The sun had just set below a horizon I cannot see. It was waving a farewell to me just above the tree lines as the train was zipping over the state line. I noticed I got an email when there was still internet in the station. It was from a Russian friend, an old friend, the one that got me into tango, another chapter in my many dramas of this never-boring life. We are good friends now. The drama was short and small compared to everything else. However, we weren't always very close.
Unsurprisingly, I was also her best friend. Of course!
In any case, she had moved back to Russia a few years ago. She was in love with a man here who didn't deserve her, and mistreated her, not in any abusive way, but just didn't treat her with the dignity that she deserved as a human being. She had always been looking for love. A lot had gone wrong before I knew her and that man she fell in love with didn't make her life any more hopeful in the realm of romance.
But then a few years ago she got interested in some sort of Hindu sect after she became more involved with yoga. She even traveled to India twice to participate in ashrams. And after her return she continued her path with the vedic lifestyle, its (vegetarian) food, way of thinking, way of feeling. And little by little, she connected with herself, freeing herself from the torment of searching for a man, of pinning her happiness to the discovery of a man in her life. She had given up her career before her second trip to India. She still lives in St. Petersburg (that's the one in Russia, not in Florida).
And one day, she started to get to know a man from the mission she regularly attended. They became friends. And later, something more.
Without actively seeking anymore, a boyfriend found her. It was icing on a cake that was already bursting with joy and peacefulness. And now they made plans to leave St. Petersburg and move to Thailand and join a mission there. Just for a few years. It's exciting. I am excited for her. And it's a story that inspires me, at least to remind me that life need not be always the way it is; that we can always change it if we want to. The greatest barrier is within ourselves, not money, not politics. But to even know what we want, we need to be more connected with ourselves. She found a way, and little by little, she became more in touch with herself.
Twilight is the chameleon behind the coops of the South Bronx, changing now into a golden orange but also dimming slowly. A woman sitting on my right is texting someone, probably not someone as important as she thinks. A man on my left gives out a long sigh that made his lips flutter. And I am in the middle, wondering about the sun, about my friend, and about the pianist. The Harlem River is turned dark purple by the darkening sky, and people are ending their day. I am supposed to go to kung fu now. I even have my uniform all ready. But I have come to the conclusion that I am not ready for kung fu. It is good for me. I has even changed me a little in the less than three months I have done it. But I am not ready to commit more than three days a week to it when I hardly have two days for it the past month that I started dating this pianist. And it isn't for her alone that I am giving up kung fu. My love still is with tango and I am determined to take myself to the next level, whatever that is. There are simply too many things I want to do and these days I don't do most of them.
My Russian friend (the one in Russia, not the pianist) has found her path, her way, at least for now, to happiness. It is her path, her unique path she paved by herself. The boyfriend came later and was no longer the aim of the path. I am seeking my own path. I am seeking that which makes me happy. But more than happy, that which makes me feel connected, to myself, to the buildings around me, to the fellow commuters, to the darkening sky, to the sun that comes out less and less frequently. Tonight I am going to tango, to dance more, to see the pianist, but also to see the teacher that I was once very infatuated with. She is a good friend and we have not really reconnected much the past month or two. She is one of my New York friends. She just came back from a visit to her country so I want to see her.
For now, this is the most I can do to be connected. I am not going to kung fu because I had to drop one of the three things I have to do tonight: kung fu, nap, and tango. I might be making a mistake, but it wouldn't be a big deal. Reading my friend's email, I am simply reminded that life is bigger than how far I can see now. But in order to see further, I need to know what I am seeing now, the things within this limit, I need to connect to.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The Jewish Girl
A couple of mornings ago, while waiting for the infamous A-train to take me to Harlem before boarding the cross-town bus to the Metro North station, I noticed a woman looking staring at an open, slightly worn out book, thick but small. My intuition told me that it was the Torah and she was a Jew reciting passages. I walked behind her and confirmed the Hebrew written on the pages, and at the same time I noticed her lips were moving rapidly.
The Yeshiva University of New York is a few blocks east of there, though her association with it might not be so obvious. Still, there are lots of Jews in Washington Heights, according to the pianist. She herself isn't a practicing Jew; often she doesn't even know what people do. Most Russian Jews aren't very religious; after all, they did emigrate from an ultra-secularist country that didn't have much patience for any religion.
Nevertheless, ever since we started dating, I have become even more aware of Jews around me. Jews have played a very curious role in my life in this country. Before I came here I didn't even know they existed. And as I grew up, I guess I heard about the Holocaust, and you can't escape the remembrance of the Holocaust if you are go to school in New York City. I have no connection to it and didn't understand why I needed to know it more than other destructive events in history. Most of my teachers were Jews, though one time I remember hearing teacher grumbling about how silly it was that some people "even considered Jews a separate race." Whether its Jewishness or Anti-Semitism, I never got away from Jews. And living in Sheepshead Bay means it's impossible since it was swelling with Russian Jews as the next neighborhood, Brighton Beach, was bursting at the seams with Russian Jews. Most of my junior high school classmates were Jews. I even started learning Russian then because of a Russian (Jewish) girl.
In high school I had a crush on two Jewish girls. One didn't care for me much, and she was very religious, and in retrospect, she was very Jewish not only in terms of culture, but also in terms of physical look. The intenseness of the curliness of her hair was matched only by the fervor of her religion. Later I learned (from that other Jewish girl) that she went to live in Israel and got married, though it's not clear to me if she got married while living in Israel. Her name was Rena, and now I can even write it in Hebrew. How crazy is life?
Besides the exposure to so many Jews, the other important role Jews played in my life is galvanization of my pro-Palestinian sentiments. There isn't really an obvious connection, but my political stance in the matter is greatly influenced by my upbringing in a very pro-Jewish environment. I've always had a liking for Jews, even though I didn't really understand their culture much, and what the fuss had been about all these thousands of years. I mean, for a long time I didn't understand why they were so hated, so persecuted. They seem to do fine in New York.
My connection to them also had an element of commonality in the immigrant experience. One day some gentile told me that the Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia are sort of like the Jews of Europe. The Chinese have had a long history of living among themselves in these foreign countries, and many have had jobs in commerce, like the Jews, and like the Jews, they valued education and grabbing on the best parts of society possible. And like the Jews, they often became targets of anger from the host nations when things went bad.
This idea was further reinforced from a long conversation with the pianist, who told me a little more about the pogroms in Russia where mobs would go about killing Jews and destroying their homes. And as she was telling me this, and expressing her thoughts after much analysis of what had been happening to her people, I felt an even greater bond with the Jews.
And so it should seem a little strange that I would side with the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel. But of course, to draw that conclusion is to fall in the trap that Pro-Israelis always lay: to be on the side of the Jews you must be on the side of Israel, for Israel's existence is linked to the continued existence of the Jews. Anti-Israel is tantamount to anti-Semitism. That's obviously a pathetic argument that I don't subscribe to. I believe that the Jewish people deserve a land of their own free from persecution by any hosting nation. But what strikes me as incredibly difficult to understand is how a people who have suffered so much would feel righteous, even vindictive, to exact a similar kind of suffering on its own neighbors. Politics in the Middle-East is complicated, but in the end, I still can't understand how you can build a wall around a people, caging them in, in the same way the Germans and the Russians and all the Europeans who had built walls around the ghettos. To side with the Jews is to side with struggle against oppression, to draw from the suffering history of an incredibly resilient people and apply it to today, including, and especially in, the case where the Jews are the ones with better weapons, the ones calling themselves the hosts.
