Today was the first time I saw snow on my commute since April, when the last dusting happened. Today was the first time I saw snow on my New York commute. I wonder if there will be more a year from now.
The sun has gone under its blanket about half an hour ago. The sky is still a dark blue, illuminating the white strips of snow along the tracks. The cars that race past the train, at least those on the fast lane, all have their lights on, and from the comfort of my seat, I see them as alien spacecrafts in the sky. The commute to New Haven didn't have cars along the train track like this, and I usually saw them with their red tail lights glistening like Christmas tree lights.
Making peace is the step I am trying to take today. "Making" peace, not just talking about it, analyzing it, but rather, making it, making it with myself, with the life I have now.
Just before I started writing this entry, I realized, already thinking about peace, that I have spent much of this year being away from peace, or having no peace because I was busy in the war with the French girl. She is constantly surprised at how long it is taking me to get over my anger and frustration with her. Just this past Friday I got upset that she chose to spend Friday night with her guy than with me. She doesn't understand why I was still upset.
You can't blame her; it's been so long, this relentless war. But luckily, it is dying, breathing its final months.
What I was thinking wasn't really about her. It was about how I have preoccupied myself with tension all this year, so out of touch with peace. Watching the snow, watching the anonymous cars and their headlights, I remember the feeling of peace when I started commuting to Stamford. But I also remember the weekly battles with the same French woman. It was a proxy war with my past that I couldn't fight then, as a child, as a teenager.
Saturday night I went to a concert with the pianist, who gave me free tickets to hear one of the best known violinists play with a pianist at the 92Y. Afterward we had a poorly prepared dinner at a nearby restaurant and then the battle started. The snow was falling heavily when she refused politely and indirectly my entreaties to go home with her. She tried to make the best out of the walk to the bus stop, but I was upset. I told myself before hand to not get upset if she said no, but as always, I couldn't take a rejection. It didn't matter that nothing good would have come out of going there with such an ambiguous relationship, as I could tell first hand from many experiences in the past few years. It didn't matter. A rejection was a rejection.
Peace was nowhere to be found inside me despite the quiet streets, the quieted city blanketed by a quiet blizzard. I couldn't sleep that night. The heat was making whistling and clanging sounds, but the loudest clanging came from inside me. I spent the night absorbed in my own chaos.
The next day we followed up on our plans to go to the opera house to see a recital by an upcoming male tenor, the next star, the next Pavarotti, perhaps. We enjoyed it. But afterward I had to tell her, simply, but not without immense difficulty that it was best if we didn't have any communications at all. She stood up and was about to leave. I touched her hand without really knowing what I was going to do. She gave me a hug when I told her that in the end she needed to know at least that I liked her a lot. She said she liked me too. But without words we knew that was somehow not enough.
Then she left. This time her back to me.
She wanted to be friends. Like all these other women who somehow couldn't handle what I wanted to give and what I wanted from them.
This is how drama permeates my life.
I walked from Columbus Circle where I saw her last all the way to Herald Square where the milonga would be. On the way I picked up a lamb gyro from what I was told the best street car in the city, a block from Rockefeller Center. That made me feel better. The City, I could always count on to make me feel a little better. It was cold. My winter clothes were still in New Haven. I was wearing my corduroy jacket for the opera house. But I was sad. I felt numb inside. I couldn't understand why it always happened to me that women in the end wanted to be my friend. But I was grateful, and I told her too, that she didn't try too hard to be my friend, like the French girl did. She is a bitter Russian woman from the middle of Siberia. She knew that life was never fair, that she could never expect much good from life.
And if I am not her knight in shining armors, there was no reason for her to be in my life.
There wouldn't be drama in a person who lives with peace. I am full of drama and of little peace. I realized it slowly. I got to the milonga before the pre-milonga class even started and I felt an urge to explode, let me feelings go. There was a friend who didn't take the class and who was just hanging out. So I had her sit next to me and I asked her if she had ever been in a situation where she wanted to be the friend of someone she didn't want to date but that he refused that friendship. I asked because I wanted to sympathize with the pianist. It hurt me to see her turn around and leave.
Drama is for those who can't just let go, who hangs on the sentimental for as long as possible, making a taffy out of it just so he can drag it out a little longer.
It was good to be with my friend. She was, to my surprise, going through her own drama that she didn't want to specify either. At least we commiserated each other, and we reminded each other that in the end friendships are important, and we were the living example right there.
The turning point for my decision to make peace was this morning. On the train I realized I couldn't understand and therefore couldn't accept that a woman who likes me would still not date me. She felt guilty she couldn't give me what I wanted when I was giving her more than she could ever expect from a man. And her guilt materialized into sharp pain whenever I showed disappointment with her distance. She couldn't take it anymore so she had to cut it off. I thought that was such a stupid reason to break up. It would be my reason to break up with her, not her reason since she was the one getting the better end of the "deal", if that is the best way I can put it.
At work I couldn't take it anymore so I got myself a notebook, went up to the cafeteria, and wrote an imaginary letter to her, demanding that she explain to me why her guilt was the reason we weren't together. Why it could be accepted as a reason to break something that had so much potential. As I wrote it out, I started to make peace.
I realized making peace is not about making sense of the nonsense. It's about letting go of things. Letting things be. Not controlling everything, not even to comprehend it, for the desire to comprehend is very much a form of desire to control. I started to allow the reality that people will do what I might not find reasonable, and no amount of reasoning on my part, overt or just in my mind, would change what other people do. The best way is to accept it.
And slowly, I started to let go of the past, the future that I fantasize. I started to let go of the beautiful few weeks we had together, minus the very few battles. The images that had been hurting me started to find their places in the peaceful seats of my heart. The image of us posing for the New York Times photographer as we looked at the twilight over the Washington Bridge that evening before the hurricane came. The image of all my poems I have written to her. And many more. Many remain difficult, and just the thought of them creates a constriction in my throat.
But at some point, I was started to see the phrase I think she deserves to know, that I think I deserve to hear from myself. "Don't feel guilty about not giving me what I wanted. I never thought you took advantage of me. I always felt grateful to have the opportunity to show my love." It's true. No woman I can remember had allowed me to go so far, to be the gentleman I wanted to be, to treat a woman the way I wanted. All these women were so afraid of what I was offering that they just fought back much sooner than the pianist did. It's true I deserved someone who liked me just as much, who lived up to the erratic and irrational expectations I had at a given moment. But I wasn't focusing on that then. Having written that imaginary letter I started to remember how happy I was, how I was looking forward to writing her the poems, to getting her the flowers, or just opening the door for her. My happiest moment was when she told me that no one has ever made her feel so special before. She gave me that chance to be the boyfriend I had always wanted to be.
