clocks back and the night will come an hour sooner. Before I leave work, I can see through the giant windows that twilight was arriving noticeably sooner every day.

I get up before the sun does. By the time I get to the 7 train platform, dawn has just given rise to the sun behind me, illuminating the Manhattan skyline. I know, soon, within a few days, I will be at the platform before the sun rises. Of course, once we turn the clock back, the sun will get ahead of me again.

Time is passing quickly. I've been here for nearly half a year now. I still remember when I walk home the feeling of anxiety over moving the car away somewhere so it won't block street cleaning, and I had to strategize it so as to minimize the number of moves each week. I remember still a messy apartment, an apartment with guests while I myself felt still like a guest sometimes, in this foreign apartment. I didn't know then what adventures awaited me, just as now I have no idea what lies ahead.

I saw the pianist Saturday when she invited me to go up to Inwood with her and get some groceries from the local farmer's market. We then cooked and chatted. We never chatted about "us", about the breakup. After that, she gave me a one-hour lesson on what a sonata was, since I saw that word in her repertoire. Her lesson was her way of feeling the relationship less off-balanced since I was helping her a lot with just about everything. After that I gave her a longer lesson on the web, on how to make things work.

After that we went to the monthly milonga together. That part wasn't planned. I was slightly surprised that, when I told her I was going to go next day to a friend who lived just a few stops south, she told me it wouldn't make sense for me to go all the way back to Queens. I showed none of my slight surprise.

How I am handling this breakup is very different from all the other times. There is no drama after our talk last Sunday. I didn't write to her at all, let alone endless tragic and angry emails. I told her, as I have mentioned in earlier blog entries, that I would give her all the space she needed. My door would be open.

She didn't call me until last Wednesday, which wasn't that long after the breakup, and by then, surprisingly to me, I was very much over the pain. And that was the only contact last week. And here I was in her apartment talking about everything except the breakup, except "us". I could sense that she was getting more comfortable with me.

Nothing happened in bed. It was, ironically, very much like before, except that when I wanted to stroke her hair she resisted. I respected her small step away from me. I crossed the line, however innocent it was. I couldn't sleep much, not because of her, just because her corner is really noisy, and we went to bed a little after 5AM. I also couldn't sleep because of the French girl. We were starting another round of vicious fights.

I made the pianist French toast and she asked if she was being spoiled again. "Again" referring to how I was spoiling her plenty when we were together. I didn't hear any alarm in her voice, no fear, just being coquettish; I said I had to eat myself.

We didn't hug when I walked in that Saturday morning. It was a little awkward despite my determination to have a nice day with her, knowing that the next time I would see her would be uncertain. But that slight cool air between us warmed up as the beautiful Saturday wore on.

After I left her place on Sunday to go to that friend's place a few blocks down, I didn't call her or contact her in any way. I was slightly surprised to see her at the Sunday milonga later, perhaps because I still had a small piece of possessiveness that partially drove her away. I was expecting her to let me know she was coming, like before. But that feeling was small, even if noticeable. We walked out together but this time, unlike exactly a week ago, I wasn't sentimental. I was tired, having slept only 4 hours in her bed before the honking at the corner. I hugged her and I walked away without, unlike last time, looking back. I have to say that I did so with some effort. I wanted her to want me. I don't know if she looked back. But I want her to come to me. I don't want to chase after her when she doesn't want to be chased. I have shown her how much I could offer. She turned it all away, but it seems only momentarily. Today she called me to check on me, and to confirm our little date, romantic or platonic, tomorrow at the Lincoln Center to see her former teacher perform. She was giggly, happy, and silly. I didn't restrain my own happiness, but I did nothing sentimental.