This entry isn't about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It's about this girl I saw on the subway platform. She had curly hazel hair, very pale but not sickly white skin, and a face very serene, a serenity I often identify with Jewish women. It is one of the reasons I like the pianist so much. Since the first time I saw her, and every time thereafter, I saw a very kind person whose kindness I associate somehow with Jewish women. And in many ways she is very kind to everyone, and extremely kind to me. I don't know if it's because she likes me a lot or she is just naturally kind. When I saw this woman with the Torah and her lips reciting some passage repeatedly, I felt a sense of warmth knowing how fortunate I was to have a wonderful Jewish woman in my life. I don't know for how long, but already the footprints she has been leaving behind in the dense forest of my heart will always remain warm reminders of my fortune.
We know very little about each other, of course. But her Jewishness was very important in our initial connection. After all these years of being with Jews for different reasons, it seems amazing but also obvious that I would end up at some point with a Jewish woman who though very secular is very proud of her Jewish culture. She is also very proud of Israel and, as she said, would defend it against any arguments. That's a part we haven't explored. I don't know if she knows about my very fervent stance with the Palestinians, but we haven't made the right connection to start expiring that. However, she has opened up my eyes to Israel, to a young country with one of the oldest histories in the world, if you can understand the paradox.
The Yeshiva University of New York is a few blocks east of there, though her association with it might not be so obvious. Still, there are lots of Jews in Washington Heights, according to the pianist. She herself isn't a practicing Jew; often she doesn't even know what people do. Most Russian Jews aren't very religious; after all, they did emigrate from an ultra-secularist country that didn't have much patience for any religion.
Nevertheless, ever since we started dating, I have become even more aware of Jews around me. Jews have played a very curious role in my life in this country. Before I came here I didn't even know they existed. And as I grew up, I guess I heard about the Holocaust, and you can't escape the remembrance of the Holocaust if you are go to school in New York City. I have no connection to it and didn't understand why I needed to know it more than other destructive events in history. Most of my teachers were Jews, though one time I remember hearing teacher grumbling about how silly it was that some people "even considered Jews a separate race." Whether its Jewishness or Anti-Semitism, I never got away from Jews. And living in Sheepshead Bay means it's impossible since it was swelling with Russian Jews as the next neighborhood, Brighton Beach, was bursting at the seams with Russian Jews. Most of my junior high school classmates were Jews. I even started learning Russian then because of a Russian (Jewish) girl.
In high school I had a crush on two Jewish girls. One didn't care for me much, and she was very religious, and in retrospect, she was very Jewish not only in terms of culture, but also in terms of physical look. The intenseness of the curliness of her hair was matched only by the fervor of her religion. Later I learned (from that other Jewish girl) that she went to live in Israel and got married, though it's not clear to me if she got married while living in Israel. Her name was Rena, and now I can even write it in Hebrew. How crazy is life?
Besides the exposure to so many Jews, the other important role Jews played in my life is galvanization of my pro-Palestinian sentiments. There isn't really an obvious connection, but my political stance in the matter is greatly influenced by my upbringing in a very pro-Jewish environment. I've always had a liking for Jews, even though I didn't really understand their culture much, and what the fuss had been about all these thousands of years. I mean, for a long time I didn't understand why they were so hated, so persecuted. They seem to do fine in New York.
My connection to them also had an element of commonality in the immigrant experience. One day some gentile told me that the Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia are sort of like the Jews of Europe. The Chinese have had a long history of living among themselves in these foreign countries, and many have had jobs in commerce, like the Jews, and like the Jews, they valued education and grabbing on the best parts of society possible. And like the Jews, they often became targets of anger from the host nations when things went bad.
This idea was further reinforced from a long conversation with the pianist, who told me a little more about the pogroms in Russia where mobs would go about killing Jews and destroying their homes. And as she was telling me this, and expressing her thoughts after much analysis of what had been happening to her people, I felt an even greater bond with the Jews.
And so it should seem a little strange that I would side with the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel. But of course, to draw that conclusion is to fall in the trap that Pro-Israelis always lay: to be on the side of the Jews you must be on the side of Israel, for Israel's existence is linked to the continued existence of the Jews. Anti-Israel is tantamount to anti-Semitism. That's obviously a pathetic argument that I don't subscribe to. I believe that the Jewish people deserve a land of their own free from persecution by any hosting nation. But what strikes me as incredibly difficult to understand is how a people who have suffered so much would feel righteous, even vindictive, to exact a similar kind of suffering on its own neighbors. Politics in the Middle-East is complicated, but in the end, I still can't understand how you can build a wall around a people, caging them in, in the same way the Germans and the Russians and all the Europeans who had built walls around the ghettos. To side with the Jews is to side with struggle against oppression, to draw from the suffering history of an incredibly resilient people and apply it to today, including, and especially in, the case where the Jews are the ones with better weapons, the ones calling themselves the hosts.
This entry isn't about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It's about this girl I saw on the subway platform. She had curly hazel hair, very pale but not sickly white skin, and a face very serene, a serenity I often identify with Jewish women. It is one of the reasons I like the pianist so much. Since the first time I saw her, and every time thereafter, I saw a very kind person whose kindness I associate somehow with Jewish women. And in many ways she is very kind to everyone, and extremely kind to me. I don't know if it's because she likes me a lot or she is just naturally kind. When I saw this woman with the Torah and her lips reciting some passage repeatedly, I felt a sense of warmth knowing how fortunate I was to have a wonderful Jewish woman in my life. I don't know for how long, but already the footprints she has been leaving behind in the dense forest of my heart will always remain warm reminders of my fortune.
We know very little about each other, of course. But her Jewishness was very important in our initial connection. After all these years of being with Jews for different reasons, it seems amazing but also obvious that I would end up at some point with a Jewish woman who though very secular is very proud of her Jewish culture. She is also very proud of Israel and, as she said, would defend it against any arguments. That's a part we haven't explored. I don't know if she knows about my very fervent stance with the Palestinians, but we haven't made the right connection to start expiring that. However, she has opened up my eyes to Israel, to a young country with one of the oldest histories in the world, if you can understand the paradox.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Unknown Future
There's an advertisement for some condominium in Stamford, and its selling point is that if you work in Stamford, why would you waste all this time commuting from New York and spend the exorbitant New York real estate price when you could be saving money and spending the time doing what you like in Stamford.
There's nothing I like doing in Stamford, of course. Perhaps my taste for life is more eccentric than the clients of these condos. And for the cost of this eccentric taste I have to pay not only higher rent but the commuting cost. And what a commute.