Making peace means letting go. It means not let the ego get in the way. It kills me to know I have failed. I have failed to build a long-lasting relationship. It kills me that a woman I cared about could just break something I thought we were both building, willing to build. Obviously, as with the French and India girls, it was torture to see them choose someone else before my wounds had healed. But whatever right I have to be angry, the problem is that it doesn't do me any good. It doesn't matter if these women become my friends or not; I am tired of spending another month being angry, being spiteful over a lost past and a forbidden future. I just have to live in the present.
One day can't change everything. I wish today I can make peace with the French girl and not let her current relationship get to me. I wish today I can see the pianist and not feel regretful that we couldn't build what we wanted. But I am not so far. I will see her tomorrow because she is coming to the practica now. I wonder if by then I will have made enough peace to offer her my olive branch. It still feels like defeat: friendship. It still feels like it is the best I can get from not winning. A consolation prize. But my anger, my frustration, can't compare to that with the French girl's even before I started suspecting her nascent relationship. I hope I am maturing in this sense. To let things go. To live in the present. To live in the present for my own sake, not for someone else's, not for someone else's desire to be my friend, to have my company. It is for my own peace that I will decide how I interact with these people who just couldn't handle my love.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Fast Mover
"You write so fast, I can't keep up with my responses." That was more or less what the Swiss pianist said. I admitted and I am admitting now that that's one of my problems in my interactions with people. I send them a million emails, one for every tiniest thought. I answer right away, as if it were a conversation. This in itself isn't a bad thing, but in my case it reflects a degree of longing for company, longing for attention.
I had dinner with my Italian friend last night. She had just moved to New York last week. We went to a bad Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. It was bad to me, and imagine what it was to her, an Italian cook herself. We talked a lot. She is the one person who is most aware of what I have been going through with women. She has known about this part of my rocky life for eight years, more or less. And so she was confident to tell me what she thought, although being Italian, she is confident to say just about anything. (In front of the waiter she complained nonstop about how much burned garlic her spaghetti had as she spooned one after another out onto a growing pile in front of the poor man.) I like her unrestrained frankness. We Chinese, and Americans, like beating around the bush a little too much.
She told me that she was worried. Not so much that I would be single forever, as I joked, but worse, that I would suffer forever. And why? She thinks my problem is I only go after pretty girls, girls who put a lot of makeup, shameless in showing skin. I realized she was basing all this on the India girl, and on that one occasion, my birthday party, where she showed quite a bit of skin, but that was because she wanted to look like that for my party. The point is I realized my friends are helpful not only being there for me, which is the only thing I ask for and is the most important thing they do for me, but also they offer perspectives that I don't see because I am not outside. Nevertheless, I have to be aware of what they see from the outside because, even with this friend who knows my fiascos best, they only see a small portion of what I go through.
Having said this, their perspectives help me a lot. The French girl the other day gave me an interesting analysis of my current pattern, which is a desire to reconstruct the pain from the loneliness of my childhood. It's an irony that when we suffer, some of us seek a future free from that suffering, while others, more complicated people, I would say, seek a future to reconstruct that suffering. The two aren't contrasts if you look deeper. The point of reconstructing the suffering isn't just masochism, but rather, there's a secret desire to see if the past can be undone by reconstructing it. You repeat a pattern hoping magically it will stop on its own. The tragedy is that you try so hard to reconstruct it that you will never actually permit it to be the exception you're seeking.
So regardless of whom I meet, I will do my best, unconsciously, to make her do the same things to me, make myself suffer for the same reasons. Maybe that's why I never have this kind of drama with my friends and family; I don't seek to reconstruct this kind of environment.
Last night the Russian pianist wrote to me about her day. And in it she asked me to call her the next day. Then she added that I could call her now if I wasn't too tired. I didn't call her then. I was tired. But also, I didn't want to repeat the pattern of super-availability. Of course, things would be far simpler if I just focus on myself. When I do, I will naturally be less available. There's a part of me that made me want to see her. Then again, I knew that I wasn't feeling the same enthusiasm I did when I was dating.
I told her the day we broke up that I was giving her space, that my door was open when she was ready. That implies I would wait for her. I suppose that's not something wise to say the moment you break up, but it's in my case the expected thing to say. That is why I don't take back the opera concert we are going to see in December. Or the recital this coming Sunday. It may have been a mistake to promise my door was open (for how long?), but it would be much worse to take it back, to break it. There's an expiration, of course. We weren't married and had a lot to build on to justify some eternal promise. But it has only been three weeks, nearly, and I can live a few more with this promise. I don't suffer from the promise. Curiously, I don't ache from her absence. I am happy when I see her. I even wonder if we would get back together. I wonder if I will be happy with her if we were together. But I know that I can't repeat the pattern. I can't be running after her and forget about myself. Or after anyone else. To lose myself and watch the other person leave me, that's the pattern. My sister told me I should have goals and stick to them. If I must have a goal in my love life, I think it should only be this: stop reconstructing the pattern. It doesn't matter how pretty the girl is, how soon I want to sleep with her, if I want marriage or whatever else from the relationship. It will all fall into play, it would all make sense, if I make the effort to stop the pattern. And the simplest way, though so difficult that I haven't in all my adult life succeeded, is to be present with myself. When I do that, I will not be answering emails with lightening speed.
I had dinner with my Italian friend last night. She had just moved to New York last week. We went to a bad Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. It was bad to me, and imagine what it was to her, an Italian cook herself. We talked a lot. She is the one person who is most aware of what I have been going through with women. She has known about this part of my rocky life for eight years, more or less. And so she was confident to tell me what she thought, although being Italian, she is confident to say just about anything. (In front of the waiter she complained nonstop about how much burned garlic her spaghetti had as she spooned one after another out onto a growing pile in front of the poor man.) I like her unrestrained frankness. We Chinese, and Americans, like beating around the bush a little too much.