Perhaps I have recovered. But I am thinking about something else. There is a certain degree of lamentation in all this. I have a lot of love energy to give and so far, in every case in my life since returning from Europe, it was sort of, wasted. It was as if I was sending a powerful beam into space and it just disintegrates eventually into the very darkness it vainly attempts to illuminate. This weekend was the monthly milonga, and all the crazy tango people from outside the city come down. I saw some of the women I had wasted this energy in, even danced with a few of them. And now I wonder why I seem to have it together with this pianist. I wonder if I still like her as much as before but figured out how to control my feelings. Or perhaps I am becoming jaded and losing interest in all things romantic. It's not just wasting the romantic energy; it's also believing that following your heart and showing your love is the right thing to do, and yet, you rarely, rarely get rewarded by it, reward in the sense of a different love of the same intensity and nature.

The French girl and I had a huge fight this weekend, as I mentioned. I won't go into the details. But in the end, I realized a few things. I realized I was ready to be her friend, that I had been ready for a few weeks now. But at the same time, my wound from all the drama of the past two years with her hasn't had any significant period of healing. We eventually made up and for now things are all right. But still, today, I thought, what was all that about? What was the point? Why did I waste my romantic energy on someone that is now clearly best fit in my world as a friend. Not why did "I" waste the energy, since I don't have control over whom I direct the energy to, but rather, why did the world, fate, God, or whoever, direct that energy to her. What was the point? The lesson? The two of us have expended immense emotional energy in fighting each other just to build the close relationship we finally have now. What a waste!

This, of course, is nothing compared to the drama with Rose, over more than fourteen years. And it's not like I will get wiser and fall for the right girl next time. You never get to choose whom you fall in love with, so there is no lesson to learn. The lessons are in how to deal with people, how to connect with yourself during these times of wasting energy. I have yet to see deeper about these lessons.

There is a part of me that wants to get excited about seeing the pianist. I don't know if I am simply no longer as excited as before or I am being much more careful. It's still too early to tell. For now, I want to get to know her. Just as I want to connect deeper with the French girl, as well as other elements of this new life in New York City. I will try to remember to do the same with myself.

Taking Space

I saw a picture posted by someone on Facebook that says something like, every human relationship is difficult, it's a question of which is worth keeping.

Every morning I emerge from the subway and hear a newspaper seller shouting something incomprehensible behind me as I rushed to the train track. That is familiarity. It is part of my routine. The memory of traveling from Washington Heights through Harlem in order to get to the Metro-North station still remains a little bitter. It was becoming a routine and now that routine has ended.

What is worth keeping? Part of the problem with pack rats like me is the irrational desire to keep everything.

Part of the problem with irrational behavior is that it's hard to know when it is irrational and when it is not.

The Swiss pianist organized a very nice little concert. For me, at least, very avant-garde (if that word isn't too cliché now) classical music. I was very touched. In any case, she shared with me a poem that she had written a while back, inspired by a piece by a composer I had never heard of until I met the Russian pianist, who has a piece by him as part of her repertoire. Scriabin. Reading the background of the poem and the poem itself, I realized I didn't know a lot about the Russian pianist that I would have liked to know. I never asked her about the pieces she played, what they meant to her, their relationship to her as a musician, the historical and present relationship. And while too busy writing her poems, I never asked about her poetic side. During the breakup talk (the one after I stormed out of her apartment), she told me she has actually a lot of emotions but that she devises ways to protect her lover from those emotions. I never tapped into that. I was too busy figuring out when the next time it was to see her, how often we were seeing each other, and what it all meant to me.

I don't need to be so harsh with myself. I found out a lot about her Jewish background, her ideas about being a Jew and carrying the legacy of persecution and survival. But that connection markedly faded a few weeks after we started dating. In the final two weeks I can't remember what our connection was. We cooked and ate together. We talked about tango. Surely there was more, but nothing as memorable as the connections we made earlier.

Time and patience. And what to do with the space that time and patience yield. I am not entirely sure what I was rushing to do. Perhaps I wanted her to get me to some ideal place in life, like being married, having children, or simply be in a relationship carved in stone by my imagination. I was rushing to something whose form and shape I didn't really know; there was just the insatiable need to attain that goal. And in the growing rush, that space I needed was shrinking. And without that space, the connection between us devalued or disappeared. What do I do with this space? It is for me, of course. To see what I can do for myself. What I can do to enjoy the road to whatever posts of goals there are in life. And from this space, I listen and not demand. I would listen to her relationship with Scriabin's music. With other music, and then, perhaps, I can finally begin to understand her interpretation of the music on the keyboard.

