I was about to fall asleep, then I remember.
I don't know why I remembered, but I did. I remembered that day at lunch time when my best friend with a timid smile told me, first with a prelude, "Hope this doesn't change much.", at which point I sort of knew what was coming, then she told me she had started dating someone. After being dumbfounded despite the lack of total surprise, I said, "Don't know you I am still in love with you?"
Then I remember another episode, this girl, less than two years ago, sat at my kitchen, after we had a big fight that we resolved, finally, "Well, not to add oil to fire...." During those one or two seconds before the inevitable next volley of assault, I knew what would be said. Come to think of it, I think my best friend and I had a big argument too, outside the Medical School. But resolved it just before she broke the news. Same here.
Then I remembered other instances.
Then I remembered what a friend told me just two days ago, "Don't wait around. Don't wait until they start dating someone else. That really hurts. A lot!"
I remembered now. I remembered the lesson. The simple lesson. If you wait, you have just three outcomes, and in my life, the third possibility that anything would happen the way you want, that never happened to me. The other possibility is that you get tired of waiting and break the "relationship" anyway. But the most likely outcome is what my friend said. It's the outcome with the most intense mixture of humiliation, disillusionment, remorse, even self-hate, and of course, jealousy.
It's so obvious any pre-teen can tell you. Why some of us decide to wait and hope that things would change is really ridiculous. In my case, the wait merely builds up so many excuses not to do the right thing, builds a connection whose very strength provides the strongest source of excuses that eventually lead to its own destruction, and Fate eventually will smack you with the worst kind of jealousy you can feel.
I thought about this lesson before I could fall asleep. This time I again didn't get the outcome I wanted from waiting, but at the very least I didn't wait long enough for the inevitable smack on the face to happen. The pre-teen lesson finally is learned with dignity.
Waiting is for cowards.
That same friend told me that she had been on the "other side", and she told me that because she cared about the man who was waiting that she told him to stop waiting and when that didn't work, she broke off any contact, for him at least as much as for herself. Isn't that another pre-teen lesson so many adults have forgotten about? Suddenly adults need so much more courage to do what is so natural on the playground.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Writing in Different Times
The laptop is still dead. It won't go past the gray screen.
I think I will return it to my old work and that will be the end of that.
It's interesting to write my blog entry outside the morning hours. I have done it before, but not often. Mornings put me in a very specific mood. Despite waking up so insanely early, I manage to be most alert. I think that's one reason they recommend people do yoga in the morning. Mind is ready but the body isn't.
So instead of writing, for the first time, on my morning ride to work, I did something different. Doing different things almost always enrich one's life. I decided in a hurry to take my iPod along. I hadn't figured out what to do with it. How I got it involves a different story. It is the first iPod touch, "first generation", so it doesn't automatically have the minimum operating system needed to download and install fancy "Apps". It doesn't have a camera. What it does do is what iPod were made to do in the beginning, and largely still do: play music. I never owned a portable music maker, or haven't since I was in high school when I had a Sony cassette player. Oh wait, I finally bought a CD player after college when I thought I could afford such luxury. I remember seeing a friend with a CD player when it first came out during my junior year in high school. She was bragging about it. I wonder what happened to her. Lost weight? Gained more? Lost her acne scars? Married? Liberal? No clue. I think her name was Cynthia. She's significant mostly because she was the first girl I dared to pad on the shoulders. That was junior year, so I was, what, 16? What woman problems I grew up with. No surprise at the mess I am in these days.
So with that 21st century portable music player called the iPod Touch I started listening to one of my favorite classical music pieces: Fauré's "Requiem". It was funny to listen to such somber and hopeful music while watching the the sad dilapidation of Bridgeport transformed into the rich Fairfield County residential luxury. (For those who don't know what "Requiem" is, it's the music played on Easter to celebrate Christ's rebirth, though the classical music you hear is by no means meant for the religious people.) I usually don't like earplugs in my ears, not only are they uncomfortable, but the idea of having music separating me from my environment always repulsed me. I always want to know what's happening around me, which explains why I notice a lot more than people realize. But sitting there, watching the movie that was the transformation from the poor half to the rich half of Southern Connecticut, the music was beautiful, made me feel very peaceful. I didn't have to notice anything; I created images.
Last night I decided to start writing in my journal again. Then I realized I haven't written journal entry with a pen since at least last March, when my current "mess" started. I was surprised because whenever there's a woman involved, I often find myself writing a lot in my journal, for the simple reason that it's more often than not a very unhappy experience. And unhappiness drives my writing in journal entries, usually.
Not so different this time. I wanted to return to the simple way of channeling out my discontent. But I couldn't find the last journal book I used. The latest one was this big white one a very good friend gave me before she returned to her country (really, her resident country) of Spain. She is getting married, she told me. I hope she remembers to invite me. It would be a damn cool excuse to visit Barcelona again. She was one of the people in my life who, though didn't spend much of it with me (just a year), never ceased to find me amazing, never ceased to remind me how wonderful I am. Of course, I never really believed her, or at least, wanted to believe her, but her insistence and persistence left a positive mark in my growth of self-esteem. I try to do the same with people in my life, remind them they are great, they are perfect. I would do the same to strangers if it weren't for the fear that they would think I was about to sell them something next.
The same friend made a drawing of me, smiling, with my military haircut, and a symbol of tango made of a couple dancing in the background, and since she specializes in literature, she wrote a poem for me too. I don't think about her much, but when I do, I feel lucky to be me.
In any case, in her big white journal I finished my last entry in the spring of 2009. That was my last entry until last night. When I opened that white book, surprise! I opened up to March 2nd, 2009, exactly exactly two years before. I was having a really hard time then breaking up with this girl (who would have the great privilege of breaking up again for the second and final time a few months later after India). I read a few of the entries and felt no regret, no self-pity, but rather, a lot of hope. I realized no matter how much I complain and how angry and frustrated I got, I always got through and forgot the pain. I was right yesterday about passing through the worst of my pain now. Yesterday I was too distracted by the pain, but as expected, today I felt better. I am not recovered, and far from having changed significantly. But just four days, it took four days to reach the peak, better than a flu!
After reading a few entries, I decided to start new. I chose one of the pretty journals I bought in Thailand. I was going to use it as a gift, but now it was a gift for myself. I started writing, freely, about whatever was bothering me, whatever hopes I felt, whatever positive or negative feelings, not in sentences, just let the words dig themselves out of my thick skin, frozen from this winter of too many unhappy moments. Now I was writing it down on this journal bought from a time of happy thoughts, on a happy journey with my best friend on a busy corner in the tourist district of Bangkok.
I know I am far from having healed. I thought about this coming weekend, and the prospect of spending it alone again. I still have the papasan chair laid out in front of the computer from last Saturday when I watched a movie alone. It bothers me to no end that I have to spend weekends alone. It bothers me just as well that such things bother me since I always end up enjoying the movie, enjoying spending time with myself. It's never about spending time alone, which I really do enjoy; it is always about failing to feel loved even when alone. Today I thought that it is truly better to have no woman in my life because that way, all I can see is the love of my friends and family. Having a woman who doesn't want you just makes you focus too much on how much you are unloved rather than how much you are loved.