She told me that she was worried. Not so much that I would be single forever, as I joked, but worse, that I would suffer forever. And why? She thinks my problem is I only go after pretty girls, girls who put a lot of makeup, shameless in showing skin. I realized she was basing all this on the India girl, and on that one occasion, my birthday party, where she showed quite a bit of skin, but that was because she wanted to look like that for my party. The point is I realized my friends are helpful not only being there for me, which is the only thing I ask for and is the most important thing they do for me, but also they offer perspectives that I don't see because I am not outside. Nevertheless, I have to be aware of what they see from the outside because, even with this friend who knows my fiascos best, they only see a small portion of what I go through.
Having said this, their perspectives help me a lot. The French girl the other day gave me an interesting analysis of my current pattern, which is a desire to reconstruct the pain from the loneliness of my childhood. It's an irony that when we suffer, some of us seek a future free from that suffering, while others, more complicated people, I would say, seek a future to reconstruct that suffering. The two aren't contrasts if you look deeper. The point of reconstructing the suffering isn't just masochism, but rather, there's a secret desire to see if the past can be undone by reconstructing it. You repeat a pattern hoping magically it will stop on its own. The tragedy is that you try so hard to reconstruct it that you will never actually permit it to be the exception you're seeking.
So regardless of whom I meet, I will do my best, unconsciously, to make her do the same things to me, make myself suffer for the same reasons. Maybe that's why I never have this kind of drama with my friends and family; I don't seek to reconstruct this kind of environment.
Last night the Russian pianist wrote to me about her day. And in it she asked me to call her the next day. Then she added that I could call her now if I wasn't too tired. I didn't call her then. I was tired. But also, I didn't want to repeat the pattern of super-availability. Of course, things would be far simpler if I just focus on myself. When I do, I will naturally be less available. There's a part of me that made me want to see her. Then again, I knew that I wasn't feeling the same enthusiasm I did when I was dating.
I told her the day we broke up that I was giving her space, that my door was open when she was ready. That implies I would wait for her. I suppose that's not something wise to say the moment you break up, but it's in my case the expected thing to say. That is why I don't take back the opera concert we are going to see in December. Or the recital this coming Sunday. It may have been a mistake to promise my door was open (for how long?), but it would be much worse to take it back, to break it. There's an expiration, of course. We weren't married and had a lot to build on to justify some eternal promise. But it has only been three weeks, nearly, and I can live a few more with this promise. I don't suffer from the promise. Curiously, I don't ache from her absence. I am happy when I see her. I even wonder if we would get back together. I wonder if I will be happy with her if we were together. But I know that I can't repeat the pattern. I can't be running after her and forget about myself. Or after anyone else. To lose myself and watch the other person leave me, that's the pattern. My sister told me I should have goals and stick to them. If I must have a goal in my love life, I think it should only be this: stop reconstructing the pattern. It doesn't matter how pretty the girl is, how soon I want to sleep with her, if I want marriage or whatever else from the relationship. It will all fall into play, it would all make sense, if I make the effort to stop the pattern. And the simplest way, though so difficult that I haven't in all my adult life succeeded, is to be present with myself. When I do that, I will not be answering emails with lightening speed.
Forgetting
I forgot about my little sister's birthday. I haven't checked on the emails concerning the sale of my house, or the deadened nature of even starting the sale. I am neglecting a lot of things. I don't know where my time goes. I don't remember the last time I ate at home. I cook lunch and then I eat it at work. Every night I am meeting someone. My nights have disappeared. Often I am not even aware of my absence in the house. I go home and I check what's happening to my "friends" on Facebook, see what emails I get, and what horrific news on various websites. I have forgotten even what it means to be home. Perhaps a tea alone, without the computer, just with my thoughts.
I do that already in the subway. I don't listen to music; I often get lost in thoughts watching the different faces in the subway. My mind wanders and I forget to leash it so it doesn't go too far. Many things I am forgetting to do, even though I know perfectly well how to do most of them.
Tonight I am meeting up with my New Haven Italian friend who has just also moved to New York. She is the demanding one, but somehow I have grown out of being the one that always accommodates to her demands. It's ironic that while she always complains that my problem with women is that I am too accommodating, she is the most demanding of all, even though she was referring to my romantic problems and she and I have no romantic problems. She is Italian and it is in her nature, it seems, to be demanding. But even before I moved to New York I have learned to stand up on my own and not buckle under pressure. After all, she is my friend, and I don't need to be anyone except myself. She was unhappy that I wouldn't be able to stay long in our meeting tonight. I told her I shouldn't stay late anyway, but really, I was hoping to see the Swiss pianist one more time before she goes off to see her boyfriend this weekend. I don't think that would happen since she will be done teaching very late and very far away. Still, while I would like to see my Italian friend now that she's finally moved here, I want to do what I want, not what is convenient for her. She lives many blocks away from the nearest subway. She said I could take a taxi, and I realized she doesn't know that's not something I do.
Tomorrow I will not have any plans, unless the Swiss pianist decides to go away Saturday. I will finally have a night in my apartment, that foreign, expensive dominion of mine. Perhaps then I will get to collect my thoughts, sort out my feelings. Last night I went to the 92nd Street Y to hear a reading by this Israeli author who was presenting bits of his new book. I had never heard of his name until yesterday, and the excerpts of his book reinvigorated my desire to write. It is the style I enjoy. The style of details. The style of describing ordinary things. It reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the fantasies and everyday details in that One Hundred Years of Solitude. The details, the solitude, the disconnection, especially that of the family, resonated with the chords of my soul.
I am tired of my job, less than ten months later. I am not learning new things. I am finding myself fixing a lot of things, investigating problems, most of which I didn't create. Solving problems is a joy in my life, but that's only because it requires creativity. Somehow I am feeling tired and discouraged. If I am doing these little things with requirements of little creativity but results of much frustration, I would at least like to get paid more for it. I am not getting paid what I should in finance.
I feel the channel of my creativity is all cluttered. Cluttered by the mundaneness of everyday life, by being absent from home, by fear of doing something different. Don't get me wrong; I like the time I have spent away from home. Not only for the attention. More than that: I like connecting with people. Nevertheless, I think it is time to rejuvenate the connection with myself. I was going to do nothing this week. I succeeded in not going to tango last night, to probably my favorite milonga. But I still went out last night. Listening to the writer read and talk about Israeli life, being among American Jews and Israelis, all had a positive effect on my connection to the world, my own life.