But what am I saying. None of this is likely to happen. What is important is that I learn to take that space. Next time I feel the connection between me and a girlfriend is fading, it's a good time to look inward and see if the reason is my own disconnection. It's a good sign that I am again at my old pattern, giving away myself too fast and too much, hoping someone else will take me to where I think I've always wanted to be instead of savoring every cobblestone that I lay on the path toward that end.

Recovery into Self

It hasn't been a week yet. Just half, I guess. My recovery, comparing to the past ones, has been quick. It's still hard to not think about the beautiful memories we built and what I wanted for our future. The leaves are changing colors quickly, as if taunting me with the defunct desire to spend the autumn days with her. Nevertheless, I am sleeping fine, functioning fine. I am almost as bothered by the memory of seeing the French girl leaving with her guy than with the pianist.

She called me today. Just like the email we didn't talk about "us"; we just updated each other one what we have been doing the past few days. She asked if I was going to the concert organized by the Swiss pianist tonight. She told me that a common friend of ours went to this opera that she knew I had been dying to see; she said the friend thought it was great. But she stopped short of asking if I wanted to go with her. She did invite me to a concert next Tuesday of her former professor. And she wants to exchange Russian lessons for some computer lessons that would help her with her online self-marketing tasks. I didn't know how to take all this. I wasn't jumping for joy with hopes that she might come back. Perhaps it's because I have healed enough. Perhaps it's because I remember how I did that with the India girl after she started making plans with me a few month into our breakup. How I was excited and hopeful.

It hurts me to think that she would, like all the others, want to be just friend. At the beginning it didn't feel like it. She was giggling a lot, either from nervousness of talking to me for the first time since Sunday, or missed my company that often gave her so much joy. I know I can't be her friend forever. I am not interested in it. I am healing rapidly enough to know that life wouldn't be so bad if I never see her again.

On that front there's not much more to say.

I am going to the concert organized by the Swiss pianist, as I said. She won't be playing, but I am curious what kind of music she has put together. It will be something crazy but still classical. She herself is having some trouble with her boyfriend. Last night we shared a cab together (it was more like she shared a cab with me to Queens and then paid the remaining trip back to Williamsburg, Brooklyn; she likes my company). Her boyfriend is a Mainland Chinese living in Boston and is apparently becoming more and more possessive and self-centered. They had only been dating for about half a year and they are very serious. She's always been a contrast to the other pianist; although they both had a really rough time in their own ways with men, the Swiss is seeking something serious even more now while the Russian doesn't feel she is ever going to be ready. And so the Swiss pianist is serious about this guy and they see each other every weekend. They even went to Switzerland together. When I heard her say this I thought they had been together for years. But no matter how crazy you are and how intense the relationship is, time is always a factor in getting to know someone, and tango has a way of accelerating that. So half a year later she is finding his possessiveness very troubling; she's very worried about their future. I thought again how sometimes life really is easier when you're single.

Tomorrow I will see the folks, for the first time in a while. Without kung fu I do have more time. Of course, without dating I have even more time. Last night I went dancing after having dinner with the Swiss pianist in Brooklyn Heights. I sang our way to the milonga and she, as a musician, was quite impressed. It's a lot less dramatic being with friends. I had some nice dances after practicing for an hour. I have decided that I would stop dancing once I get tired. There is no more need to struggle on for the sake of being in a milonga. That is an important turning point for me, helps me take things a little lighter.

First Contact

Short sleep, but it was sleep. It was short because I went dancing and then I decided to get up early to catch the earlier train. The previous days I'd been catching the later train, arriving a little after 9AM. I went not so much dancing as practicing. By the time evening had arrived I was already feeling depressed. It was difficult trying to practice and not sink behind that curtain I spoke of in the last entry.