The journey continues, but at least for now, I can breathe more easily. There are no more panic attacks, no more anxiety from despair. Just moving on. I hope to sublet my room out soon, and have an apartment ready for me in Queens before the end of the month. I keep myself busy enough not to think about the useless topic of loneliness. Work today was very productive and fun, kept me away from that quicksand of self-pity. This weekend I hope one of the New Yorkers will hang out with me. I don't need new friends, but I love new connections. We will see what the weekend brings.
I think I will return it to my old work and that will be the end of that.
It's interesting to write my blog entry outside the morning hours. I have done it before, but not often. Mornings put me in a very specific mood. Despite waking up so insanely early, I manage to be most alert. I think that's one reason they recommend people do yoga in the morning. Mind is ready but the body isn't.
So instead of writing, for the first time, on my morning ride to work, I did something different. Doing different things almost always enrich one's life. I decided in a hurry to take my iPod along. I hadn't figured out what to do with it. How I got it involves a different story. It is the first iPod touch, "first generation", so it doesn't automatically have the minimum operating system needed to download and install fancy "Apps". It doesn't have a camera. What it does do is what iPod were made to do in the beginning, and largely still do: play music. I never owned a portable music maker, or haven't since I was in high school when I had a Sony cassette player. Oh wait, I finally bought a CD player after college when I thought I could afford such luxury. I remember seeing a friend with a CD player when it first came out during my junior year in high school. She was bragging about it. I wonder what happened to her. Lost weight? Gained more? Lost her acne scars? Married? Liberal? No clue. I think her name was Cynthia. She's significant mostly because she was the first girl I dared to pad on the shoulders. That was junior year, so I was, what, 16? What woman problems I grew up with. No surprise at the mess I am in these days.
So with that 21st century portable music player called the iPod Touch I started listening to one of my favorite classical music pieces: Fauré's "Requiem". It was funny to listen to such somber and hopeful music while watching the the sad dilapidation of Bridgeport transformed into the rich Fairfield County residential luxury. (For those who don't know what "Requiem" is, it's the music played on Easter to celebrate Christ's rebirth, though the classical music you hear is by no means meant for the religious people.) I usually don't like earplugs in my ears, not only are they uncomfortable, but the idea of having music separating me from my environment always repulsed me. I always want to know what's happening around me, which explains why I notice a lot more than people realize. But sitting there, watching the movie that was the transformation from the poor half to the rich half of Southern Connecticut, the music was beautiful, made me feel very peaceful. I didn't have to notice anything; I created images.
Last night I decided to start writing in my journal again. Then I realized I haven't written journal entry with a pen since at least last March, when my current "mess" started. I was surprised because whenever there's a woman involved, I often find myself writing a lot in my journal, for the simple reason that it's more often than not a very unhappy experience. And unhappiness drives my writing in journal entries, usually.
Not so different this time. I wanted to return to the simple way of channeling out my discontent. But I couldn't find the last journal book I used. The latest one was this big white one a very good friend gave me before she returned to her country (really, her resident country) of Spain. She is getting married, she told me. I hope she remembers to invite me. It would be a damn cool excuse to visit Barcelona again. She was one of the people in my life who, though didn't spend much of it with me (just a year), never ceased to find me amazing, never ceased to remind me how wonderful I am. Of course, I never really believed her, or at least, wanted to believe her, but her insistence and persistence left a positive mark in my growth of self-esteem. I try to do the same with people in my life, remind them they are great, they are perfect. I would do the same to strangers if it weren't for the fear that they would think I was about to sell them something next.
The same friend made a drawing of me, smiling, with my military haircut, and a symbol of tango made of a couple dancing in the background, and since she specializes in literature, she wrote a poem for me too. I don't think about her much, but when I do, I feel lucky to be me.
In any case, in her big white journal I finished my last entry in the spring of 2009. That was my last entry until last night. When I opened that white book, surprise! I opened up to March 2nd, 2009, exactly exactly two years before. I was having a really hard time then breaking up with this girl (who would have the great privilege of breaking up again for the second and final time a few months later after India). I read a few of the entries and felt no regret, no self-pity, but rather, a lot of hope. I realized no matter how much I complain and how angry and frustrated I got, I always got through and forgot the pain. I was right yesterday about passing through the worst of my pain now. Yesterday I was too distracted by the pain, but as expected, today I felt better. I am not recovered, and far from having changed significantly. But just four days, it took four days to reach the peak, better than a flu!
After reading a few entries, I decided to start new. I chose one of the pretty journals I bought in Thailand. I was going to use it as a gift, but now it was a gift for myself. I started writing, freely, about whatever was bothering me, whatever hopes I felt, whatever positive or negative feelings, not in sentences, just let the words dig themselves out of my thick skin, frozen from this winter of too many unhappy moments. Now I was writing it down on this journal bought from a time of happy thoughts, on a happy journey with my best friend on a busy corner in the tourist district of Bangkok.
I know I am far from having healed. I thought about this coming weekend, and the prospect of spending it alone again. I still have the papasan chair laid out in front of the computer from last Saturday when I watched a movie alone. It bothers me to no end that I have to spend weekends alone. It bothers me just as well that such things bother me since I always end up enjoying the movie, enjoying spending time with myself. It's never about spending time alone, which I really do enjoy; it is always about failing to feel loved even when alone. Today I thought that it is truly better to have no woman in my life because that way, all I can see is the love of my friends and family. Having a woman who doesn't want you just makes you focus too much on how much you are unloved rather than how much you are loved.
The journey continues, but at least for now, I can breathe more easily. There are no more panic attacks, no more anxiety from despair. Just moving on. I hope to sublet my room out soon, and have an apartment ready for me in Queens before the end of the month. I keep myself busy enough not to think about the useless topic of loneliness. Work today was very productive and fun, kept me away from that quicksand of self-pity. This weekend I hope one of the New Yorkers will hang out with me. I don't need new friends, but I love new connections. We will see what the weekend brings.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Not Meant to Be
My laptop died.
Or dying.
Nearly dead.
Gone is what I wrote today. It's interesting because it was one of the most difficult blog entry I have written. I put a lot of thought into it, even revised it while waiting for the train.
I left work later than usual. Just a little. It's always a little busy and stressful at the start of each month. It was more for solidarity than anything else that I left later. I couldn't have done anything useful. I learned from the very first week at work that semblance is important. In that context it was about compliance, that not only do we have to comply with government regulations, but also we have to make the appearance that we are not doing anything wrong. It's important not to raise suspicions even if you have no intention of doing anything illegal. So same here, to maintain the appearance of hardworking is as important as not actually slacking off.
I wrote about my friends again. It's been a tough few days. It is an important few days. It will continue to be tough the next few, especially now that I am starting the next step of my "new life" in earnest: apartment search. My mind needs to be a bit more solid. I haven't been concentrating as much as I want at work, and it's also a coincidence that at the start of the month I personally don't have as much work because everyone else is stressed with "production issues", meaning problems arising from existing software. They are basically fighting a lot of fire with little time to spare. So I didn't have much to do today. I spent the free time learning more about finance, asking questions to those not stressed. I mentioned I have been reading this book about the causes of the financial crisis. One character was interesting to me in that he managed to be a very focused and obsessed person, and since he was obsessed and diligent about investing, he became one of the investment geniuses in the world. His story made me wonder when I would be obsessed about something other than winning a woman's heart.