I was told of this reading event by the Russian-Israeli pianist, the one who broke my heart two weekends ago. She was there, of course. And we went out for a short dinner afterward. It was natural. As promised to myself, I haven't made drama out of anything with her, never mentioned about "us". We reconnected, through the topic of the reading, of Israel, of Jews, and about what she's doing now. She was happy to see me, it was obvious. I didn't allow myself to think much further than that. Each moment as its own event, disconnected to the past and the future. I enjoyed being with her, talking to her. And now I realize I am capable of living in the present, if I give myself the space to do it.
I do that already in the subway. I don't listen to music; I often get lost in thoughts watching the different faces in the subway. My mind wanders and I forget to leash it so it doesn't go too far. Many things I am forgetting to do, even though I know perfectly well how to do most of them.
Tonight I am meeting up with my New Haven Italian friend who has just also moved to New York. She is the demanding one, but somehow I have grown out of being the one that always accommodates to her demands. It's ironic that while she always complains that my problem with women is that I am too accommodating, she is the most demanding of all, even though she was referring to my romantic problems and she and I have no romantic problems. She is Italian and it is in her nature, it seems, to be demanding. But even before I moved to New York I have learned to stand up on my own and not buckle under pressure. After all, she is my friend, and I don't need to be anyone except myself. She was unhappy that I wouldn't be able to stay long in our meeting tonight. I told her I shouldn't stay late anyway, but really, I was hoping to see the Swiss pianist one more time before she goes off to see her boyfriend this weekend. I don't think that would happen since she will be done teaching very late and very far away. Still, while I would like to see my Italian friend now that she's finally moved here, I want to do what I want, not what is convenient for her. She lives many blocks away from the nearest subway. She said I could take a taxi, and I realized she doesn't know that's not something I do.
Tomorrow I will not have any plans, unless the Swiss pianist decides to go away Saturday. I will finally have a night in my apartment, that foreign, expensive dominion of mine. Perhaps then I will get to collect my thoughts, sort out my feelings. Last night I went to the 92nd Street Y to hear a reading by this Israeli author who was presenting bits of his new book. I had never heard of his name until yesterday, and the excerpts of his book reinvigorated my desire to write. It is the style I enjoy. The style of details. The style of describing ordinary things. It reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the fantasies and everyday details in that One Hundred Years of Solitude. The details, the solitude, the disconnection, especially that of the family, resonated with the chords of my soul.
I am tired of my job, less than ten months later. I am not learning new things. I am finding myself fixing a lot of things, investigating problems, most of which I didn't create. Solving problems is a joy in my life, but that's only because it requires creativity. Somehow I am feeling tired and discouraged. If I am doing these little things with requirements of little creativity but results of much frustration, I would at least like to get paid more for it. I am not getting paid what I should in finance.
I feel the channel of my creativity is all cluttered. Cluttered by the mundaneness of everyday life, by being absent from home, by fear of doing something different. Don't get me wrong; I like the time I have spent away from home. Not only for the attention. More than that: I like connecting with people. Nevertheless, I think it is time to rejuvenate the connection with myself. I was going to do nothing this week. I succeeded in not going to tango last night, to probably my favorite milonga. But I still went out last night. Listening to the writer read and talk about Israeli life, being among American Jews and Israelis, all had a positive effect on my connection to the world, my own life.
I was told of this reading event by the Russian-Israeli pianist, the one who broke my heart two weekends ago. She was there, of course. And we went out for a short dinner afterward. It was natural. As promised to myself, I haven't made drama out of anything with her, never mentioned about "us". We reconnected, through the topic of the reading, of Israel, of Jews, and about what she's doing now. She was happy to see me, it was obvious. I didn't allow myself to think much further than that. Each moment as its own event, disconnected to the past and the future. I enjoyed being with her, talking to her. And now I realize I am capable of living in the present, if I give myself the space to do it.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Morning for Patience
It's morning again, and the rain is playing drums on my windowsill. I woke up with that frustration again, though this time it wasn't directed specifically at the French girl as it had been a few months ago. On the 7- train platform I didn't see the twilight that engulfed the Manhattan skyline, but rather, those glass behemoths were blindfolded by the low hanging rainclouds, standing erect, looking like prisoners waiting before the firing squat. The sun that had faced them yesterday morning was nowhere to be found. Everything was gray.
My frustration came before my ascent to the 7-train station. It came before my eyes were open. It came sometime around the torturously slow sound of raindrops outside my window. It was new. Droplets from the eaves above drumming outside my bedroom.
I don't know where this came from. Perhaps it started last night. Last night the pianist invited me to a concert at the newly renovated Alice Tully hall for the Chamber Music Society in Lincoln Center. The music was flawless and amazing. I was happy to be there. I was happy to see her. I wasn't sure if I still liked her, but when I looked at her, I was sure. But that wasn't necessarily good. I have started to think that perhaps it was no longer a good idea. She's taking her time, taking advantage of the space I am giving her in whatever unnamed relationship we have. In the meantime, I am not sure that I can really be as patient as she needs me to be. After the concert there was some awkwardness. We weren't sure what to do. Before we left the concert, an elderly woman fell on the marble floor and became unconscious with a small pool of blood around her head. The EMS came very quickly, but that shook us a bit. Now she was going to go to the practica that I wasn't planning on going because I hadn't thought about how late the concert would go. I wasn't sure where the awkwardness came from. I sensed that she wanted to spend more time with me. In any case, I took the train with her and we went to Chelsea, where the practica was. We grabbed a slice of pizza each and both went to the practica. But there I was sitting a lot. People go to the practica to practice and they spend a lot of time dancing with the same person. When I went I usually make sure there were people to practice with. She was going there to practice with someone.
That put me in a bad mood, sitting there not dancing, knowing I hadn't planned to come. We left earlier and left together. I walked her to the train station and took the same train together. But I left her in Time Square to go home. I wasn't sure if she wanted me to come with her, and of course, if she offered, and she wouldn't have, I wasn't sure what I was going to say. Not sensing any hint from her that I should come with her, I just big her farewell. There was some silence already in the train ride. We were talking about the whole Shalit prison exchange that happened the previous night in Israel, but that was before going to the practica. That connection was over. Now we couldn't really find a connection with this awkwardness lingering in the air, the awkwardness of not know what the other person wanted, or what each person wanted for himself.