I have two different kinds of commutes. Today I did my commute number 2, from Washington Heights. The A-train went local, and my bus was letting the bus behind us get in front of me, and then on the commuter train I realized I didn't have my October monthly pass. We will find out in a few minutes if the conductor will let me use my September pass. What a way to start a Monday. But still, I got to do what I want that cannot be done in Stamford. I got to dance last night. I got to hang out with my pianist, before the dance and after the dance. I wasn't sure if she was going to invite me over. I no longer take that for granted. But she did, and we talked about my tango. I have been cautious about talking to her about tango. We both tango, of course; that is how I met her. But I always feel that tango can get in the way of developing a relationship that cannot rely only on tango. However, she is very open minded, very patient about it. I am, I guess, more concerned about my own ego. She and I don't have the best connection a lot of times, and worse now that I am nervous about tango interfering with our relationship. But last night's talk made me feel more relaxed with her. She is, after all, a piano teacher, and so she knows how to handle students, and while she isn't "better" than me in tango, she knows how to approach someone, especially with an ego in the way, if she wants to make suggestions. I was surprisingly open to listening to her.
Who is this woman?
It takes time to get to know someone, to develop a connection, a relationship. That's patience. But it also takes also a lot of courage in the face of uncertainty. Before we went to the milonga, we talked a little about all the uncertainty that awaits her. She mentioned that there's an opening in a music school in Jerusalem that a friend of hers had suggested. My heart naturally sank a little before bobbing back up. And in the darkness of her bedroom she told me she still saw no future for us, but at the same time she didn't want to lose me now. I told her that on one extreme I wanted to end it all now, and on the other extreme I would follow her to Jerusalem if I must.
The New York City subway is the bastion of weirdoes in the world, I can nearly say. In a crowded train, was it on the under-construction 7 line or the ever troublesome A line?, a man still in his hospital patient clothes lay across two seats. His head was resting against the wall of the train, and his feet were separated from the next passenger by an empty seat that no one wanted to take up, even though the train was super packed. Oh, I remember now, it was a 7 train. I had my grocery from Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Union Square farmer's market, my hands were tired, and the train was a brewing tuna can of discontent. For whatever reason, there hadn't been a train for a while so I was lucky to board the first train after this hiatus in which a whole platform full of human creatures shoved its way into this can. This hospital apparent-runaway lay there oblivious to the discontent. He was in his, I suppose, late eighties, early nineties, though possibly only looked so old because of whatever ailed him. On his right sleeve was a big blotch of dried blood. His hair was completely silver, and his face was difficult to look at. It wasn't in pain, but it was transfixed by past pain. He moved a little, but said nothing, not even moved his mouth. He closed his eyes for a little while. He didn't notice when someone standing outside the door of the train on the Queensboro Plaza platform shouting for people to move in so he and his other human beings could squeeze in, refusing to wait for the next train that the PA was saying would arrive in three minutes. I was amused by the man shouting, especially when he directed his command to "you there, in red", to move into whatever tiny space that the shouter could be using if that selfish man in red would move in. We suddenly become pieces on this game you play, the game that has tiles on a board with one tile missing, and you're supposed to shove the tiles around to make some pattern in the end. It was a game that everyone was playing except the old man in hospital gown occupying three seats.
I thought about this man when sadness and uncertainty grips me. I thought about my sadness and uncertainty when I saw him. New York is full of weirdoes whose weirdness belies some human tragedy of some degree, of some sort.
On a different subway train I saw one disheveled man had his dinner all splayed out on the seats around him. He and/or his food reeked of some unpleasantness that created an empty radius around him. The smell of rotten garlicky good propelled me to the other end of the subway so quickly that I didn't get to see his face. A woman stood not far from me with the handkerchief covering her nose. This is New York for you, I guess. And that man has better things to worry about than some girl worrying about her emotional unavailability and its effect on our undetermined future.
She said very bluntly that she didn't want to tell me in three or four months that this wasn't going anywhere, thereby hurting me. I thought about it. It made sense. It made even more sense since it has happened to me not just once in the past couple of years. It would be the same cycle. A woman finding comfort in me, for whatever reason, and then for whatever reason, or different reasons, she comes to accept that what she felt wasn't some intense romantic love but something more like a friendship, or insultingly worse, a brotherly love. I thought about that happening again. I was very tempted to just leave. Leave everything behind, the hopes, the wishes, the present. How do you live in the present knowing that there isn't any shred of hope for a future. There must be something between a full promise and complete detachment from the future. I asked her why she invited me over this night, and without hesitation she told me she liked me. I remembered the Polish girl. I remember too many things. Too many things people have said and done that in the end didn't make sense and often unfair.
Then the morning came. I saw her face, so peaceful, her breathing, her everything, her presence. I can't think. To leave and give up not only an unpromisable future but also a present that actually does make me happy. Every morning I am there I leave behind a small poem for her, a poem before I started my day, before she started hers. A poem to remind her that some men in this world can be dedicated, can still be romantic fools. I never took upon myself the task of reinvigorating the lost romance in her, lost ten years ago in a man who put it in a suitcase to Australia and never returned it to her. I never thought I could be that person. But I could be me. And my decision on whether to end all this depends solely on whether the decision would make me happy, would maintain in me the dignity I deserve.
There's nothing I like doing in Stamford, of course. Perhaps my taste for life is more eccentric than the clients of these condos. And for the cost of this eccentric taste I have to pay not only higher rent but the commuting cost. And what a commute.
I have two different kinds of commutes. Today I did my commute number 2, from Washington Heights. The A-train went local, and my bus was letting the bus behind us get in front of me, and then on the commuter train I realized I didn't have my October monthly pass. We will find out in a few minutes if the conductor will let me use my September pass. What a way to start a Monday. But still, I got to do what I want that cannot be done in Stamford. I got to dance last night. I got to hang out with my pianist, before the dance and after the dance. I wasn't sure if she was going to invite me over. I no longer take that for granted. But she did, and we talked about my tango. I have been cautious about talking to her about tango. We both tango, of course; that is how I met her. But I always feel that tango can get in the way of developing a relationship that cannot rely only on tango. However, she is very open minded, very patient about it. I am, I guess, more concerned about my own ego. She and I don't have the best connection a lot of times, and worse now that I am nervous about tango interfering with our relationship. But last night's talk made me feel more relaxed with her. She is, after all, a piano teacher, and so she knows how to handle students, and while she isn't "better" than me in tango, she knows how to approach someone, especially with an ego in the way, if she wants to make suggestions. I was surprisingly open to listening to her.
Who is this woman?
It takes time to get to know someone, to develop a connection, a relationship. That's patience. But it also takes also a lot of courage in the face of uncertainty. Before we went to the milonga, we talked a little about all the uncertainty that awaits her. She mentioned that there's an opening in a music school in Jerusalem that a friend of hers had suggested. My heart naturally sank a little before bobbing back up. And in the darkness of her bedroom she told me she still saw no future for us, but at the same time she didn't want to lose me now. I told her that on one extreme I wanted to end it all now, and on the other extreme I would follow her to Jerusalem if I must.