Without repeating what I said in the lost blog entry, I want to say that my friends helped me out again this time. They called me, met up with me, without thinking about the reasons for which I am down; they just found ways to remind me how amazing a person I am, how unfortunate it is that I have to feel so much pain. I am luckier than most people in the world, I know, and even if I don't always feel grateful when I am down, I am always grateful deep down. They give me the extra boost to face this new step in my new life, even though passing this next round means I will see my friends less. I know I will miss them. But we all know it's time for me to move on and find out what beautiful surprises await me.
I wonder if I will recover that blog entry. I wonder, I wonder if it was some divine sign that I only wrote it but never publish it or even keep it. But at the very least, having written it made me feel more peaceful, feel luckier, and felt more courageous to face a new future.
I hope tomorrow I will be less distracted at work. The pain was the sharpest today but I also think it will be the climax. It's like that night with the vomiting. There was a point where I felt it was just too much, but then it was over, and a few days later, it was just a distant memory with no pain in sight.
Nothing is worth unhappiness, not past connections, not even love for a woman. If that's a lesson I can keep, then whatever anguish that has visited me was worth this lesson. I have, again, my family and friends to thank to help me get through and hopefully break out from another circular relationship.
Or dying.
Nearly dead.
Gone is what I wrote today. It's interesting because it was one of the most difficult blog entry I have written. I put a lot of thought into it, even revised it while waiting for the train.
I left work later than usual. Just a little. It's always a little busy and stressful at the start of each month. It was more for solidarity than anything else that I left later. I couldn't have done anything useful. I learned from the very first week at work that semblance is important. In that context it was about compliance, that not only do we have to comply with government regulations, but also we have to make the appearance that we are not doing anything wrong. It's important not to raise suspicions even if you have no intention of doing anything illegal. So same here, to maintain the appearance of hardworking is as important as not actually slacking off.
I wrote about my friends again. It's been a tough few days. It is an important few days. It will continue to be tough the next few, especially now that I am starting the next step of my "new life" in earnest: apartment search. My mind needs to be a bit more solid. I haven't been concentrating as much as I want at work, and it's also a coincidence that at the start of the month I personally don't have as much work because everyone else is stressed with "production issues", meaning problems arising from existing software. They are basically fighting a lot of fire with little time to spare. So I didn't have much to do today. I spent the free time learning more about finance, asking questions to those not stressed. I mentioned I have been reading this book about the causes of the financial crisis. One character was interesting to me in that he managed to be a very focused and obsessed person, and since he was obsessed and diligent about investing, he became one of the investment geniuses in the world. His story made me wonder when I would be obsessed about something other than winning a woman's heart.
Without repeating what I said in the lost blog entry, I want to say that my friends helped me out again this time. They called me, met up with me, without thinking about the reasons for which I am down; they just found ways to remind me how amazing a person I am, how unfortunate it is that I have to feel so much pain. I am luckier than most people in the world, I know, and even if I don't always feel grateful when I am down, I am always grateful deep down. They give me the extra boost to face this new step in my new life, even though passing this next round means I will see my friends less. I know I will miss them. But we all know it's time for me to move on and find out what beautiful surprises await me.
I wonder if I will recover that blog entry. I wonder, I wonder if it was some divine sign that I only wrote it but never publish it or even keep it. But at the very least, having written it made me feel more peaceful, feel luckier, and felt more courageous to face a new future.
I hope tomorrow I will be less distracted at work. The pain was the sharpest today but I also think it will be the climax. It's like that night with the vomiting. There was a point where I felt it was just too much, but then it was over, and a few days later, it was just a distant memory with no pain in sight.
Nothing is worth unhappiness, not past connections, not even love for a woman. If that's a lesson I can keep, then whatever anguish that has visited me was worth this lesson. I have, again, my family and friends to thank to help me get through and hopefully break out from another circular relationship.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Beloved, Whom?
Last night on the train back home I finally finished reading "Beloved" by Toni Morrison. It's beautifully written, prose that leaves a feeling you've been reading poetry, poignant plot, real characters. There's a lot more to say, a lot more, than a few sentences here can do justice for. I was happy I read it. I learned a lot about lives of slaves and the trauma they had to face long after their emancipation. But I also learned a lot about human beings, about how we behave, the capacity for good and evil in which we treat one another. The suffering most characters had to go through put my life into perspective. Even the last few pages had that effect on me.
One of the characters in those last few pages recalled finding himself in the North after the War. He was surprised he got compensated for helping a white man unload his truck of groceries. He was surprised that his compensation, coins which he never had touched before, allowed him to obtain food that no one made him wait on a whim. He was shocked that people didn't look at him like he was a fugitive. It was beautiful how Morrison made me understand what it meant to have lived in a cage. People still talk about freedom these days, freedom from tyrants, freedom to express yourself and to assemble. People in Libya are taking up arms because the bullets were coming their way from those who refuse to listen to their pleas of freedom.
But living in a cage all your life, being sold as a commodity, having absolutely no freedom at all, is worse than being a prisoner. One of the book's main themes was lost of identity. Slavery takes away not only all your freedom, absolutely all of it, not just political freedoms people are still fighting for, but your identity. Anyone trying to be different is roasted in a fire like one of the characters was.
I've been struggling with my own identity. I forgot that I have the luxury of even having it, even if I don't know what it is always. And the freedom I have is immense, especially being in the middle-class of one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Money does buy you more freedom, whether the socialists like it or not. I still have the right to struggle for ending what makes me unhappy, even if the issue involved isn't as painful as loss of identity and basic freedom. I just need to put things into some perspective when I do go through my struggle.
And how is that struggle? Today is the first day of March. I noticed this fact when I took out my monthly pass. No, I didn't forget to bring the March pass. Yesterday I made sure I put it in my wallet along with the February one. Last night I threw out the February one right before bed and after my quick, warm shower. A warm shower before sleep was helpful. My life is still in a storm. A storm, true, incomparable to the daily nightmare of the characters in "Beloved", but still, a storm. I know it will subside, and with a new life, at the very least, new storms. I called a friend yesterday during work to complain about the storm. To complain more that it was always the same storm, the same pattern in my life, that I wanted to end it. End the storm, end the pattern. The next struggle deserves a different kind of storm.