It's all stupid and it in the end made me feel strange. Sometimes I just want to be left alone, away from all this stupid awkwardness. I don't have the patience I need. I want a girl to like me and be with me right away, and if she doesn't I want to move on. Often times that didn't end up like that; often the girl wanted me to be friends and see. I lack the patience, but at the same time, I am not entirely sure what I want. I think I am impatient about not getting what I want, whatever that is. It's that feeling of not getting what I want, and not really about what it is that I want.
My frustration came before my ascent to the 7-train station. It came before my eyes were open. It came sometime around the torturously slow sound of raindrops outside my window. It was new. Droplets from the eaves above drumming outside my bedroom.
I don't know where this came from. Perhaps it started last night. Last night the pianist invited me to a concert at the newly renovated Alice Tully hall for the Chamber Music Society in Lincoln Center. The music was flawless and amazing. I was happy to be there. I was happy to see her. I wasn't sure if I still liked her, but when I looked at her, I was sure. But that wasn't necessarily good. I have started to think that perhaps it was no longer a good idea. She's taking her time, taking advantage of the space I am giving her in whatever unnamed relationship we have. In the meantime, I am not sure that I can really be as patient as she needs me to be. After the concert there was some awkwardness. We weren't sure what to do. Before we left the concert, an elderly woman fell on the marble floor and became unconscious with a small pool of blood around her head. The EMS came very quickly, but that shook us a bit. Now she was going to go to the practica that I wasn't planning on going because I hadn't thought about how late the concert would go. I wasn't sure where the awkwardness came from. I sensed that she wanted to spend more time with me. In any case, I took the train with her and we went to Chelsea, where the practica was. We grabbed a slice of pizza each and both went to the practica. But there I was sitting a lot. People go to the practica to practice and they spend a lot of time dancing with the same person. When I went I usually make sure there were people to practice with. She was going there to practice with someone.
That put me in a bad mood, sitting there not dancing, knowing I hadn't planned to come. We left earlier and left together. I walked her to the train station and took the same train together. But I left her in Time Square to go home. I wasn't sure if she wanted me to come with her, and of course, if she offered, and she wouldn't have, I wasn't sure what I was going to say. Not sensing any hint from her that I should come with her, I just big her farewell. There was some silence already in the train ride. We were talking about the whole Shalit prison exchange that happened the previous night in Israel, but that was before going to the practica. That connection was over. Now we couldn't really find a connection with this awkwardness lingering in the air, the awkwardness of not know what the other person wanted, or what each person wanted for himself.
It's all stupid and it in the end made me feel strange. Sometimes I just want to be left alone, away from all this stupid awkwardness. I don't have the patience I need. I want a girl to like me and be with me right away, and if she doesn't I want to move on. Often times that didn't end up like that; often the girl wanted me to be friends and see. I lack the patience, but at the same time, I am not entirely sure what I want. I think I am impatient about not getting what I want, whatever that is. It's that feeling of not getting what I want, and not really about what it is that I want.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Post Recovery
In a few weeks, couple of weeks, really, we will need to turn our clocks back and the night will come an hour sooner. Before I leave work, I can see through the giant windows that twilight was arriving noticeably sooner every day.
I get up before the sun does. By the time I get to the 7 train platform, dawn has just given rise to the sun behind me, illuminating the Manhattan skyline. I know, soon, within a few days, I will be at the platform before the sun rises. Of course, once we turn the clock back, the sun will get ahead of me again.
Time is passing quickly. I've been here for nearly half a year now. I still remember when I walk home the feeling of anxiety over moving the car away somewhere so it won't block street cleaning, and I had to strategize it so as to minimize the number of moves each week. I remember still a messy apartment, an apartment with guests while I myself felt still like a guest sometimes, in this foreign apartment. I didn't know then what adventures awaited me, just as now I have no idea what lies ahead.
I saw the pianist Saturday when she invited me to go up to Inwood with her and get some groceries from the local farmer's market. We then cooked and chatted. We never chatted about "us", about the breakup. After that, she gave me a one-hour lesson on what a sonata was, since I saw that word in her repertoire. Her lesson was her way of feeling the relationship less off-balanced since I was helping her a lot with just about everything. After that I gave her a longer lesson on the web, on how to make things work.
After that we went to the monthly milonga together. That part wasn't planned. I was slightly surprised that, when I told her I was going to go next day to a friend who lived just a few stops south, she told me it wouldn't make sense for me to go all the way back to Queens. I showed none of my slight surprise.
How I am handling this breakup is very different from all the other times. There is no drama after our talk last Sunday. I didn't write to her at all, let alone endless tragic and angry emails. I told her, as I have mentioned in earlier blog entries, that I would give her all the space she needed. My door would be open.
She didn't call me until last Wednesday, which wasn't that long after the breakup, and by then, surprisingly to me, I was very much over the pain. And that was the only contact last week. And here I was in her apartment talking about everything except the breakup, except "us". I could sense that she was getting more comfortable with me.
Nothing happened in bed. It was, ironically, very much like before, except that when I wanted to stroke her hair she resisted. I respected her small step away from me. I crossed the line, however innocent it was. I couldn't sleep much, not because of her, just because her corner is really noisy, and we went to bed a little after 5AM. I also couldn't sleep because of the French girl. We were starting another round of vicious fights.
I made the pianist French toast and she asked if she was being spoiled again. "Again" referring to how I was spoiling her plenty when we were together. I didn't hear any alarm in her voice, no fear, just being coquettish; I said I had to eat myself.
We didn't hug when I walked in that Saturday morning. It was a little awkward despite my determination to have a nice day with her, knowing that the next time I would see her would be uncertain. But that slight cool air between us warmed up as the beautiful Saturday wore on.
After I left her place on Sunday to go to that friend's place a few blocks down, I didn't call her or contact her in any way. I was slightly surprised to see her at the Sunday milonga later, perhaps because I still had a small piece of possessiveness that partially drove her away. I was expecting her to let me know she was coming, like before. But that feeling was small, even if noticeable. We walked out together but this time, unlike exactly a week ago, I wasn't sentimental. I was tired, having slept only 4 hours in her bed before the honking at the corner. I hugged her and I walked away without, unlike last time, looking back. I have to say that I did so with some effort. I wanted her to want me. I don't know if she looked back. But I want her to come to me. I don't want to chase after her when she doesn't want to be chased. I have shown her how much I could offer. She turned it all away, but it seems only momentarily. Today she called me to check on me, and to confirm our little date, romantic or platonic, tomorrow at the Lincoln Center to see her former teacher perform. She was giggly, happy, and silly. I didn't restrain my own happiness, but I did nothing sentimental.