On my desktop is a picture I downloaded from the New York Times. I've mentioned this. It is the picture of the George Washington Bridge, sunset, before the the hurricane. It was the first time I was invited to her castle overnight. It was one of the many signs I took as an encouragement that this relationship might just work, might be different from the previous. I think I need to put this picture away, as a compromise between leaving it there as a tormenting reminder or deleting it with fury and resignation.

Because she hadn't ever stayed at my place, there isn't any memorabilia from her I can bump into there. But my computer is full of her stuff. It is a sign of connection, I guess, one that has ceased to exist.

Or perhaps not. She wrote to me. I found myself neither excited nor fearful. My only feeling was caution.

At the practica last night I didn't want to think about what had happened on Sunday. But my mouth was bigger than my heart sometimes. I asked one of the people if she thought I felt different on Sunday when we had last danced. She said I was softer, and asked me why. She showed me her sympathy when she found out; I wasn't sure if I felt more sympathized; I am not sure why I told yet another person. I had spent the evening alone before the practica. I had the opportunity to meet my tango buddy, who offered to have tea. But I felt I needed to be alone. It's great to have friends and a sister who opened their hearts and offered their company, but at some point, I have to stand up alone.

It didn't help, of course, seeing couples around. One of the teachers there to help with the practices was with his long term girlfriend. As I was leaving I saw him give her a little kiss on the cheeks. It stung me; just a few days ago I was giving someone I liked a lot a kiss on one of her cheeks. It didn't help that the French girl was there with her guy, whose relationship together is becoming less and less discreet. They were leaving together, and I didn't want to have anything to do with them. I didn't want to be rude to her because she has been one of the most important elements of my support group, and without a doubt the one who had given me the most attention in terms of time. I wanted to leave earlier so I didn't have to see them leave together, but that was not meant to be. My consolation prize was not to see them walking alone outside.

I was happy to see one of my New York friends who had been away (with her boyfriend) on vacation in Cyprus. I didn't have time to chat with her because of my back-to-back practices. Right now I just want to be surrounded by supporting faces, even if they don't know what happened.

Despite all this, it couldn't have been so bad. I slept without interruption. I slept peacefully even after getting that email from the pianist. She mentioned nothing of Sunday, and the closest reference was the subject of "How are you?" I wanted to sound upbeat while being careful not to seem to be attempting to reach over into her space. I am not certain that I have accomplished the latter part of this goal. I realized my uncertainty is a sign that I wasn't ready to talk to her normally. She simply gave me an update on what was happening to her since Sunday (we really have just missed each other two days). She thanked me for the few things I did that Sunday before we parted.

I have memories of visions and thoughts from the experience with the India girl because there are some similarities between the two breakups that reflect problems with how I handle such breakups. It's hard to describe because I haven't fully figured out the problems. I remember, just as with the pianist, how the India girl was so sad but determined about stop dating me. That mixture of sadness and determination frustrated me. And soon after the breakup, she wrote to me, asking how I was doing. And then after some unnecessary drama, or perhaps necessary for this next step to happen, we stopped talking completely, during which time I was very depressed. Back then I didn't really have a big support group. Really just my best friend, who was in England and who probably had a hard time being supportive to a man whom she finally wanted after many years of rejecting him, but only to find him running for someone else (different story, not going to go into it now). And there was my Italian friend, the one who is about to move here in just over a week.

And after that respite of a few months, the India girl wrote to me and started talking to me. I guess the problem is that she couldn't take my attention, which sometimes felt like intrusion, or too much love. I don't know. But once she got away from it, she missed it. I was her best friend, on par with her mother, who was probably her only other person in her lonesome life that she had felt free to turn to. She was writing to me as if we hadn't broken up. She was looking into cheap tickets to Hawaii and had thought about me as company. In retrospect, I don't think she was thinking about the trip as something romantic.