And for some reason, I remembered my first serious girlfriend. I did so on my way home. Perhaps it was because I was aware of the fact that no one would be waiting for me in a warm house. There wouldn't be a smile when I walked in. It's a romantic notion most people with someone don't get very often. And I didn't get it too often either with that first girlfriend. But what I remembered wasn't an episode where I went into my dorm room and saw her smile, which happened a few times. What I remembered was an example of how a woman behaves when she was crazy about me. She and I had a very stormy relationship (apparently this current storm hasn't changed much in the past twenty years). But I remember that summer when we tried to meet in the middle of Europe. I had just finished teaching English in a village in Hungary and wanted to see her in her native city of Bucharest in the neighboring Romania. There was drama for me to get a visa to get into Romania because I still had my Chinese passport. There was anxiety about how and where to meet. Nothing too serious, but for me, for us, there was a lot of anxiety, especially me visiting a country that just came out of the darkness of Communism. What I remembered briefly as I walked toward my empty house was that she told me after we finally found each other, that she missed me a lot, that out of anxiety that we wouldn't meet up (back then communication didn't involve cell phones or Facebook), she actually wrote chalk graffiti of her contact info on the floor of the Budapest train station where where was hoping to intercept me (for those who don't know much about Eastern Europe, that's the capital of Hungary).
She thought about me. Even if we fought a lot, tried to cause immense pain and suffering on each other, she thought a lot about me, then and after. When you come home to find a smile, you know someone in this world was thinking about you. When you get a text message just letting you know someone was thinking about you, you know you aren't alone.
My struggle is not finding peace so I don't need someone to tell me they are thinking about me, to tell me I am important. That's not a struggle, that's a way of life, searching and maintaining that peace. My struggle is meeting someone who, regardless of how I am doing on my path of peace, reminds me that I am not alone, that she is thinking about me, that she wants me to have what I want, that she would give what she can because I am part of what she wants in life. It's important to distinguish this struggle, which is very painful at times, from the path of peace, which is one that makes me happy even if I rarely succeed.
One of the characters in those last few pages recalled finding himself in the North after the War. He was surprised he got compensated for helping a white man unload his truck of groceries. He was surprised that his compensation, coins which he never had touched before, allowed him to obtain food that no one made him wait on a whim. He was shocked that people didn't look at him like he was a fugitive. It was beautiful how Morrison made me understand what it meant to have lived in a cage. People still talk about freedom these days, freedom from tyrants, freedom to express yourself and to assemble. People in Libya are taking up arms because the bullets were coming their way from those who refuse to listen to their pleas of freedom.
But living in a cage all your life, being sold as a commodity, having absolutely no freedom at all, is worse than being a prisoner. One of the book's main themes was lost of identity. Slavery takes away not only all your freedom, absolutely all of it, not just political freedoms people are still fighting for, but your identity. Anyone trying to be different is roasted in a fire like one of the characters was.
I've been struggling with my own identity. I forgot that I have the luxury of even having it, even if I don't know what it is always. And the freedom I have is immense, especially being in the middle-class of one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Money does buy you more freedom, whether the socialists like it or not. I still have the right to struggle for ending what makes me unhappy, even if the issue involved isn't as painful as loss of identity and basic freedom. I just need to put things into some perspective when I do go through my struggle.
And how is that struggle? Today is the first day of March. I noticed this fact when I took out my monthly pass. No, I didn't forget to bring the March pass. Yesterday I made sure I put it in my wallet along with the February one. Last night I threw out the February one right before bed and after my quick, warm shower. A warm shower before sleep was helpful. My life is still in a storm. A storm, true, incomparable to the daily nightmare of the characters in "Beloved", but still, a storm. I know it will subside, and with a new life, at the very least, new storms. I called a friend yesterday during work to complain about the storm. To complain more that it was always the same storm, the same pattern in my life, that I wanted to end it. End the storm, end the pattern. The next struggle deserves a different kind of storm.
And for some reason, I remembered my first serious girlfriend. I did so on my way home. Perhaps it was because I was aware of the fact that no one would be waiting for me in a warm house. There wouldn't be a smile when I walked in. It's a romantic notion most people with someone don't get very often. And I didn't get it too often either with that first girlfriend. But what I remembered wasn't an episode where I went into my dorm room and saw her smile, which happened a few times. What I remembered was an example of how a woman behaves when she was crazy about me. She and I had a very stormy relationship (apparently this current storm hasn't changed much in the past twenty years). But I remember that summer when we tried to meet in the middle of Europe. I had just finished teaching English in a village in Hungary and wanted to see her in her native city of Bucharest in the neighboring Romania. There was drama for me to get a visa to get into Romania because I still had my Chinese passport. There was anxiety about how and where to meet. Nothing too serious, but for me, for us, there was a lot of anxiety, especially me visiting a country that just came out of the darkness of Communism. What I remembered briefly as I walked toward my empty house was that she told me after we finally found each other, that she missed me a lot, that out of anxiety that we wouldn't meet up (back then communication didn't involve cell phones or Facebook), she actually wrote chalk graffiti of her contact info on the floor of the Budapest train station where where was hoping to intercept me (for those who don't know much about Eastern Europe, that's the capital of Hungary).
She thought about me. Even if we fought a lot, tried to cause immense pain and suffering on each other, she thought a lot about me, then and after. When you come home to find a smile, you know someone in this world was thinking about you. When you get a text message just letting you know someone was thinking about you, you know you aren't alone.
My struggle is not finding peace so I don't need someone to tell me they are thinking about me, to tell me I am important. That's not a struggle, that's a way of life, searching and maintaining that peace. My struggle is meeting someone who, regardless of how I am doing on my path of peace, reminds me that I am not alone, that she is thinking about me, that she wants me to have what I want, that she would give what she can because I am part of what she wants in life. It's important to distinguish this struggle, which is very painful at times, from the path of peace, which is one that makes me happy even if I rarely succeed.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Outside and Inside Harper
It's the first time I saw the black smoke coming from the diesel engine some cars in front of me. The smoke drifted back far enough over my car for me to see it. Something new in a very familiar landscape.
Today is the last day of the month. March, starting tomorrow, hopefully will be the last month that I get to savor the familiarity before a new ones slowly sets in. There won't be many, if any, diesel engines on the trains coming from New York. I have never seen one leaving Grand Central, though the one I take to go home is a diesel one that comes from Grand Central.
The weekend since my last entry entailed a drive as a passenger to New Jersey, being surrounded by the little children of my sister, trying to be connected despite all my mental distractions, and before ending it with my favorite milonga of the week, I spent time in the future home city to which I will be returning in a month.
I didn't want to be alone in the city.
I knew I could. I knew from history I would always enjoy being alone there.
But I didn't want to be alone. I wanted to be with friends. I asked a couple of tango friends, but it was too last-minute for them. I wasn't disappointed, and I was glad I did it because by asking them they knew I was interested in connecting with them. I have already started "living" in New York. Nonetheless, I still ended up being alone.
And that was the fatalistic attitude I carried with me when I went to the Edward Harper exhibit at the Whitney. I never cared to go to that museum, even though it is one of the most famous and popular one in the city. I never cared for American art before the crazy modern stuff. I share the same stereotype that many of Harper's contemporary and past critics had about American art: that it was immature and uninteresting compared to the European art that carried a much deeper and older legacy. But Harper had always been an exception. And my visit allowed me to understand why. His most famous piece is the diner scene, where three or four customers were sitting at a corner diner not really noticing the empty streets cornering them. That had an effect on my since I saw it first on a textbook in high school. I didn't know the artist's name until much later. Now, he had a whole exhibit to himself, posthumously, of course.