Perhaps I have recovered. But I am thinking about something else. There is a certain degree of lamentation in all this. I have a lot of love energy to give and so far, in every case in my life since returning from Europe, it was sort of, wasted. It was as if I was sending a powerful beam into space and it just disintegrates eventually into the very darkness it vainly attempts to illuminate. This weekend was the monthly milonga, and all the crazy tango people from outside the city come down. I saw some of the women I had wasted this energy in, even danced with a few of them. And now I wonder why I seem to have it together with this pianist. I wonder if I still like her as much as before but figured out how to control my feelings. Or perhaps I am becoming jaded and losing interest in all things romantic. It's not just wasting the romantic energy; it's also believing that following your heart and showing your love is the right thing to do, and yet, you rarely, rarely get rewarded by it, reward in the sense of a different love of the same intensity and nature.
The French girl and I had a huge fight this weekend, as I mentioned. I won't go into the details. But in the end, I realized a few things. I realized I was ready to be her friend, that I had been ready for a few weeks now. But at the same time, my wound from all the drama of the past two years with her hasn't had any significant period of healing. We eventually made up and for now things are all right. But still, today, I thought, what was all that about? What was the point? Why did I waste my romantic energy on someone that is now clearly best fit in my world as a friend. Not why did "I" waste the energy, since I don't have control over whom I direct the energy to, but rather, why did the world, fate, God, or whoever, direct that energy to her. What was the point? The lesson? The two of us have expended immense emotional energy in fighting each other just to build the close relationship we finally have now. What a waste!
This, of course, is nothing compared to the drama with Rose, over more than fourteen years. And it's not like I will get wiser and fall for the right girl next time. You never get to choose whom you fall in love with, so there is no lesson to learn. The lessons are in how to deal with people, how to connect with yourself during these times of wasting energy. I have yet to see deeper about these lessons.
There is a part of me that wants to get excited about seeing the pianist. I don't know if I am simply no longer as excited as before or I am being much more careful. It's still too early to tell. For now, I want to get to know her. Just as I want to connect deeper with the French girl, as well as other elements of this new life in New York City. I will try to remember to do the same with myself.
I get up before the sun does. By the time I get to the 7 train platform, dawn has just given rise to the sun behind me, illuminating the Manhattan skyline. I know, soon, within a few days, I will be at the platform before the sun rises. Of course, once we turn the clock back, the sun will get ahead of me again.
Time is passing quickly. I've been here for nearly half a year now. I still remember when I walk home the feeling of anxiety over moving the car away somewhere so it won't block street cleaning, and I had to strategize it so as to minimize the number of moves each week. I remember still a messy apartment, an apartment with guests while I myself felt still like a guest sometimes, in this foreign apartment. I didn't know then what adventures awaited me, just as now I have no idea what lies ahead.
I saw the pianist Saturday when she invited me to go up to Inwood with her and get some groceries from the local farmer's market. We then cooked and chatted. We never chatted about "us", about the breakup. After that, she gave me a one-hour lesson on what a sonata was, since I saw that word in her repertoire. Her lesson was her way of feeling the relationship less off-balanced since I was helping her a lot with just about everything. After that I gave her a longer lesson on the web, on how to make things work.
After that we went to the monthly milonga together. That part wasn't planned. I was slightly surprised that, when I told her I was going to go next day to a friend who lived just a few stops south, she told me it wouldn't make sense for me to go all the way back to Queens. I showed none of my slight surprise.
How I am handling this breakup is very different from all the other times. There is no drama after our talk last Sunday. I didn't write to her at all, let alone endless tragic and angry emails. I told her, as I have mentioned in earlier blog entries, that I would give her all the space she needed. My door would be open.
She didn't call me until last Wednesday, which wasn't that long after the breakup, and by then, surprisingly to me, I was very much over the pain. And that was the only contact last week. And here I was in her apartment talking about everything except the breakup, except "us". I could sense that she was getting more comfortable with me.
Nothing happened in bed. It was, ironically, very much like before, except that when I wanted to stroke her hair she resisted. I respected her small step away from me. I crossed the line, however innocent it was. I couldn't sleep much, not because of her, just because her corner is really noisy, and we went to bed a little after 5AM. I also couldn't sleep because of the French girl. We were starting another round of vicious fights.
I made the pianist French toast and she asked if she was being spoiled again. "Again" referring to how I was spoiling her plenty when we were together. I didn't hear any alarm in her voice, no fear, just being coquettish; I said I had to eat myself.
We didn't hug when I walked in that Saturday morning. It was a little awkward despite my determination to have a nice day with her, knowing that the next time I would see her would be uncertain. But that slight cool air between us warmed up as the beautiful Saturday wore on.
After I left her place on Sunday to go to that friend's place a few blocks down, I didn't call her or contact her in any way. I was slightly surprised to see her at the Sunday milonga later, perhaps because I still had a small piece of possessiveness that partially drove her away. I was expecting her to let me know she was coming, like before. But that feeling was small, even if noticeable. We walked out together but this time, unlike exactly a week ago, I wasn't sentimental. I was tired, having slept only 4 hours in her bed before the honking at the corner. I hugged her and I walked away without, unlike last time, looking back. I have to say that I did so with some effort. I wanted her to want me. I don't know if she looked back. But I want her to come to me. I don't want to chase after her when she doesn't want to be chased. I have shown her how much I could offer. She turned it all away, but it seems only momentarily. Today she called me to check on me, and to confirm our little date, romantic or platonic, tomorrow at the Lincoln Center to see her former teacher perform. She was giggly, happy, and silly. I didn't restrain my own happiness, but I did nothing sentimental.
Perhaps I have recovered. But I am thinking about something else. There is a certain degree of lamentation in all this. I have a lot of love energy to give and so far, in every case in my life since returning from Europe, it was sort of, wasted. It was as if I was sending a powerful beam into space and it just disintegrates eventually into the very darkness it vainly attempts to illuminate. This weekend was the monthly milonga, and all the crazy tango people from outside the city come down. I saw some of the women I had wasted this energy in, even danced with a few of them. And now I wonder why I seem to have it together with this pianist. I wonder if I still like her as much as before but figured out how to control my feelings. Or perhaps I am becoming jaded and losing interest in all things romantic. It's not just wasting the romantic energy; it's also believing that following your heart and showing your love is the right thing to do, and yet, you rarely, rarely get rewarded by it, reward in the sense of a different love of the same intensity and nature.