The New York City subway is the bastion of weirdoes in the world, I can nearly say. In a crowded train, was it on the under-construction 7 line or the ever troublesome A line?, a man still in his hospital patient clothes lay across two seats. His head was resting against the wall of the train, and his feet were separated from the next passenger by an empty seat that no one wanted to take up, even though the train was super packed. Oh, I remember now, it was a 7 train. I had my grocery from Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Union Square farmer's market, my hands were tired, and the train was a brewing tuna can of discontent. For whatever reason, there hadn't been a train for a while so I was lucky to board the first train after this hiatus in which a whole platform full of human creatures shoved its way into this can. This hospital apparent-runaway lay there oblivious to the discontent. He was in his, I suppose, late eighties, early nineties, though possibly only looked so old because of whatever ailed him. On his right sleeve was a big blotch of dried blood. His hair was completely silver, and his face was difficult to look at. It wasn't in pain, but it was transfixed by past pain. He moved a little, but said nothing, not even moved his mouth. He closed his eyes for a little while. He didn't notice when someone standing outside the door of the train on the Queensboro Plaza platform shouting for people to move in so he and his other human beings could squeeze in, refusing to wait for the next train that the PA was saying would arrive in three minutes. I was amused by the man shouting, especially when he directed his command to "you there, in red", to move into whatever tiny space that the shouter could be using if that selfish man in red would move in. We suddenly become pieces on this game you play, the game that has tiles on a board with one tile missing, and you're supposed to shove the tiles around to make some pattern in the end. It was a game that everyone was playing except the old man in hospital gown occupying three seats.
I thought about this man when sadness and uncertainty grips me. I thought about my sadness and uncertainty when I saw him. New York is full of weirdoes whose weirdness belies some human tragedy of some degree, of some sort.
On a different subway train I saw one disheveled man had his dinner all splayed out on the seats around him. He and/or his food reeked of some unpleasantness that created an empty radius around him. The smell of rotten garlicky good propelled me to the other end of the subway so quickly that I didn't get to see his face. A woman stood not far from me with the handkerchief covering her nose. This is New York for you, I guess. And that man has better things to worry about than some girl worrying about her emotional unavailability and its effect on our undetermined future.
She said very bluntly that she didn't want to tell me in three or four months that this wasn't going anywhere, thereby hurting me. I thought about it. It made sense. It made even more sense since it has happened to me not just once in the past couple of years. It would be the same cycle. A woman finding comfort in me, for whatever reason, and then for whatever reason, or different reasons, she comes to accept that what she felt wasn't some intense romantic love but something more like a friendship, or insultingly worse, a brotherly love. I thought about that happening again. I was very tempted to just leave. Leave everything behind, the hopes, the wishes, the present. How do you live in the present knowing that there isn't any shred of hope for a future. There must be something between a full promise and complete detachment from the future. I asked her why she invited me over this night, and without hesitation she told me she liked me. I remembered the Polish girl. I remember too many things. Too many things people have said and done that in the end didn't make sense and often unfair.
Then the morning came. I saw her face, so peaceful, her breathing, her everything, her presence. I can't think. To leave and give up not only an unpromisable future but also a present that actually does make me happy. Every morning I am there I leave behind a small poem for her, a poem before I started my day, before she started hers. A poem to remind her that some men in this world can be dedicated, can still be romantic fools. I never took upon myself the task of reinvigorating the lost romance in her, lost ten years ago in a man who put it in a suitcase to Australia and never returned it to her. I never thought I could be that person. But I could be me. And my decision on whether to end all this depends solely on whether the decision would make me happy, would maintain in me the dignity I deserve.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Crossing Time
There's an advertisement for some condominium in Stamford, and its selling point is that if you work in Stamford, why would you waste all this time commuting from New York and spend the exorbitant New York real estate price when you could be saving money and spending the time doing what you like in Stamford.
There's nothing I like doing in Stamford, of course. Perhaps my taste for life is more eccentric than the clients of these condos. And for the cost of this eccentric taste I have to pay not only higher rent but the commuting cost. And what a commute.
I have two different kinds of commutes. Today I did my commute number 2, from Washington Heights. The A-train went local, and my bus was letting the bus behind us get in front of me, and then on the commuter train I realized I didn't have my October monthly pass. We will find out in a few minutes if the conductor will let me use my September pass. What a way to start a Monday. But still, I got to do what I want that cannot be done in Stamford. I got to dance last night. I got to hang out with my pianist, before the dance and after the dance. I wasn't sure if she was going to invite me over. I no longer take that for granted. But she did, and we talked about my tango. I have been cautious about talking to her about tango. We both tango, of course; that is how I met her. But I always feel that tango can get in the way of developing a relationship that cannot rely only on tango. However, she is very open minded, very patient about it. I am, I guess, more concerned about my own ego. She and I don't have the best connection a lot of times, and worse now that I am nervous about tango interfering with our relationship. But last night's talk made me feel more relaxed with her. She is, after all, a piano teacher, and so she knows how to handle students, and while she isn't "better" than me in tango, she knows how to approach someone, especially with an ego in the way, if she wants to make suggestions. I was surprisingly open to listening to her.
Who is this woman?
It takes time to get to know someone, to develop a connection, a relationship. That's patience. But it also takes also a lot of courage in the face of uncertainty. Before we went to the milonga, we talked a little about all the uncertainty that awaits her. She mentioned that there's an opening in a music school in Jerusalem that a friend of hers had suggested. My heart naturally sank a little before bobbing back up. And in the darkness of her bedroom she told me she still saw no future for us, but at the same time she didn't want to lose me now. I told her that on one extreme I wanted to end it all now, and on the other extreme I would follow her to Jerusalem if I must.
The New York City subway is the bastion of weirdoes in the world, I can nearly say. In a crowded train, was it on the under-construction 7 line or the ever troublesome A line?, a man still in his hospital patient clothes lay across two seats. His head was resting against the wall of the train, and his feet were separated from the next passenger by an empty seat that no one wanted to take up, even though the train was super packed. Oh, I remember now, it was a 7 train. I had my grocery from Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Union Square farmer's market, my hands were tired, and the train was a brewing tuna can of discontent. For whatever reason, there hadn't been a train for a while so I was lucky to board the first train after this hiatus in which a whole platform full of human creatures shoved its way into this can. This hospital apparent-runaway lay there oblivious to the discontent. He was in his, I suppose, late eighties, early nineties, though possibly only looked so old because of whatever ailed him. On his right sleeve was a big blotch of dried blood. His hair was completely silver, and his face was difficult to look at. It wasn't in pain, but it was transfixed by past pain. He moved a little, but said nothing, not even moved his mouth. He closed his eyes for a little while. He didn't notice when someone standing outside the door of the train on the Queensboro Plaza platform shouting for people to move in so he and his other human beings could squeeze in, refusing to wait for the next train that the PA was saying would arrive in three minutes. I was amused by the man shouting, especially when he directed his command to "you there, in red", to move into whatever tiny space that the shouter could be using if that selfish man in red would move in. We suddenly become pieces on this game you play, the game that has tiles on a board with one tile missing, and you're supposed to shove the tiles around to make some pattern in the end. It was a game that everyone was playing except the old man in hospital gown occupying three seats.
I thought about this man when sadness and uncertainty grips me. I thought about my sadness and uncertainty when I saw him. New York is full of weirdoes whose weirdness belies some human tragedy of some degree, of some sort.
On a different subway train I saw one disheveled man had his dinner all splayed out on the seats around him. He and/or his food reeked of some unpleasantness that created an empty radius around him. The smell of rotten garlicky good propelled me to the other end of the subway so quickly that I didn't get to see his face. A woman stood not far from me with the handkerchief covering her nose. This is New York for you, I guess. And that man has better things to worry about than some girl worrying about her emotional unavailability and its effect on our undetermined future.