I was tired by the time I got to the museum. I was tired from expending the last bit of energy with my crazy nephew and the increasingly crazy niece. Crazy because they are adorable kids. But their nuttiness exhausted my last bit of energy left over from all the mental work over the weekend. So I sat a lot for the less than two hours I was at the Whitney, but I was also able to enjoy the pieces with more attention.
In the end, I understood why Harper's paintings attracted me for so long, and still do. They are all about loneliness. They are everyday life stuff that was beaming with the big L word. I sort of knew that since high school with that one piece I saw. But I never understood how Harper did it. Ironically, it's the colors, the brilliant colors that highlighted the loneliness. It's the subtle distances between people that resonate with our own personal feeling of distances that divide us from others. It's the eyes. It's the very fact that these quotidian subjects reminds us how prevalent they are in our own lives. Most of the snapshots of our everyday events are the same, most carry no sense of hope and excitement. Most of us don't think about it, but especially for those of us who live in big cities as the subjects of his paintings do, we are reminded of this simple reality of the mundane life. Boredom and loneliness are twins, it seems.
The eyes don't show boredom. They are sad. They are uninterested in life. They are merely going on.
And I am not like that. I decided to enjoy my city despite having no one to spend those four hours with. I decided to walk into a falafel place carrying a heavy heart that for the third night this weekend I was having dinner alone. And I did it without self-pity; I did it feeling happy that soon I would be dancing, to be with people who may not be my friends but in their own ways cared because they connected with me, not as dancers on the dance floor, but just people with a few things to chitchat about. I saw one of the people I invited to have a bite before dancing but whose schedule didn't allow it. She was nice enough to call and leave a message telling me she couldn't do it but that I should remember her next time I wanted someone to hang out with before the milonga. That made me feel warm and fuzzy before going to the museum. And when I saw her, we exchanged a big smile. She and others gave me hopes that I could have some real friendships here, in this city of ten million, a city whose loneliness was betrayed in Harper's painting. I went into the museum with the same mood that his paintings carried, and yes, that helped me understand his paintings more, but at the same time, the paintings reminded me that I was an "exception", that despite my frequent feeling of loneliness, the self-pity, and frustration with romance, despite all this, I was able to see the contrast between me and the paintings. I was someone who loves having fun, who loves life, who loves human beings. It is with this attitude, despite a weekend mostly spent alone, I start a new week, a new month.
Today is the last day of the month. March, starting tomorrow, hopefully will be the last month that I get to savor the familiarity before a new ones slowly sets in. There won't be many, if any, diesel engines on the trains coming from New York. I have never seen one leaving Grand Central, though the one I take to go home is a diesel one that comes from Grand Central.
The weekend since my last entry entailed a drive as a passenger to New Jersey, being surrounded by the little children of my sister, trying to be connected despite all my mental distractions, and before ending it with my favorite milonga of the week, I spent time in the future home city to which I will be returning in a month.
I didn't want to be alone in the city.
I knew I could. I knew from history I would always enjoy being alone there.
But I didn't want to be alone. I wanted to be with friends. I asked a couple of tango friends, but it was too last-minute for them. I wasn't disappointed, and I was glad I did it because by asking them they knew I was interested in connecting with them. I have already started "living" in New York. Nonetheless, I still ended up being alone.
And that was the fatalistic attitude I carried with me when I went to the Edward Harper exhibit at the Whitney. I never cared to go to that museum, even though it is one of the most famous and popular one in the city. I never cared for American art before the crazy modern stuff. I share the same stereotype that many of Harper's contemporary and past critics had about American art: that it was immature and uninteresting compared to the European art that carried a much deeper and older legacy. But Harper had always been an exception. And my visit allowed me to understand why. His most famous piece is the diner scene, where three or four customers were sitting at a corner diner not really noticing the empty streets cornering them. That had an effect on my since I saw it first on a textbook in high school. I didn't know the artist's name until much later. Now, he had a whole exhibit to himself, posthumously, of course.
I was tired by the time I got to the museum. I was tired from expending the last bit of energy with my crazy nephew and the increasingly crazy niece. Crazy because they are adorable kids. But their nuttiness exhausted my last bit of energy left over from all the mental work over the weekend. So I sat a lot for the less than two hours I was at the Whitney, but I was also able to enjoy the pieces with more attention.
In the end, I understood why Harper's paintings attracted me for so long, and still do. They are all about loneliness. They are everyday life stuff that was beaming with the big L word. I sort of knew that since high school with that one piece I saw. But I never understood how Harper did it. Ironically, it's the colors, the brilliant colors that highlighted the loneliness. It's the subtle distances between people that resonate with our own personal feeling of distances that divide us from others. It's the eyes. It's the very fact that these quotidian subjects reminds us how prevalent they are in our own lives. Most of the snapshots of our everyday events are the same, most carry no sense of hope and excitement. Most of us don't think about it, but especially for those of us who live in big cities as the subjects of his paintings do, we are reminded of this simple reality of the mundane life. Boredom and loneliness are twins, it seems.
The eyes don't show boredom. They are sad. They are uninterested in life. They are merely going on.
And I am not like that. I decided to enjoy my city despite having no one to spend those four hours with. I decided to walk into a falafel place carrying a heavy heart that for the third night this weekend I was having dinner alone. And I did it without self-pity; I did it feeling happy that soon I would be dancing, to be with people who may not be my friends but in their own ways cared because they connected with me, not as dancers on the dance floor, but just people with a few things to chitchat about. I saw one of the people I invited to have a bite before dancing but whose schedule didn't allow it. She was nice enough to call and leave a message telling me she couldn't do it but that I should remember her next time I wanted someone to hang out with before the milonga. That made me feel warm and fuzzy before going to the museum. And when I saw her, we exchanged a big smile. She and others gave me hopes that I could have some real friendships here, in this city of ten million, a city whose loneliness was betrayed in Harper's painting. I went into the museum with the same mood that his paintings carried, and yes, that helped me understand his paintings more, but at the same time, the paintings reminded me that I was an "exception", that despite my frequent feeling of loneliness, the self-pity, and frustration with romance, despite all this, I was able to see the contrast between me and the paintings. I was someone who loves having fun, who loves life, who loves human beings. It is with this attitude, despite a weekend mostly spent alone, I start a new week, a new month.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Moving on in my Mind
I woke up remembering last night, remembering the night before.
Last night I saw "Cinema Paradiso". It was beautiful, but the story was long, perhaps I had the extended version. And I didn't feel the story was cohesive and strong. I could see how I would have fallen in love with it, become attached to the characters, had it been done a different way, by better direction and story-telling. But I didn't. I could see how my art friend said she didn't like it so much when she saw it, not sure when. Then again, I don't know her taste in movies enough to say we would have the same reasons for not liking a given movie.
The night before I wanted to see a movie, but I ended up just organizing my room, especially the desk that had pies of receipts on it.
Then I thought of the obvious: I spent both nights alone.