Sometimes I feel I am so disarming for a woman that she gets confused about her feeling of attachment to me. And even after she vows to stop dating me, there's a big part of her that wants to be with me. Often times she calls it friendship. Of course, I call it cowardice. And I understand why now: I didn't "disarm" you on purpose; it is my personality to make you feel comfortable being with me, being in your own skin. But intention is unrelated to this disarmament; I do the same with someone I want to be friends with or want to date. And you should know better because ever since my ex-best friend from high school, I always make it very clear my intentions, and it is not up to you to decide that we are now going to be friends.

All these women have put up a fight to convert me into a friend, but it's harder than converting me into some religious person. All but one have given up and they are no longer people I talk to. The exception is the French girl, who still insists and is very patient and optimistic about it. So despite showing off more than more that she's in a relationship, she is still chasing after my friendship. I don't know where this friendship will go. Often times my feelings are embittered by the knowledge, forget the actual witness, of her relationship. And I can only get more frustrated and upset if their relationship becomes more open.

She knew I was feeling sad last night and tried to comfort me. But I told her, indirectly, that she could tell me that because she was, unlike me, not going home alone. The memory is still quite fresh: the memory of hoping she would be my New York girlfriend after I moved to New York, that we would be coming home from milongas together. When I was looking for an apartment I had her in my mind, in my plans. It is no surprise that I almost didn't shake the hand of her guy last night when he offered it before taking her home.

I don't know if it was a mistake to write back to the pianist. I don't want her to think now we can be friends. We weren't together long enough for me to be her best friend, but there was a lot of connection that I am sure she, just as I, didn't want to lose. Nevertheless, it would be another example of selfishness if she wants to pick and choose, pick the connections for a friendship without having to date me. The French girl did the exact same thing and I want that to be the last time to happen in my life. I may not be able to choose the kind of relationship with a woman, but I can choose not to have certain kinds of relationship. The veto is always within me.

Bumpy Recovery

The second night was far better than the first night. Perhaps five weeks, or even six if you count from when the romance started, was perhaps really not that much. The French girl said that I am hurting because I built up all these feelings and all these hopes for the future, so when they come crashing down, it feels a lot worse. She's right, but I somehow don't think I would have done any differently if I had known about this little simple rule. I behave as my feelings dictate, and, as a few of my friends say, that is something to be proud of, that is something many human beings are incapable of doing.

Still, I was hurting in the 24 hours since the pianist dropped the bomb on me under the George Washington Bridge. The sense of hopelessness, guilt, frustration with myself, poured through my body and heart like the roaring Hudson River on whose left bank that bomb was dropped. The anti-poetry of the situation can't escape my mind: we started out in the cloudy, misty day of the hurricane's tail, and ended it on a hopeful Indian summer so full of sun and smiley people on the same bank of the same river.

Nonetheless, last night was far better. I woke up before the sun, but then again, it is October already. I woke up a little before 7AM. That is an improvement from the 5AM that began many alternations of bizarre dreams and sitting up surfing the web for answers. For what answers? Something to make sense of all this when my mind was incapable of making sense of anything.

Last night I talked to my sister and everyone of my friends that I told about my unpleasant Sunday afternoon. I was tired by the time I returned the last call. But everyone made me feel more secure in one way or another, and each had a different perspective to offer. In every difficulty, there's the opportunity to learn something about myself, as I mentioned in the brief blog entry last night. And it's obvious that I learned again how caring my friends are, how great a person they see me. This reaffirmation of the love I am surrounded with is so far the most powerful counterbalance to the loss of all the love I have given away and I would have given away. I initially felt shameful that after telling every one of my closest people I was dating someone special to me, the relationship was over. But instead of shame, I felt love. So perhaps it is fine to share my joy with them, and when that joy is gone, they won't be shaking their heads with an I-told-you-so.

This morning I woke up feeling surprised, a little, that I have recovered so soon. But it's not a full recovery. I didn't feel the pain so much, barely, really, but then I couldn't stop thinking about her. I wondered if she thought about me. She must have. She was on Facebook, with that green light on. We never chat on Facebook, something I hate doing in general, and so I wasn't thinking about talking to her, but that green light was almost glowing, as if the devil had animated those pixels.