She said very bluntly that she didn't want to tell me in three or four months that this wasn't going anywhere, thereby hurting me. I thought about it. It made sense. It made even more sense since it has happened to me not just once in the past couple of years. It would be the same cycle. A woman finding comfort in me, for whatever reason, and then for whatever reason, or different reasons, she comes to accept that what she felt wasn't some intense romantic love but something more like a friendship, or insultingly worse, a brotherly love. I thought about that happening again. I was very tempted to just leave. Leave everything behind, the hopes, the wishes, the present. How do you live in the present knowing that there isn't any shred of hope for a future. There must be something between a full promise and complete detachment from the future. I asked her why she invited me over this night, and without hesitation she told me she liked me. I remembered the Polish girl. I remember too many things. Too many things people have said and done that in the end didn't make sense and often unfair.
Then the morning came. I saw her face, so peaceful, her breathing, her everything, her presence. I can't think. To leave and give up not only an unpromisable future but also a present that actually does make me happy. Every morning I am there I leave behind a small poem for her, a poem before I started my day, before she started hers. A poem to remind her that some men in this world can be dedicated, can still be romantic fools. I never took upon myself the task of reinvigorating the lost romance in her, lost ten years ago in a man who put it in a suitcase to Australia and never returned it to her. I never thought I could be that person. But I could be me. And my decision on whether to end all this depends solely on whether the decision would make me happy, would maintain in me the dignity I deserve.
There's nothing I like doing in Stamford, of course. Perhaps my taste for life is more eccentric than the clients of these condos. And for the cost of this eccentric taste I have to pay not only higher rent but the commuting cost. And what a commute.
I have two different kinds of commutes. Today I did my commute number 2, from Washington Heights. The A-train went local, and my bus was letting the bus behind us get in front of me, and then on the commuter train I realized I didn't have my October monthly pass. We will find out in a few minutes if the conductor will let me use my September pass. What a way to start a Monday. But still, I got to do what I want that cannot be done in Stamford. I got to dance last night. I got to hang out with my pianist, before the dance and after the dance. I wasn't sure if she was going to invite me over. I no longer take that for granted. But she did, and we talked about my tango. I have been cautious about talking to her about tango. We both tango, of course; that is how I met her. But I always feel that tango can get in the way of developing a relationship that cannot rely only on tango. However, she is very open minded, very patient about it. I am, I guess, more concerned about my own ego. She and I don't have the best connection a lot of times, and worse now that I am nervous about tango interfering with our relationship. But last night's talk made me feel more relaxed with her. She is, after all, a piano teacher, and so she knows how to handle students, and while she isn't "better" than me in tango, she knows how to approach someone, especially with an ego in the way, if she wants to make suggestions. I was surprisingly open to listening to her.
Who is this woman?
It takes time to get to know someone, to develop a connection, a relationship. That's patience. But it also takes also a lot of courage in the face of uncertainty. Before we went to the milonga, we talked a little about all the uncertainty that awaits her. She mentioned that there's an opening in a music school in Jerusalem that a friend of hers had suggested. My heart naturally sank a little before bobbing back up. And in the darkness of her bedroom she told me she still saw no future for us, but at the same time she didn't want to lose me now. I told her that on one extreme I wanted to end it all now, and on the other extreme I would follow her to Jerusalem if I must.
The New York City subway is the bastion of weirdoes in the world, I can nearly say. In a crowded train, was it on the under-construction 7 line or the ever troublesome A line?, a man still in his hospital patient clothes lay across two seats. His head was resting against the wall of the train, and his feet were separated from the next passenger by an empty seat that no one wanted to take up, even though the train was super packed. Oh, I remember now, it was a 7 train. I had my grocery from Chinatown, Little Italy, and the Union Square farmer's market, my hands were tired, and the train was a brewing tuna can of discontent. For whatever reason, there hadn't been a train for a while so I was lucky to board the first train after this hiatus in which a whole platform full of human creatures shoved its way into this can. This hospital apparent-runaway lay there oblivious to the discontent. He was in his, I suppose, late eighties, early nineties, though possibly only looked so old because of whatever ailed him. On his right sleeve was a big blotch of dried blood. His hair was completely silver, and his face was difficult to look at. It wasn't in pain, but it was transfixed by past pain. He moved a little, but said nothing, not even moved his mouth. He closed his eyes for a little while. He didn't notice when someone standing outside the door of the train on the Queensboro Plaza platform shouting for people to move in so he and his other human beings could squeeze in, refusing to wait for the next train that the PA was saying would arrive in three minutes. I was amused by the man shouting, especially when he directed his command to "you there, in red", to move into whatever tiny space that the shouter could be using if that selfish man in red would move in. We suddenly become pieces on this game you play, the game that has tiles on a board with one tile missing, and you're supposed to shove the tiles around to make some pattern in the end. It was a game that everyone was playing except the old man in hospital gown occupying three seats.
I thought about this man when sadness and uncertainty grips me. I thought about my sadness and uncertainty when I saw him. New York is full of weirdoes whose weirdness belies some human tragedy of some degree, of some sort.
On a different subway train I saw one disheveled man had his dinner all splayed out on the seats around him. He and/or his food reeked of some unpleasantness that created an empty radius around him. The smell of rotten garlicky good propelled me to the other end of the subway so quickly that I didn't get to see his face. A woman stood not far from me with the handkerchief covering her nose. This is New York for you, I guess. And that man has better things to worry about than some girl worrying about her emotional unavailability and its effect on our undetermined future.
She said very bluntly that she didn't want to tell me in three or four months that this wasn't going anywhere, thereby hurting me. I thought about it. It made sense. It made even more sense since it has happened to me not just once in the past couple of years. It would be the same cycle. A woman finding comfort in me, for whatever reason, and then for whatever reason, or different reasons, she comes to accept that what she felt wasn't some intense romantic love but something more like a friendship, or insultingly worse, a brotherly love. I thought about that happening again. I was very tempted to just leave. Leave everything behind, the hopes, the wishes, the present. How do you live in the present knowing that there isn't any shred of hope for a future. There must be something between a full promise and complete detachment from the future. I asked her why she invited me over this night, and without hesitation she told me she liked me. I remembered the Polish girl. I remember too many things. Too many things people have said and done that in the end didn't make sense and often unfair.
Then the morning came. I saw her face, so peaceful, her breathing, her everything, her presence. I can't think. To leave and give up not only an unpromisable future but also a present that actually does make me happy. Every morning I am there I leave behind a small poem for her, a poem before I started my day, before she started hers. A poem to remind her that some men in this world can be dedicated, can still be romantic fools. I never took upon myself the task of reinvigorating the lost romance in her, lost ten years ago in a man who put it in a suitcase to Australia and never returned it to her. I never thought I could be that person. But I could be me. And my decision on whether to end all this depends solely on whether the decision would make me happy, would maintain in me the dignity I deserve.
Monday, September 26, 2011
McDonald's Thoughts
I can't believe I am in McDonald's. There is nothing here I could order that wouldn't gross me out. I often get sick, literally, from eating their foods. I don't know what they put in there that makes me feel sick.