I am done with this town, this life. I know that in New York there's no better possibility of avoiding another weekend night alone, but at least I will have my city, my milongas, my cafes, my people watching, my reading among people who excite me just by their presence. Here, even with friends, I still find myself alone on weekend nights. I didn't call any of my friends to hang out, because for one thing, I didn't find anything interesting to do besides sitting and watching a movie or chatting. For another, I didn't have the energy to invite and be prepared to be rejected. My art friend has many times suggested that we go to one of her parties, meet her cute art girls, go to an art show. But that never happened, even when I suggested it. Her life is taking a road a bit diverged from mine. That's normal with friends.
But I just feel more strongly that I am done here. Sure, I could have called up my sister and gone to see a movie. However, that wouldn't have made me feel less compelled to leave here.
Last night before the movies, while making my lunch of the week, while baking for the sweets of the week, I finally got around to post an ad for subletting my room. That's another step toward exiting here. I will need to find a property manager, formal or informal, to take care of the place while I am gone. But as far as tasks here is concerned, there's nothing more to do. I didn't feel sorry for myself these two nights as much as I am now, in my matutinal mood of introspection. And tonight I will be going home alone after the milonga. If I were in New York, I would still be going home alone, but at least, I will go home through the subway that I love, through the neighborhoods that I embrace. Such are my thoughts this morning.
The weekend did have quite a few happy points. Besides taking care of the apartment I am leaving by organizing and washing its floors, I got a surprise visit and also got to spend time with a friend. I got a phone call from a voice that asked, "Do you know who this is?" It was a woman's voice, unsurprisingly, a deep voice, but not one I could recognize and the area code of the phone number, 215, was even more foreign to me. It was a friend from a long time ago I met in New Haven, a common friend with my ex-best friend. She had moved out around the time my sister left for college. She is the only person I know who stuck around this town for longer than I have. Ten years. Four of those in college, the rest dedicated to social improvement through the union. After becoming tired and disillusioned with union politics and disagreement with its new direction, she left the movement entirely, and studied and now practicing acupuncture while still doing her equivalent of my tango in terms of personal passion: aikido. In some ways, that's more useful than tango.... She was visiting this little town, and just thought about calling me up to meet for a little bit. It was nice to catch up. I can't say I was ecstatic. I was so taken aback that I wasn't sure how to feel and what to say. She was the first woman in my 8.5 years here that I didn't pursue. We spent a lot of time together. We were friends before tango came along. We shared our feelings about our respective little sisters, in both cases there was love and disappointment. We both grew up having to struggle against the walls set up by the very same family that was supposed to help us. For some reason, I never got interested in her. I forgot much about her since she left the city, or earlier, since I focused my attention on, I can't remember which girl. We even did pottery together.... How odd that I don't remember that until now, that we didn't even talk about it. It's strange how I recall things; I remember a lot of things, I notice more things I really need to, but it doesn't mean I can recall everything on command....
We chatted for forty minutes and then she left. I didn't feel very connected to her. Perhaps it's because she aroused too many memories that were awaken for the first time, directly connected to her or indirectly connected to others. Perhaps it's because she and I never really had much more to talk about besides what I have mentioned above, and now, really, the memories of these few connections. Now she is in Pennsylvania, living with someone she had met through traveling for aikido, and living in the middle of nowhere, on 8 acres of farm land. My mind couldn't focus only on her. My mind focused on how lucky she was to have someone for whom she felt so attached as to live in a place she would otherwise not have chosen to live in.
Overall, it was a beautiful surprise. The surprise reminded me that when you let life take its course and you do your best to respond positively at every turn of the river, it's a beautiful life. I have mentioned that I am listening to a philosophy course on Death. It is, of course, about Life. I am now on the last topic: suicide. When it would be rational to commit suicide. I won't get into that, and by mentioning it I don't in any way suggest I am contemplating it. I want to say that so far, now at the last topic of this course, I actually have come to believe that life is worth living. It has too many intrinsic beauties to forgo despite all the ugliness that throw me into occasional despondency. It's true that I have no one to share these beauties with, that I still spend my weekend nights alone watching movies that I may or may not enjoy, cleaning a house I need to connect to even if I am leaving it soon. Despite all this, I have a lot to be thankful for and will have even more to enjoy. I thought about the people fighting for freedom in Libya, most with nothing more than their voices in the face of live ammunition. They risk death and horrific injury because, in part, they love life enough to live it the way they want even if that risked shortening it considerably. Better to live a short meaningful life than a long, tedious and hollow one.
After this surprise visit one of my local friends finally showed up. The half Latina (though she would call herself simply Latina). We connected. That was what I wanted to experience with her. When we are alone, we always talked about things that made me feel connected. And this time I told her deeper things, confessed on topics I have been thinking about, and shared with her my joy in my recent discoveries about life, about myself. She told me a lot too. I am grateful to have friends in this little town with whom I can occasionally make a connection.
What do I like to do? I like to bake. I like to experiment with a new type of chai. I tried and mostly failed yesterday trying to recreate that pink Kashmiri chai, but I am far from giving up. I like spending time with my family, and that's what I will be doing today; in an hour I will be driven to my Grandmother's place and have a little reunion with everyone. I like playing and hugging my little rascally nephew. I like watching the mystery-ridden face of my even tinier niece.
But I also like sitting in front of a movie on my couch with the warmth of a woman I like. To think about the movie or fall asleep to its stupidity with that warmth and that scent not as a background but as the atmosphere of my enjoyment. Until that happens, I know there's a lot to like about life.
Last night I saw "Cinema Paradiso". It was beautiful, but the story was long, perhaps I had the extended version. And I didn't feel the story was cohesive and strong. I could see how I would have fallen in love with it, become attached to the characters, had it been done a different way, by better direction and story-telling. But I didn't. I could see how my art friend said she didn't like it so much when she saw it, not sure when. Then again, I don't know her taste in movies enough to say we would have the same reasons for not liking a given movie.
The night before I wanted to see a movie, but I ended up just organizing my room, especially the desk that had pies of receipts on it.
Then I thought of the obvious: I spent both nights alone.
I am done with this town, this life. I know that in New York there's no better possibility of avoiding another weekend night alone, but at least I will have my city, my milongas, my cafes, my people watching, my reading among people who excite me just by their presence. Here, even with friends, I still find myself alone on weekend nights. I didn't call any of my friends to hang out, because for one thing, I didn't find anything interesting to do besides sitting and watching a movie or chatting. For another, I didn't have the energy to invite and be prepared to be rejected. My art friend has many times suggested that we go to one of her parties, meet her cute art girls, go to an art show. But that never happened, even when I suggested it. Her life is taking a road a bit diverged from mine. That's normal with friends.
But I just feel more strongly that I am done here. Sure, I could have called up my sister and gone to see a movie. However, that wouldn't have made me feel less compelled to leave here.
Last night before the movies, while making my lunch of the week, while baking for the sweets of the week, I finally got around to post an ad for subletting my room. That's another step toward exiting here. I will need to find a property manager, formal or informal, to take care of the place while I am gone. But as far as tasks here is concerned, there's nothing more to do. I didn't feel sorry for myself these two nights as much as I am now, in my matutinal mood of introspection. And tonight I will be going home alone after the milonga. If I were in New York, I would still be going home alone, but at least, I will go home through the subway that I love, through the neighborhoods that I embrace. Such are my thoughts this morning.