I thought about her and started imagining a letter I would write to her. I wanted to tell her that it didn't make sense to just end it like this when she still liked me. It was more a matter of figuring out a simple solution. If she wanted space, we can just agree to see each other less frequently. Be disciplined about it. It would be a shame to throw away what we had built and what we would have gained.

But who was talking? Who was devising this letter? I wondered if it's part of me that is scared to lose what might be the only chance left for happiness. That would be the irrational part. My tango buddy said that I had everything to be the good man a woman would want. I didn't need to be better at anything. What keeps me from being with the right woman is the disconnect within myself, but nothing that someone else would want. And remembering that is where I stopped imagining that letter to the pianist. It is not about her, not about her readiness, her walls, her inability to really love and be loved. It is about how I am disconnected with myself, failing to take care of myself, failing to give myself the space. When I know how to give myself space, which is yet another manifestation of love, it would be natural for me to give space to the person I want to love.

Right now, less than 36 hours after the Hiroshima by the Hudson, I should stop thinking about her and start the journey back into my heart, that inner journey the French girl calls "The Mission." The mission to rediscover that beautiful person that somehow all my truest friends see but I don't. I start out today with a lot more optimism. I hope I don't drift back into whatever road of mistakes that would bring back recurring suffering with this pianist. However, at this stage I miss her, and I do wish that she would come around and take little steps toward me. But I have a feeling she is too stubborn to do that, too fatalist, too easily giving up on relationships. And to be good to myself, and to her, I have to stick to my promise to her that I would give her space.

So that was the morning, very optimistic. Why not? It was really just a five-week relationship. We held hands, we cuddled, but not much more. So not much to miss. I should just go on with life. Easy. But then the day started to roll out its carpet of memories and dashed hopes. I started wondering if she would text me. At the weekly group meeting, I saw the tips of the trees outside turning red and remembered that she wanted me to take pictures of her for her marketing material in the fall colors. That is now just an echo from the past. And then I remembered how she often would call me up around 5. I would be anxiously waiting for her to call and be so happy to see her name on the phone. That wasn't going to happen today, and not going to happen again. Still, when 5 o'clock rolled around, I let my last remaining hope puncture my nerves. Throughout the day that familiar feeling hang in my head, like a stinky wet shirt that never dries in the humid air. It is the feeling of despair. It is very familiar. It was there when the French girl told me she was with someone else, when the India girl left my house (twice!) after saying it was over, whenever someone left me. It is as old as when I was in the old apartment of my parents before we all moved to a house they bought. The feeling of the sun being eclipsed by something impalpable, something dreadful. I remember being in the old house and feeling afraid. Afraid of being alone. The demon of loneliness was my only company. I am not sure where my sister was. I was just alone. And at work today, that curtain was there, blocking out the morning sun that made me feel so optimistic that I thought perhaps the recovery succeeded.

She, of course, didn't write me an email. But there's nothing to say. I am smart enough to know that it is impossible for her to change her mind, and even if she did, it would be bad for us for the reasons she had said, the same reasons I have elaborated. I have to stop wondering about her, and start figuring things out with myself.

One more point is about charm. Not mine, since I am not aware of it much. One of the reasons I am afraid of losing someone is I feel I am losing the effect of that charm on me. Whether it is the charm of a Southern voice and posture, or the charm of French humor and way of seeing life and food and wine, or now, the charm of the piano keyboard, the charm of a Jewish background, the the attractiveness of Israeli life, I am afraid when things end I will not have another chance. I was half joking with the Swiss pianist that she should find me a nice, single musician (I didn't say pianist since she would instantly figure out who it was that dumped me). I miss the sound of piano while I fall asleep in a nap. I miss how she plays the piano, with so much enthusiasm, love, that dance with the beautiful machine. I want it back. I know that the rational thing is to just love the experience I gained, feel grateful that life exposes me to all this amazing experiences led by charming women. Now I am not crazy about finding a Southern Belle, or a French girl with that sexy voice and charming sarcasm. And so this obsession with musician may simply pass as well. But for now, I miss her. I can only wonder how long this will last, considering how quickly I am recovering.