Yesterday was my last full day on the island. Marifrancis drove us along the northern coast, just the two of us. The first stop was a cliff near where we would later have fish. I listened to the whispers of the sea, as if longing for a message, a voice. And I looked stark into the horizon, and noticed that not all the parts of the horizon are the same. Some parts have a brighter illumination on the sky part than others, some parts are blurred by whatever meteorological event that was happening there.
After lunch, we continued driving. We saw a great little town with its famous balconies. We've come here many times before along with the rest of her family, but it was always at night, after dinner or something. I realized I no longer thought everything was amazing, just appreciated everything I noticed for what it was. It was a strange sensation. Perhaps I am done with the kind of traveling I had been doing before going to Buenos Aires, which was the first time I didn't go around snapping pictures at everything that was different.
The highlight of the day trip was at the end. We found a beach that Marifrancis didn't know about. It was a small black beach, completely black, black from the eroded lava rocks that you see in many architectures this part of the island. She didn't want to go down to the sand because she had a cold, and going down to the sand would only be fun if she took her shoes off. So I went down there alone while she enjoyed the view. I wanted to feel the sand, and more importantly, the water, the warm Atlantic water (warm here, not back in the Northeast). I ran for a minute on the waves that reached that far to the damp sand. Then I stopped and walked slowly, letting the white foam of various heights engulf my lower shins. Then I stopped and looked at the sea again. It's simple, and yet, there're many parts to each wave if you just notice one. Back on the top at the cliff before lunch, the waves looked different from the bottom of the cliff; they were in slow motion, and yet, I could see the details evolving, also in slow motion. Here the waves were fast, in front of me, threatening to surprise me with a big wave that would wet my pants. Here the sound is loud and awesome. Here I could feel the waves, not only the temperature of the water, but their pushing and, even more interestingly, dragging of my feet, and when they drag my feet I sink a little into the black sand.
I turned around and walked toward the other end, where surfers were preparing their entrance into the infinite body of water. The sensation of being pushed and pulled by the waves, the view of the water, the evolution of each wave, this cannot be easily described, cannot be easily written in a poem; it can only be felt. Right away that beach became one of my favorites, and it became a highlight of my trip. I yearned for the sea, just as I yearned for the mountain, which I walked in yesterday. And I felt a slight tinge of sadness when I compelled myself to leave the waves. I turned around a few times and saw my footprint on the damp sand; they seemed so lonesome, in a good or bad way, I don't know.
I joined Marifrancis in watching the sea dance. We both noticed how the sea that was emerald earlier in the day when appeared from the bottom of the cliff now had a coat of golden shimmer. It was, in my mind, stealing the sun that had already descended behind the mountains behind us. The sun's rays traveled over the mountains and bounced off the clouds only to land like fallen leaves on the blue sea, floating, glistening.
The sea calms me down, just as the mountain delivers me peace. I was waiting still to see what the Swiss pianist would decide on. The sea reminded me the simple ways to find myself, that life's drama needs not be greater than the constant evolution of the waves, which is itself very beautiful. And I was with my best friend who would miss me dearly. We half joked that if I ever marry this Swiss pianist, I would be moving to Europe and we would be neighbors, finally (sort of). Who knows what the future brings. But for sure it brings surprises when you have an open heart. This discovery of a black sand beach is certainly a great surprise.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Return to Tenerife
The last time I was in Tenerife was just about exactly three years ago. Last time I celebrated New Year's Eve here. This year I will be alone, in Madrid, just as I did the first time I came to Tenerife. The first time I came to Tenerife I came right after New Year's Eve, some six years ago. Then, and as always except this time, I would miss Christmas in Tenerife because it's a family time for Marifrancis and her family. This year I arrived with her on Christmas Eve.
And I arrived with so much on my mind, perhaps so much that I just collapsed in bed and slept more than three hours.
The night before I hardly slept. Partly because I had two shots of Scotch after a few sips of wine. Partly because I couldn't stop thinking about the Swiss pianist, about the decision she is about to make, or has already taken but hadn't dared to tell me. And of course, it was really unusual time of sleeping for a week of an already unusual sleeping patterns. I was supposed to sleep from 9PM to 4AM, local time, a time when I usually went dancing or not sleeping at all if you translated it to US time. On top of that, the sofa bed of Marifrancis was never conducive to sleeping for me.