The French girl and I had a huge fight this weekend, as I mentioned. I won't go into the details. But in the end, I realized a few things. I realized I was ready to be her friend, that I had been ready for a few weeks now. But at the same time, my wound from all the drama of the past two years with her hasn't had any significant period of healing. We eventually made up and for now things are all right. But still, today, I thought, what was all that about? What was the point? Why did I waste my romantic energy on someone that is now clearly best fit in my world as a friend. Not why did "I" waste the energy, since I don't have control over whom I direct the energy to, but rather, why did the world, fate, God, or whoever, direct that energy to her. What was the point? The lesson? The two of us have expended immense emotional energy in fighting each other just to build the close relationship we finally have now. What a waste!
This, of course, is nothing compared to the drama with Rose, over more than fourteen years. And it's not like I will get wiser and fall for the right girl next time. You never get to choose whom you fall in love with, so there is no lesson to learn. The lessons are in how to deal with people, how to connect with yourself during these times of wasting energy. I have yet to see deeper about these lessons.
There is a part of me that wants to get excited about seeing the pianist. I don't know if I am simply no longer as excited as before or I am being much more careful. It's still too early to tell. For now, I want to get to know her. Just as I want to connect deeper with the French girl, as well as other elements of this new life in New York City. I will try to remember to do the same with myself.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Taking Space
I saw a picture posted by someone on Facebook that says something like, every human relationship is difficult, it's a question of which is worth keeping.
Every morning I emerge from the subway and hear a newspaper seller shouting something incomprehensible behind me as I rushed to the train track. That is familiarity. It is part of my routine. The memory of traveling from Washington Heights through Harlem in order to get to the Metro-North station still remains a little bitter. It was becoming a routine and now that routine has ended.
What is worth keeping? Part of the problem with pack rats like me is the irrational desire to keep everything.
Part of the problem with irrational behavior is that it's hard to know when it is irrational and when it is not.
The Swiss pianist organized a very nice little concert. For me, at least, very avant-garde (if that word isn't too cliché now) classical music. I was very touched. In any case, she shared with me a poem that she had written a while back, inspired by a piece by a composer I had never heard of until I met the Russian pianist, who has a piece by him as part of her repertoire. Scriabin. Reading the background of the poem and the poem itself, I realized I didn't know a lot about the Russian pianist that I would have liked to know. I never asked her about the pieces she played, what they meant to her, their relationship to her as a musician, the historical and present relationship. And while too busy writing her poems, I never asked about her poetic side. During the breakup talk (the one after I stormed out of her apartment), she told me she has actually a lot of emotions but that she devises ways to protect her lover from those emotions. I never tapped into that. I was too busy figuring out when the next time it was to see her, how often we were seeing each other, and what it all meant to me.
I don't need to be so harsh with myself. I found out a lot about her Jewish background, her ideas about being a Jew and carrying the legacy of persecution and survival. But that connection markedly faded a few weeks after we started dating. In the final two weeks I can't remember what our connection was. We cooked and ate together. We talked about tango. Surely there was more, but nothing as memorable as the connections we made earlier.
Time and patience. And what to do with the space that time and patience yield. I am not entirely sure what I was rushing to do. Perhaps I wanted her to get me to some ideal place in life, like being married, having children, or simply be in a relationship carved in stone by my imagination. I was rushing to something whose form and shape I didn't really know; there was just the insatiable need to attain that goal. And in the growing rush, that space I needed was shrinking. And without that space, the connection between us devalued or disappeared. What do I do with this space? It is for me, of course. To see what I can do for myself. What I can do to enjoy the road to whatever posts of goals there are in life. And from this space, I listen and not demand. I would listen to her relationship with Scriabin's music. With other music, and then, perhaps, I can finally begin to understand her interpretation of the music on the keyboard.
But what am I saying. None of this is likely to happen. What is important is that I learn to take that space. Next time I feel the connection between me and a girlfriend is fading, it's a good time to look inward and see if the reason is my own disconnection. It's a good sign that I am again at my old pattern, giving away myself too fast and too much, hoping someone else will take me to where I think I've always wanted to be instead of savoring every cobblestone that I lay on the path toward that end.
Every morning I emerge from the subway and hear a newspaper seller shouting something incomprehensible behind me as I rushed to the train track. That is familiarity. It is part of my routine. The memory of traveling from Washington Heights through Harlem in order to get to the Metro-North station still remains a little bitter. It was becoming a routine and now that routine has ended.
What is worth keeping? Part of the problem with pack rats like me is the irrational desire to keep everything.
Part of the problem with irrational behavior is that it's hard to know when it is irrational and when it is not.
The Swiss pianist organized a very nice little concert. For me, at least, very avant-garde (if that word isn't too cliché now) classical music. I was very touched. In any case, she shared with me a poem that she had written a while back, inspired by a piece by a composer I had never heard of until I met the Russian pianist, who has a piece by him as part of her repertoire. Scriabin. Reading the background of the poem and the poem itself, I realized I didn't know a lot about the Russian pianist that I would have liked to know. I never asked her about the pieces she played, what they meant to her, their relationship to her as a musician, the historical and present relationship. And while too busy writing her poems, I never asked about her poetic side. During the breakup talk (the one after I stormed out of her apartment), she told me she has actually a lot of emotions but that she devises ways to protect her lover from those emotions. I never tapped into that. I was too busy figuring out when the next time it was to see her, how often we were seeing each other, and what it all meant to me.
I don't need to be so harsh with myself. I found out a lot about her Jewish background, her ideas about being a Jew and carrying the legacy of persecution and survival. But that connection markedly faded a few weeks after we started dating. In the final two weeks I can't remember what our connection was. We cooked and ate together. We talked about tango. Surely there was more, but nothing as memorable as the connections we made earlier.