I am here. In the middle of the dark canopy called Night, in this forlorn forest called Chinatown, inside this cave of the ultimate bad American food that, oddly, attracts all sorts of foreign tourists (most unlikely French). I am listening to some catchy 90's music. Or is it the 2000's? What do you call songs that came out between 2000 and 2010? Not to mention those that are coming out now.... No one thought of it?
I am here because I am waiting for a woman. But I am not thinking too much about her, except that one moment wondering if she is really coming out to dance. Without much effort, she convinced me to go dancing with her tonight, here, in this dark and forlorn forest of faded Chinese signs. I danced last night, I will be dancing the next two nights. What have I become?
I have lost my head, that's what happened. I am in a McDonalds, waiting for the princess to descend in her steel and noisy chariot so I can dance a tanda or two with her. I have truly lost my head. I am reading this Russian novel by a very famous writer from the Soviet times, a searing critique of the Soviet society. Naturally, she inspired me to read this book. Anyway, one of the scenes involved a man losing his head, though he didn't die; in fact, the head was still talking, quite shocked that it had been dislodged from the body that just slumped against the wall. The head was put back but the person was no longer "whole", complaining bitterly and painfully that the head was still not fully reconnected to the body.
My head is disconnected from my body. My body needs sleep. My head needs sleep. But the dictator that is now disconnected from the governed nation of me decides that this woman is worth it, decides from having read the jumbled telegraph from the heart that it is important to see this woman, even for a little bit.
What does a man do for a woman? Lose his head.
But while waiting here, I don't think much about the pianist rumbling down underground from the highest point of the island I am sitting on. I am trying to connect to the forest around me. My head and my body might be disconnected, but this couple, head and body, still wants to be connected to the surrounding.
A man in a burgundy buttoned-up shirt sits nearly perfectly still with his face glued to the laptop, whose screen light illuminates his face with different kinds of light. It is as if his face, twisted a little from the fingers that it is resting on, is a canvass for the different paintings coming out of the screen. Outside, just outside the door, over the door, a huge sign, the infamous Golden Arch, recently given a facelift, glows in the dark forest. Every now and then trucks roam by one of the busiest arteries of the city, Canal Street. People are coming and leaving the Manhattan Bridge, and most are coming and leaving the Holland Tunnel at the other end of this lower section of an island shaped by Nature but just as much by human beings. Its natural forests long replaced by concrete and human beings, their exuberance as well as excrement.
I am not just waiting for a woman who just broke up with me yesterday before I clarified some misunderstanding that brought her back. I am waiting in the city that still has so much to offer me. The yellow cabs outside are like the red blood cells (or yellow blood cells) that carry the fuel and oxygen needed to make this city at once fun and scary. I hated them for a while, until I started using them to leave the milongas. I haven't forgotten getting into a taxi to take the very same princess back to her castle before going back to my little tent across the river. That was before she let me kiss her, that one weekend. Before she held my hand.
Before coming to McDonald's I ate at the usual Chinese restaurant. Had a $5-noodle soup. While waiting for the soup to come (which took only two minutes), I called my Dad. He sounded happy. He called me the usual way, not with my normal name on the passport. He told me things that are rather mundane but that wasn't the point of the phone call. I asked if he opened the link in the email I sent him. I sent him and my married sister a link to the pianist's website. I tried to explain to him that even though he didn't feel like going anywhere, when that pianist gives a concert, I am going to try to drag him there.
I want to stop being afraid to show to my family the person, at the moment, that's making me happy. For so long, and still so, I am afraid they would be disappointed when things don't work out. They have given up on ever seeing me get married. The point, however, isn't to get their hopes up. It is simply to share my joy with them, to be open with them. And for myself, the point is not to build these imbecilic walls. They only leave bitter resentments against women in the past for having failed to live up to the hopes of two old people they hardly knew.
I didn't tell my Dad much about the pianist, just dropped enough hints that she was someone important. It was good to connect to him.
It is just about time for the pianist to arrive in the cave of dances. I hope I can stay awake. My head is gone so I don't know what I am doing. Without my head, I can still, however, touch. Having her in my arms, just for a few minutes, especially to music we both love, is worth the loss of my head. And even without the head, I can still love this city.
I am here. In the middle of the dark canopy called Night, in this forlorn forest called Chinatown, inside this cave of the ultimate bad American food that, oddly, attracts all sorts of foreign tourists (most unlikely French). I am listening to some catchy 90's music. Or is it the 2000's? What do you call songs that came out between 2000 and 2010? Not to mention those that are coming out now.... No one thought of it?
I am here because I am waiting for a woman. But I am not thinking too much about her, except that one moment wondering if she is really coming out to dance. Without much effort, she convinced me to go dancing with her tonight, here, in this dark and forlorn forest of faded Chinese signs. I danced last night, I will be dancing the next two nights. What have I become?
I have lost my head, that's what happened. I am in a McDonalds, waiting for the princess to descend in her steel and noisy chariot so I can dance a tanda or two with her. I have truly lost my head. I am reading this Russian novel by a very famous writer from the Soviet times, a searing critique of the Soviet society. Naturally, she inspired me to read this book. Anyway, one of the scenes involved a man losing his head, though he didn't die; in fact, the head was still talking, quite shocked that it had been dislodged from the body that just slumped against the wall. The head was put back but the person was no longer "whole", complaining bitterly and painfully that the head was still not fully reconnected to the body.
My head is disconnected from my body. My body needs sleep. My head needs sleep. But the dictator that is now disconnected from the governed nation of me decides that this woman is worth it, decides from having read the jumbled telegraph from the heart that it is important to see this woman, even for a little bit.
What does a man do for a woman? Lose his head.
But while waiting here, I don't think much about the pianist rumbling down underground from the highest point of the island I am sitting on. I am trying to connect to the forest around me. My head and my body might be disconnected, but this couple, head and body, still wants to be connected to the surrounding.
A man in a burgundy buttoned-up shirt sits nearly perfectly still with his face glued to the laptop, whose screen light illuminates his face with different kinds of light. It is as if his face, twisted a little from the fingers that it is resting on, is a canvass for the different paintings coming out of the screen. Outside, just outside the door, over the door, a huge sign, the infamous Golden Arch, recently given a facelift, glows in the dark forest. Every now and then trucks roam by one of the busiest arteries of the city, Canal Street. People are coming and leaving the Manhattan Bridge, and most are coming and leaving the Holland Tunnel at the other end of this lower section of an island shaped by Nature but just as much by human beings. Its natural forests long replaced by concrete and human beings, their exuberance as well as excrement.
I am not just waiting for a woman who just broke up with me yesterday before I clarified some misunderstanding that brought her back. I am waiting in the city that still has so much to offer me. The yellow cabs outside are like the red blood cells (or yellow blood cells) that carry the fuel and oxygen needed to make this city at once fun and scary. I hated them for a while, until I started using them to leave the milongas. I haven't forgotten getting into a taxi to take the very same princess back to her castle before going back to my little tent across the river. That was before she let me kiss her, that one weekend. Before she held my hand.