So it was a night of lost sleep. And I managed to doze off in the airplane, despite the heavy sound of footsteps every time someone walked by on the shaky airplane floor. But dozing off didn't count. I slept a few hours after having arriving and having lunch.
It's been three years since I was here, and I am remembering many things as well as learning new things. Not just learning new things, but also deepening what I have already learned. I mean, about Marifrancis' family, about their interactions with the surrounding areas bound by the limits imposed by the Atlantic Ocean. For some of her brothers, the island seems like a prison. For at least her youngest brother, it is home and he volunteers to stay here as long as his mother needs. This is especially true now that the father had passed away in February.
The eldest brother is still working hard to provide for his daughter, and both of them live under the same roof as the rest of the family. The only member missing, besides the father now, is Marifrancis, the only one to have left the family and island more than eight years ago. When I first came here eight year's ago (exactly so starting next week), the family didn't have that brother and his daughter. The daughter was a shy little three-year-old, as unfamiliar to me as was the island. I remember coming off the plane from Madrid and discovered a lot of warmth in the air but also more coolness from the clouds than expected. The island, like my friend's family, was much more complicated than I had expected. But isn't that usually the case? You get some impression at first, some hearsay, some expectations, and the more you spend time on this subject, the more complicated it gets.
Today (being a few days since I started this blog) Marifrancis and I went to one of her favorite spots, which tourists don't usually visit since it's in the northern part. There are no beaches here, but lots of black rocks from lava and white waves smashing onto them. I sat there with her, taking some distance for our own space, and I tried to let myself go, mentally, into the emerald sea with its emerald waves. I thought about the problems each member of her family faced. Not just the eldest son with the daughter, but also the son who had been trying to get a governmental job for as long as I had known the family, or the mother who had just lost a 40-year old relationship to cancer. These things gave me some perspective in a time when I am trying very hard not to think about the Swiss pianist. The bliss with her in the final couple of weeks before my vacation is becoming a distant memory. I don't feel as desperate as before to have her in my life, but I don't want it any less. I just don't feel as desperate, either because I am calmer, or because I am suppressing that feeling better.
With the perspective I am gaining from interacting with and observing the family that has welcomed me at each visit, I gain also a sense of peace with respect to the Swiss pianist. I am thinking more about what I want to do besides worrying that she would not want me in her life the way we both wish would happen. I am still disturbed that she has gone off to Hawaii with her boyfriend without making a final decision, but at the same time, not only do I trust that she has some good reason that I cannot currently understand, but also, well, it doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme of things. My life can't revolve around her decisions about her own life. Perhaps one day my life will intertwine with another person's life, but right now, that's not the case. Being away from her, being with people whom I care and who have real dramas and difficulties, helps me move forward with my life.
Tomorrow (really officially now) is the birthday of the eldest son. I will take them out for lunch and hopefully will have energy to make him some spaghetti alla vodka. To give love to yourself, and to those who have become a part of your life, helps you feel more grounded. With this thought I hope I can sleep!
And I arrived with so much on my mind, perhaps so much that I just collapsed in bed and slept more than three hours.
The night before I hardly slept. Partly because I had two shots of Scotch after a few sips of wine. Partly because I couldn't stop thinking about the Swiss pianist, about the decision she is about to make, or has already taken but hadn't dared to tell me. And of course, it was really unusual time of sleeping for a week of an already unusual sleeping patterns. I was supposed to sleep from 9PM to 4AM, local time, a time when I usually went dancing or not sleeping at all if you translated it to US time. On top of that, the sofa bed of Marifrancis was never conducive to sleeping for me.
So it was a night of lost sleep. And I managed to doze off in the airplane, despite the heavy sound of footsteps every time someone walked by on the shaky airplane floor. But dozing off didn't count. I slept a few hours after having arriving and having lunch.
It's been three years since I was here, and I am remembering many things as well as learning new things. Not just learning new things, but also deepening what I have already learned. I mean, about Marifrancis' family, about their interactions with the surrounding areas bound by the limits imposed by the Atlantic Ocean. For some of her brothers, the island seems like a prison. For at least her youngest brother, it is home and he volunteers to stay here as long as his mother needs. This is especially true now that the father had passed away in February.