Time and patience. And what to do with the space that time and patience yield. I am not entirely sure what I was rushing to do. Perhaps I wanted her to get me to some ideal place in life, like being married, having children, or simply be in a relationship carved in stone by my imagination. I was rushing to something whose form and shape I didn't really know; there was just the insatiable need to attain that goal. And in the growing rush, that space I needed was shrinking. And without that space, the connection between us devalued or disappeared. What do I do with this space? It is for me, of course. To see what I can do for myself. What I can do to enjoy the road to whatever posts of goals there are in life. And from this space, I listen and not demand. I would listen to her relationship with Scriabin's music. With other music, and then, perhaps, I can finally begin to understand her interpretation of the music on the keyboard.
But what am I saying. None of this is likely to happen. What is important is that I learn to take that space. Next time I feel the connection between me and a girlfriend is fading, it's a good time to look inward and see if the reason is my own disconnection. It's a good sign that I am again at my old pattern, giving away myself too fast and too much, hoping someone else will take me to where I think I've always wanted to be instead of savoring every cobblestone that I lay on the path toward that end.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Recovery into Self
It hasn't been a week yet. Just half, I guess. My recovery, comparing to the past ones, has been quick. It's still hard to not think about the beautiful memories we built and what I wanted for our future. The leaves are changing colors quickly, as if taunting me with the defunct desire to spend the autumn days with her. Nevertheless, I am sleeping fine, functioning fine. I am almost as bothered by the memory of seeing the French girl leaving with her guy than with the pianist.
She called me today. Just like the email we didn't talk about "us"; we just updated each other one what we have been doing the past few days. She asked if I was going to the concert organized by the Swiss pianist tonight. She told me that a common friend of ours went to this opera that she knew I had been dying to see; she said the friend thought it was great. But she stopped short of asking if I wanted to go with her. She did invite me to a concert next Tuesday of her former professor. And she wants to exchange Russian lessons for some computer lessons that would help her with her online self-marketing tasks. I didn't know how to take all this. I wasn't jumping for joy with hopes that she might come back. Perhaps it's because I have healed enough. Perhaps it's because I remember how I did that with the India girl after she started making plans with me a few month into our breakup. How I was excited and hopeful.
It hurts me to think that she would, like all the others, want to be just friend. At the beginning it didn't feel like it. She was giggling a lot, either from nervousness of talking to me for the first time since Sunday, or missed my company that often gave her so much joy. I know I can't be her friend forever. I am not interested in it. I am healing rapidly enough to know that life wouldn't be so bad if I never see her again.
On that front there's not much more to say.
I am going to the concert organized by the Swiss pianist, as I said. She won't be playing, but I am curious what kind of music she has put together. It will be something crazy but still classical. She herself is having some trouble with her boyfriend. Last night we shared a cab together (it was more like she shared a cab with me to Queens and then paid the remaining trip back to Williamsburg, Brooklyn; she likes my company). Her boyfriend is a Mainland Chinese living in Boston and is apparently becoming more and more possessive and self-centered. They had only been dating for about half a year and they are very serious. She's always been a contrast to the other pianist; although they both had a really rough time in their own ways with men, the Swiss is seeking something serious even more now while the Russian doesn't feel she is ever going to be ready. And so the Swiss pianist is serious about this guy and they see each other every weekend. They even went to Switzerland together. When I heard her say this I thought they had been together for years. But no matter how crazy you are and how intense the relationship is, time is always a factor in getting to know someone, and tango has a way of accelerating that. So half a year later she is finding his possessiveness very troubling; she's very worried about their future. I thought again how sometimes life really is easier when you're single.
Tomorrow I will see the folks, for the first time in a while. Without kung fu I do have more time. Of course, without dating I have even more time. Last night I went dancing after having dinner with the Swiss pianist in Brooklyn Heights. I sang our way to the milonga and she, as a musician, was quite impressed. It's a lot less dramatic being with friends. I had some nice dances after practicing for an hour. I have decided that I would stop dancing once I get tired. There is no more need to struggle on for the sake of being in a milonga. That is an important turning point for me, helps me take things a little lighter.
She called me today. Just like the email we didn't talk about "us"; we just updated each other one what we have been doing the past few days. She asked if I was going to the concert organized by the Swiss pianist tonight. She told me that a common friend of ours went to this opera that she knew I had been dying to see; she said the friend thought it was great. But she stopped short of asking if I wanted to go with her. She did invite me to a concert next Tuesday of her former professor. And she wants to exchange Russian lessons for some computer lessons that would help her with her online self-marketing tasks. I didn't know how to take all this. I wasn't jumping for joy with hopes that she might come back. Perhaps it's because I have healed enough. Perhaps it's because I remember how I did that with the India girl after she started making plans with me a few month into our breakup. How I was excited and hopeful.
It hurts me to think that she would, like all the others, want to be just friend. At the beginning it didn't feel like it. She was giggling a lot, either from nervousness of talking to me for the first time since Sunday, or missed my company that often gave her so much joy. I know I can't be her friend forever. I am not interested in it. I am healing rapidly enough to know that life wouldn't be so bad if I never see her again.
On that front there's not much more to say.
I am going to the concert organized by the Swiss pianist, as I said. She won't be playing, but I am curious what kind of music she has put together. It will be something crazy but still classical. She herself is having some trouble with her boyfriend. Last night we shared a cab together (it was more like she shared a cab with me to Queens and then paid the remaining trip back to Williamsburg, Brooklyn; she likes my company). Her boyfriend is a Mainland Chinese living in Boston and is apparently becoming more and more possessive and self-centered. They had only been dating for about half a year and they are very serious. She's always been a contrast to the other pianist; although they both had a really rough time in their own ways with men, the Swiss is seeking something serious even more now while the Russian doesn't feel she is ever going to be ready. And so the Swiss pianist is serious about this guy and they see each other every weekend. They even went to Switzerland together. When I heard her say this I thought they had been together for years. But no matter how crazy you are and how intense the relationship is, time is always a factor in getting to know someone, and tango has a way of accelerating that. So half a year later she is finding his possessiveness very troubling; she's very worried about their future. I thought again how sometimes life really is easier when you're single.
Tomorrow I will see the folks, for the first time in a while. Without kung fu I do have more time. Of course, without dating I have even more time. Last night I went dancing after having dinner with the Swiss pianist in Brooklyn Heights. I sang our way to the milonga and she, as a musician, was quite impressed. It's a lot less dramatic being with friends. I had some nice dances after practicing for an hour. I have decided that I would stop dancing once I get tired. There is no more need to struggle on for the sake of being in a milonga. That is an important turning point for me, helps me take things a little lighter.
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