Before coming to McDonald's I ate at the usual Chinese restaurant. Had a $5-noodle soup. While waiting for the soup to come (which took only two minutes), I called my Dad. He sounded happy. He called me the usual way, not with my normal name on the passport. He told me things that are rather mundane but that wasn't the point of the phone call. I asked if he opened the link in the email I sent him. I sent him and my married sister a link to the pianist's website. I tried to explain to him that even though he didn't feel like going anywhere, when that pianist gives a concert, I am going to try to drag him there.
I want to stop being afraid to show to my family the person, at the moment, that's making me happy. For so long, and still so, I am afraid they would be disappointed when things don't work out. They have given up on ever seeing me get married. The point, however, isn't to get their hopes up. It is simply to share my joy with them, to be open with them. And for myself, the point is not to build these imbecilic walls. They only leave bitter resentments against women in the past for having failed to live up to the hopes of two old people they hardly knew.
I didn't tell my Dad much about the pianist, just dropped enough hints that she was someone important. It was good to connect to him.
It is just about time for the pianist to arrive in the cave of dances. I hope I can stay awake. My head is gone so I don't know what I am doing. Without my head, I can still, however, touch. Having her in my arms, just for a few minutes, especially to music we both love, is worth the loss of my head. And even without the head, I can still love this city.
Breakups
Most relationships break up, and even more so experience at least one breakup (and sometimes the two looneys come back).
I don't think the pianist has been counting, but since I like numbers, I have been counting. To do that I have to make up a starting date. I use Labor Day, when she finally let me in her bed, let me kiss her. Now looking back, it seems a little less than accurate. That's because, as I have mentioned in the past entries, I haven't been very intimate with her, and not even a real kiss, since Labor Day. Of course, at some point, it doesn't matter. Hopefully we will stay long enough that the starting point is only useful for the good man to remember the "anniversary" that is all so kitsch in this society.
But the counting is mentioned for a reason here. Not even three weeks we broke up.
And it took a few hours, a long long train ride made long because of the imbecilic A train's mechanical problem (again), and some tears and some hugs, it took all this to bring back smiles, calm the worried heart. It also looks suspiciously familiar. The pattern is me feeling insecure, sends out some email expressing some dire conclusion based on my insecurity, and the result is the other person feeling inadequate because she's obviously the cause of my insecurity, and then she takes a step from me. In this case, the step is huge and her written response ends with the familiar, "I hope you find a woman that would truly make you happy; you deserve that."
I filed a formal complaint the night before, after she came to visit me and had dinner with me that I made for us. We had a good time, as usual, but I felt a need to complain to her on the topic that I mentioned in the past blog entries and hinted again above. I complained that we are more like close friends than a couple because we don't do very much in bed. I said it simply, while she is very trusting of me, feels very comfortable with me, the one exception is in bed, where she puts a big tall wall around her. She didn't have anything interesting to say. She knew what I was talking about and could do nothing about it. I told her in such relationship there is a man and a woman, but in ours there doesn't seem to be such distinction.
She gave me a very tight hug before boarding the famous 7-train. That hug didn't help much. I just got more upset. So as the pattern goes, I couldn't sleep, and the feelings of righteousness and self-pity mixed together into an email where I asked her to come back and be a woman. She didn't take that well, and thought I set up an ultimatum. The drama is predictable, and so is the resolution.
One good thing that came out of this was that I realized how much I like her, how much I want her to be in my life, when I came so close to losing her. Another positive outcome is that because she wants to take things slow, as opposed to all her previous crazy speedy adventures with me, it would mean I am not under pressure to spend all my time with her. I can actually do my own things in New York and she would not be more likely to leave me. And I realized she really likes me. She's being crazy when she overreacted and decided to break up with me on email (wow!). She's been hurt too much and I have to be extra careful not to let my insecurity push her away.
So yes, I went all the way up to there to at the very least break up in person. But we made up. I wish we didn't need drama as a way to get closer faster. I let her go back to her piano practice for a major recording the next day for some video audition, and I myself went back down to the center to get some tango dancing. She came later that evening and I danced a little with her. I was happy to see her. It was sweet for her to tell me she was looking for me when she arrived, and that she was a little disappointed thinking I wasn't there.
There's a part of me that says it's not enough that we just share a bed together as if we were friends. That especially in this day and age and in the beginning of the relationship, the couple should be "doing it" everyday, as a friend of mine told me (she used a more crude version of the phrase!). This part of me thinks that I deserve better, I deserve a woman that would give me that. And I did get women that did that for me, one even seemed to really made me feel great, very manly. But none of them liked me as much as this pianist. And if symbols and words matter, none of them acknowledged that we were dating, as the pianist acknowledges. If I have to weigh the good and bad, the happy and sad, the hopes and disappointments, than everything becomes super complicated and everyday becomes another episode of drama. The simplest and probably most difficult thing to do is enjoy what I have, and not focus on what I don't have that, frankly, even if I have it, brings me very short-term joy.
Sometimes you have to earn the best stuff on earth. To open her doors, to be allowed into her world, I need to earn it with time and patience. Only, of course, if she's worth it. Somehow somewhere in me I feel she's worth it. She makes my whole body, literal and figurative parts, giggle. That's good enough a reason to stay. I have felt the same way for others in the past and they all turned out to be the wrong choices. Still, if I am going to focus on how good a choice this person is, I won't be able to focus on enjoying those inner and outer giggles.
I don't think the pianist has been counting, but since I like numbers, I have been counting. To do that I have to make up a starting date. I use Labor Day, when she finally let me in her bed, let me kiss her. Now looking back, it seems a little less than accurate. That's because, as I have mentioned in the past entries, I haven't been very intimate with her, and not even a real kiss, since Labor Day. Of course, at some point, it doesn't matter. Hopefully we will stay long enough that the starting point is only useful for the good man to remember the "anniversary" that is all so kitsch in this society.
But the counting is mentioned for a reason here. Not even three weeks we broke up.
And it took a few hours, a long long train ride made long because of the imbecilic A train's mechanical problem (again), and some tears and some hugs, it took all this to bring back smiles, calm the worried heart. It also looks suspiciously familiar. The pattern is me feeling insecure, sends out some email expressing some dire conclusion based on my insecurity, and the result is the other person feeling inadequate because she's obviously the cause of my insecurity, and then she takes a step from me. In this case, the step is huge and her written response ends with the familiar, "I hope you find a woman that would truly make you happy; you deserve that."
I filed a formal complaint the night before, after she came to visit me and had dinner with me that I made for us. We had a good time, as usual, but I felt a need to complain to her on the topic that I mentioned in the past blog entries and hinted again above. I complained that we are more like close friends than a couple because we don't do very much in bed. I said it simply, while she is very trusting of me, feels very comfortable with me, the one exception is in bed, where she puts a big tall wall around her. She didn't have anything interesting to say. She knew what I was talking about and could do nothing about it. I told her in such relationship there is a man and a woman, but in ours there doesn't seem to be such distinction.
She gave me a very tight hug before boarding the famous 7-train. That hug didn't help much. I just got more upset. So as the pattern goes, I couldn't sleep, and the feelings of righteousness and self-pity mixed together into an email where I asked her to come back and be a woman. She didn't take that well, and thought I set up an ultimatum. The drama is predictable, and so is the resolution.