The weekend did have quite a few happy points. Besides taking care of the apartment I am leaving by organizing and washing its floors, I got a surprise visit and also got to spend time with a friend. I got a phone call from a voice that asked, "Do you know who this is?" It was a woman's voice, unsurprisingly, a deep voice, but not one I could recognize and the area code of the phone number, 215, was even more foreign to me. It was a friend from a long time ago I met in New Haven, a common friend with my ex-best friend. She had moved out around the time my sister left for college. She is the only person I know who stuck around this town for longer than I have. Ten years. Four of those in college, the rest dedicated to social improvement through the union. After becoming tired and disillusioned with union politics and disagreement with its new direction, she left the movement entirely, and studied and now practicing acupuncture while still doing her equivalent of my tango in terms of personal passion: aikido. In some ways, that's more useful than tango.... She was visiting this little town, and just thought about calling me up to meet for a little bit. It was nice to catch up. I can't say I was ecstatic. I was so taken aback that I wasn't sure how to feel and what to say. She was the first woman in my 8.5 years here that I didn't pursue. We spent a lot of time together. We were friends before tango came along. We shared our feelings about our respective little sisters, in both cases there was love and disappointment. We both grew up having to struggle against the walls set up by the very same family that was supposed to help us. For some reason, I never got interested in her. I forgot much about her since she left the city, or earlier, since I focused my attention on, I can't remember which girl. We even did pottery together.... How odd that I don't remember that until now, that we didn't even talk about it. It's strange how I recall things; I remember a lot of things, I notice more things I really need to, but it doesn't mean I can recall everything on command....
We chatted for forty minutes and then she left. I didn't feel very connected to her. Perhaps it's because she aroused too many memories that were awaken for the first time, directly connected to her or indirectly connected to others. Perhaps it's because she and I never really had much more to talk about besides what I have mentioned above, and now, really, the memories of these few connections. Now she is in Pennsylvania, living with someone she had met through traveling for aikido, and living in the middle of nowhere, on 8 acres of farm land. My mind couldn't focus only on her. My mind focused on how lucky she was to have someone for whom she felt so attached as to live in a place she would otherwise not have chosen to live in.
Overall, it was a beautiful surprise. The surprise reminded me that when you let life take its course and you do your best to respond positively at every turn of the river, it's a beautiful life. I have mentioned that I am listening to a philosophy course on Death. It is, of course, about Life. I am now on the last topic: suicide. When it would be rational to commit suicide. I won't get into that, and by mentioning it I don't in any way suggest I am contemplating it. I want to say that so far, now at the last topic of this course, I actually have come to believe that life is worth living. It has too many intrinsic beauties to forgo despite all the ugliness that throw me into occasional despondency. It's true that I have no one to share these beauties with, that I still spend my weekend nights alone watching movies that I may or may not enjoy, cleaning a house I need to connect to even if I am leaving it soon. Despite all this, I have a lot to be thankful for and will have even more to enjoy. I thought about the people fighting for freedom in Libya, most with nothing more than their voices in the face of live ammunition. They risk death and horrific injury because, in part, they love life enough to live it the way they want even if that risked shortening it considerably. Better to live a short meaningful life than a long, tedious and hollow one.
After this surprise visit one of my local friends finally showed up. The half Latina (though she would call herself simply Latina). We connected. That was what I wanted to experience with her. When we are alone, we always talked about things that made me feel connected. And this time I told her deeper things, confessed on topics I have been thinking about, and shared with her my joy in my recent discoveries about life, about myself. She told me a lot too. I am grateful to have friends in this little town with whom I can occasionally make a connection.
What do I like to do? I like to bake. I like to experiment with a new type of chai. I tried and mostly failed yesterday trying to recreate that pink Kashmiri chai, but I am far from giving up. I like spending time with my family, and that's what I will be doing today; in an hour I will be driven to my Grandmother's place and have a little reunion with everyone. I like playing and hugging my little rascally nephew. I like watching the mystery-ridden face of my even tinier niece.
But I also like sitting in front of a movie on my couch with the warmth of a woman I like. To think about the movie or fall asleep to its stupidity with that warmth and that scent not as a background but as the atmosphere of my enjoyment. Until that happens, I know there's a lot to like about life.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Longing for Friday
If they told me the journey would have so many stops, I would have not worried so much about going to the bathroom.
But on this train, there are only two stops. One, really, between my current city and work. It is still late. I was late leaving the house. I had to run. But it was late, and I ran for nothing, other than not getting stressed about being late.
My thoughts for the morning. Metaphors galore or just plain nuts.
It's a different morning. Not because the train is late or is running slow. It's raining. Maybe that's the reason it's late and running slow. These trains are like house of cards; the tiniest problem would break apart their tough, iron-clad demeanors. While I was running here I thought, oh, it's raining, the train might just have yet another reason to complain, like a child failing to go to school for a little booboo on the elbow.
I was right.
It's the first time I see rain from inside this train. The sky is dark, like a canvass painted with the dirty gray snow it is facing, the snow that is diminishing but only to reveal the equally gray landscape that is this section of Southern Connecticut. The ice on the rivers is a distant memory. Everything is just gray, and the colorful interior of this train serves both as a contrast and a sort of refuge from the wet and depressing exterior.
The rain doesn't only bring about a depressing gray to the world outside, but also repaints the scenery completely. The reflection from its water running amok on the streets and other surfaces of cities serves as a mirror of the sky, of the few street lights, of the cars. The water also becomes a dazzling aquatic curtain on the highways as the cars and trucks slice their ways to work or clients. And the rain is thick enough to partly obscure the background of what you see, that is, the distant buildings, factories. While the rain makes everything depressing looking, it is changing how each element manifests itself. The abandoned truck near the Bridgeport station is no longer sleeping under a peaceful blanket of snow, but now reflecting the building and the gray sky above. And everything that doesn't reflect or produce its own light shies into the conformity of gray.
In this gallery of gray I am observing from the warmth of colors of the interior of this train, as if I am on a safari trip, I find, curiously, some peace. Peace that lets me think. Today is Friday. If I were in New York, if I lived there, if I had a place to call my own, I would relax my evening and night at a milonga that is more for relaxing than other milongas are. I would listen to the music I love, watch people dance, regardless of how well, and drift into the ebbing tide caressing the beach of my week's memories.
But I don't live in New York. Not yet. So I am returning home tonight, home in my little city that has no longer much to offer me, and for which I owe neither allegiance nor love. A tango dancer told me once that I wasn't sticking with the tango group from the city, that I was forgetting where I was from. But even though I learned tango here, I can't say I am from here, can't even say as a tango dancer I am from here. I owe my allegiance to the friends I have in the city, but that has nothing to do with the city, unrelated. My tango started here, spent most of its time here, but I developed it in different places, New York, different festivals, and really taken off a lot in Buenos Aires. I shouldn't have felt any need to justify my lack of desire to be part of that group. But I did feel it. Because it's not just about tango; it's about my coming to realize my identity has nothing to do with this city.