One good thing that came out of this was that I realized how much I like her, how much I want her to be in my life, when I came so close to losing her. Another positive outcome is that because she wants to take things slow, as opposed to all her previous crazy speedy adventures with me, it would mean I am not under pressure to spend all my time with her. I can actually do my own things in New York and she would not be more likely to leave me. And I realized she really likes me. She's being crazy when she overreacted and decided to break up with me on email (wow!). She's been hurt too much and I have to be extra careful not to let my insecurity push her away.
So yes, I went all the way up to there to at the very least break up in person. But we made up. I wish we didn't need drama as a way to get closer faster. I let her go back to her piano practice for a major recording the next day for some video audition, and I myself went back down to the center to get some tango dancing. She came later that evening and I danced a little with her. I was happy to see her. It was sweet for her to tell me she was looking for me when she arrived, and that she was a little disappointed thinking I wasn't there.
There's a part of me that says it's not enough that we just share a bed together as if we were friends. That especially in this day and age and in the beginning of the relationship, the couple should be "doing it" everyday, as a friend of mine told me (she used a more crude version of the phrase!). This part of me thinks that I deserve better, I deserve a woman that would give me that. And I did get women that did that for me, one even seemed to really made me feel great, very manly. But none of them liked me as much as this pianist. And if symbols and words matter, none of them acknowledged that we were dating, as the pianist acknowledges. If I have to weigh the good and bad, the happy and sad, the hopes and disappointments, than everything becomes super complicated and everyday becomes another episode of drama. The simplest and probably most difficult thing to do is enjoy what I have, and not focus on what I don't have that, frankly, even if I have it, brings me very short-term joy.
Sometimes you have to earn the best stuff on earth. To open her doors, to be allowed into her world, I need to earn it with time and patience. Only, of course, if she's worth it. Somehow somewhere in me I feel she's worth it. She makes my whole body, literal and figurative parts, giggle. That's good enough a reason to stay. I have felt the same way for others in the past and they all turned out to be the wrong choices. Still, if I am going to focus on how good a choice this person is, I won't be able to focus on enjoying those inner and outer giggles.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Going back to an Old Home
This is a very noisy train. Not because of the passengers, not even with the presence of annoying little toddlers that make weird and loud sounds as they got more tired. It's the conductors talking to the engineer over the PA. I never understood why they carry conversations (loudly) over the PA. Doesn't "PA" stand for Public Announcement? "Public" as for the public. I don't think we need to hear what track they are dumping the train into after the final station.
The final station is New Haven. That's where I am going. Last time was a month and a half ago. The mission this time is to move everything is mine out of the apartment. That depends partly on what my roommate might want, and if she's staying till the end of the year. I am going back to gain some connection with the house that is a constant nag. Unlike a souring relationship with a woman, I can't just end it so easily. The barriers aren't the emotional baggage and drama, but rather the bad economy and the tricky real estate world. The real deal. But the heart still is a factor. If I find some peace, I wouldn't have so much trouble with it. Because, well, in the end, it's really about money. When I am disconnected, the only thing I can hold on to is the idea of money. It's easy for people to just hold on to money when they feel lost.
I passed Bridgeport when I started writing. I remember writing every morning coming from New Haven. I remember the cold. The dark mornings. Now we are returning to those dark mornings and darker evenings. Soon, when they turn the clock back, I will be boarding the 7 Train before the sun rises, just as I boarded the Metro North diesel engine train before the wintery sun woke up. Now I am pulling into Milford, one more stop to go.
There is no nostalgia here. It's funny how 8.5 years in a place and my nostalgia had worn away so quickly, in less than 8.5 months, at least. I sometimes wonder what I have done those 8.5 years. What the significance was in my life. I have grown up, for sure, matured in a positive way, in the right direction. But I wonder if I couldn't have done it somewhere else, too. Like in New York. What would have happened if I had come to New York after my sister left. Everything would have been different, unless you believe in the immutable fate. I think about the people who have affected my life, my best friends, the girls that have broken my heart, and sometimes they are the same people. My work? And I think about the people in my present day. I think about the pianist. I wonder if we would have met. She told me last week she wish she had met me before, before all the trouble she had gone through with very vicious men. It was a nice compliment. Still, we are here for no reason, but the reality is that simple: we are here. And we get to enjoy wherever we have ended up, and the paths that we have taken we should be grateful for.
I will spend about four hours in the house, around the house. Don't know if that's too little or too much. But I hope to find some connection that will allow me to get through the rest of the year without going crazy over the issues of the house. Like being in New Haven, the best thing to do is appreciate and be grateful for the path I have taken with this house. It has not only given me some extra revenue in the form of cash and equity, but it gave me, well, a place to live, a place to invite friends, all the conversations, all the connections, they happened in the house that I decorated, that I in my best efforts took care of. Perhaps I should love it. That's just an idea.
The final station is New Haven. That's where I am going. Last time was a month and a half ago. The mission this time is to move everything is mine out of the apartment. That depends partly on what my roommate might want, and if she's staying till the end of the year. I am going back to gain some connection with the house that is a constant nag. Unlike a souring relationship with a woman, I can't just end it so easily. The barriers aren't the emotional baggage and drama, but rather the bad economy and the tricky real estate world. The real deal. But the heart still is a factor. If I find some peace, I wouldn't have so much trouble with it. Because, well, in the end, it's really about money. When I am disconnected, the only thing I can hold on to is the idea of money. It's easy for people to just hold on to money when they feel lost.
I passed Bridgeport when I started writing. I remember writing every morning coming from New Haven. I remember the cold. The dark mornings. Now we are returning to those dark mornings and darker evenings. Soon, when they turn the clock back, I will be boarding the 7 Train before the sun rises, just as I boarded the Metro North diesel engine train before the wintery sun woke up. Now I am pulling into Milford, one more stop to go.
There is no nostalgia here. It's funny how 8.5 years in a place and my nostalgia had worn away so quickly, in less than 8.5 months, at least. I sometimes wonder what I have done those 8.5 years. What the significance was in my life. I have grown up, for sure, matured in a positive way, in the right direction. But I wonder if I couldn't have done it somewhere else, too. Like in New York. What would have happened if I had come to New York after my sister left. Everything would have been different, unless you believe in the immutable fate. I think about the people who have affected my life, my best friends, the girls that have broken my heart, and sometimes they are the same people. My work? And I think about the people in my present day. I think about the pianist. I wonder if we would have met. She told me last week she wish she had met me before, before all the trouble she had gone through with very vicious men. It was a nice compliment. Still, we are here for no reason, but the reality is that simple: we are here. And we get to enjoy wherever we have ended up, and the paths that we have taken we should be grateful for.
I will spend about four hours in the house, around the house. Don't know if that's too little or too much. But I hope to find some connection that will allow me to get through the rest of the year without going crazy over the issues of the house. Like being in New Haven, the best thing to do is appreciate and be grateful for the path I have taken with this house. It has not only given me some extra revenue in the form of cash and equity, but it gave me, well, a place to live, a place to invite friends, all the conversations, all the connections, they happened in the house that I decorated, that I in my best efforts took care of. Perhaps I should love it. That's just an idea.
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