Nevertheless, tonight I go home. And my roommate is gone again for a month. I will be alone for a month. When she returns, maybe I will be in New York, or at least within a week. When I move to New York, it won't only be a new city, but also a new lifestyle. I won't have a roommate. I have lived with someone the past twelve years. And before that were the only three years I had lived alone, in Boston and in Switzerland. I always prefer to live alone, however lonesome that may be, and after this current roommate I am more adamant about living alone. I have my own ways of doing things, and I don't have the energy or desire to work things out with someone I am not connected to as a friend or a lover. It's hard to know how well you'll get along with a roommate from just the first interview. Now I see that my roommate is very much oblivious to how clean and orderly the apartment should be, and I am far from being the pickiest person when it comes to cleanliness and order in my living quarters. My previous roommate was the opposite, totally obsessed with rules and order, being the stereotypical British that she is. This current one seems to have her brain on some other clouds far from earth.
So I will have my own apartment. I will invite whomever I want at whatever hour I want without feeling a need to respect someone else's space. And on the flip side, I won't worry about a roommate talking late at night with a guest as I am trying to fall asleep for an early morning waking up for whatever reason. I am glad to pay for my independence. I have lived with a girlfriend before, and so I am not worried that I will be disconnected with one should one ever decides to live with me. It's just with roommates that is a problem.
That's a new life. Another new element in this new life. In some ways it's not so new. My roommate hasn't been around this past and present semesters. She, being a violinist in a quartet, has been on tours a lot, and so most of the time I am alone anyway. And that's how I know my apartment is too big for me. So much unused space. The one apartment I saw last weekend in Sunnyside was smaller (not surprisingly for New York), but it still felt too big for me. There's a desire for something cozy, as if in the coziness I find freedom. Freedom from the sense of loneliness that big space enshrouds you? Don't know.
I am looking for a smaller space, easier to clean, but a space with a lot of light, enough room for guests to come and stay, and of course, a big enough kitchen to hold my culinary creativity and experimentation. I am ready to return to New York, ready to cross the next bridge on this road of new life. I look forward to going to the Friday night milonga without thinking about how late I would have to drive home. Today is a new day, a new Friday, with the rain, with the different cloak over a familiar region. Pretty soon, it will be a different region, dressed everyday, at least every week, in a different cloak.
But on this train, there are only two stops. One, really, between my current city and work. It is still late. I was late leaving the house. I had to run. But it was late, and I ran for nothing, other than not getting stressed about being late.
My thoughts for the morning. Metaphors galore or just plain nuts.
It's a different morning. Not because the train is late or is running slow. It's raining. Maybe that's the reason it's late and running slow. These trains are like house of cards; the tiniest problem would break apart their tough, iron-clad demeanors. While I was running here I thought, oh, it's raining, the train might just have yet another reason to complain, like a child failing to go to school for a little booboo on the elbow.
I was right.
It's the first time I see rain from inside this train. The sky is dark, like a canvass painted with the dirty gray snow it is facing, the snow that is diminishing but only to reveal the equally gray landscape that is this section of Southern Connecticut. The ice on the rivers is a distant memory. Everything is just gray, and the colorful interior of this train serves both as a contrast and a sort of refuge from the wet and depressing exterior.
The rain doesn't only bring about a depressing gray to the world outside, but also repaints the scenery completely. The reflection from its water running amok on the streets and other surfaces of cities serves as a mirror of the sky, of the few street lights, of the cars. The water also becomes a dazzling aquatic curtain on the highways as the cars and trucks slice their ways to work or clients. And the rain is thick enough to partly obscure the background of what you see, that is, the distant buildings, factories. While the rain makes everything depressing looking, it is changing how each element manifests itself. The abandoned truck near the Bridgeport station is no longer sleeping under a peaceful blanket of snow, but now reflecting the building and the gray sky above. And everything that doesn't reflect or produce its own light shies into the conformity of gray.
In this gallery of gray I am observing from the warmth of colors of the interior of this train, as if I am on a safari trip, I find, curiously, some peace. Peace that lets me think. Today is Friday. If I were in New York, if I lived there, if I had a place to call my own, I would relax my evening and night at a milonga that is more for relaxing than other milongas are. I would listen to the music I love, watch people dance, regardless of how well, and drift into the ebbing tide caressing the beach of my week's memories.
But I don't live in New York. Not yet. So I am returning home tonight, home in my little city that has no longer much to offer me, and for which I owe neither allegiance nor love. A tango dancer told me once that I wasn't sticking with the tango group from the city, that I was forgetting where I was from. But even though I learned tango here, I can't say I am from here, can't even say as a tango dancer I am from here. I owe my allegiance to the friends I have in the city, but that has nothing to do with the city, unrelated. My tango started here, spent most of its time here, but I developed it in different places, New York, different festivals, and really taken off a lot in Buenos Aires. I shouldn't have felt any need to justify my lack of desire to be part of that group. But I did feel it. Because it's not just about tango; it's about my coming to realize my identity has nothing to do with this city.
Nevertheless, tonight I go home. And my roommate is gone again for a month. I will be alone for a month. When she returns, maybe I will be in New York, or at least within a week. When I move to New York, it won't only be a new city, but also a new lifestyle. I won't have a roommate. I have lived with someone the past twelve years. And before that were the only three years I had lived alone, in Boston and in Switzerland. I always prefer to live alone, however lonesome that may be, and after this current roommate I am more adamant about living alone. I have my own ways of doing things, and I don't have the energy or desire to work things out with someone I am not connected to as a friend or a lover. It's hard to know how well you'll get along with a roommate from just the first interview. Now I see that my roommate is very much oblivious to how clean and orderly the apartment should be, and I am far from being the pickiest person when it comes to cleanliness and order in my living quarters. My previous roommate was the opposite, totally obsessed with rules and order, being the stereotypical British that she is. This current one seems to have her brain on some other clouds far from earth.
So I will have my own apartment. I will invite whomever I want at whatever hour I want without feeling a need to respect someone else's space. And on the flip side, I won't worry about a roommate talking late at night with a guest as I am trying to fall asleep for an early morning waking up for whatever reason. I am glad to pay for my independence. I have lived with a girlfriend before, and so I am not worried that I will be disconnected with one should one ever decides to live with me. It's just with roommates that is a problem.
That's a new life. Another new element in this new life. In some ways it's not so new. My roommate hasn't been around this past and present semesters. She, being a violinist in a quartet, has been on tours a lot, and so most of the time I am alone anyway. And that's how I know my apartment is too big for me. So much unused space. The one apartment I saw last weekend in Sunnyside was smaller (not surprisingly for New York), but it still felt too big for me. There's a desire for something cozy, as if in the coziness I find freedom. Freedom from the sense of loneliness that big space enshrouds you? Don't know.
I am looking for a smaller space, easier to clean, but a space with a lot of light, enough room for guests to come and stay, and of course, a big enough kitchen to hold my culinary creativity and experimentation. I am ready to return to New York, ready to cross the next bridge on this road of new life. I look forward to going to the Friday night milonga without thinking about how late I would have to drive home. Today is a new day, a new Friday, with the rain, with the different cloak over a familiar region. Pretty soon, it will be a different region, dressed everyday, at least every week, in a different cloak.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)