The eldest brother is still working hard to provide for his daughter, and both of them live under the same roof as the rest of the family. The only member missing, besides the father now, is Marifrancis, the only one to have left the family and island more than eight years ago. When I first came here eight year's ago (exactly so starting next week), the family didn't have that brother and his daughter. The daughter was a shy little three-year-old, as unfamiliar to me as was the island. I remember coming off the plane from Madrid and discovered a lot of warmth in the air but also more coolness from the clouds than expected. The island, like my friend's family, was much more complicated than I had expected. But isn't that usually the case? You get some impression at first, some hearsay, some expectations, and the more you spend time on this subject, the more complicated it gets.
Today (being a few days since I started this blog) Marifrancis and I went to one of her favorite spots, which tourists don't usually visit since it's in the northern part. There are no beaches here, but lots of black rocks from lava and white waves smashing onto them. I sat there with her, taking some distance for our own space, and I tried to let myself go, mentally, into the emerald sea with its emerald waves. I thought about the problems each member of her family faced. Not just the eldest son with the daughter, but also the son who had been trying to get a governmental job for as long as I had known the family, or the mother who had just lost a 40-year old relationship to cancer. These things gave me some perspective in a time when I am trying very hard not to think about the Swiss pianist. The bliss with her in the final couple of weeks before my vacation is becoming a distant memory. I don't feel as desperate as before to have her in my life, but I don't want it any less. I just don't feel as desperate, either because I am calmer, or because I am suppressing that feeling better.
With the perspective I am gaining from interacting with and observing the family that has welcomed me at each visit, I gain also a sense of peace with respect to the Swiss pianist. I am thinking more about what I want to do besides worrying that she would not want me in her life the way we both wish would happen. I am still disturbed that she has gone off to Hawaii with her boyfriend without making a final decision, but at the same time, not only do I trust that she has some good reason that I cannot currently understand, but also, well, it doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme of things. My life can't revolve around her decisions about her own life. Perhaps one day my life will intertwine with another person's life, but right now, that's not the case. Being away from her, being with people whom I care and who have real dramas and difficulties, helps me move forward with my life.
Tomorrow (really officially now) is the birthday of the eldest son. I will take them out for lunch and hopefully will have energy to make him some spaghetti alla vodka. To give love to yourself, and to those who have become a part of your life, helps you feel more grounded. With this thought I hope I can sleep!
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Returning to Paris
I've returned to Paris many times, especially when I lived in England. Leaving Gare du Nord on the Eurostar to cross the Channel into London, I watched the dark, northern landscape of the city disappear. I saw the illuminated Sacré Coeur in the distance, waving goodbye. I saw the rundown hotels disappear too; one of them was probably where I stayed once when I was coming from London with the girlfriend at the time.
But the memories that stood out most on this brief trip belong to the first time I came to Paris. It was my second trip to Europe. It was the summer ending my sophomore year, there I waited in the French capital for my college girlfriend who had just broken up with me to be with this other guy. It was at times a little awkward, I mean, we were sharing the same bed though nothing weird happened. It was nonetheless difficult. Looking back I realized I had already put myself in such awkward situation early on. That was 1995, June.... More than 16 years ago. I was there. She took me to see all the different places, showed me tricks on saving money, saving time, being a good Romanian used to circumventing "the system".
I went to a lot of places she had taken me. Some places I had revisited a few times since then. Some, like the Musée de Rodin, I had not been back since. I remember taking a picture of her next to the famous "The Kiss" sculpture. I remember, in my head, we were standing in front of the "Gate of Hell", Rodin's rendition of Dante's "Inferno". There were more flowers and the trees had more leaves that summer; now it was cold and the trees were stripped of their grandeur by the recurring winter. And, of course, I was alone.
But life wasn't so different. I was in a similar situation, in that I was involved with a woman who had a boyfriend. Difference is that she is making her decision on what to do next. And I was kept in suspense throughout my trip in the French capital. If she decides to be with me, then good chance that I will be returning to Paris many times as she intends on moving back to Switzerland, or Europe, at least. That was on my mind, too. A future with her, if she so chooses.
I didn't do much site-seeing. I went to touristy places, but not snapping pictures at the oft-snapped sites. I went to Montmartre, recalling the "Fabulous Tale" of Amélie (that's the approximate translation of the original French title). Some people's love stories are simple. Mine, for some reason, has to be incredibly complicated. I don't choose simple people, simple situations, or life decides that I deserve something more than the simple mundane thread existence.
I also went walking around Quartier Latin with another old friend who had been living in France for a while. This area also helps me recall the first trip in Paris. It's where I had cheap canteen food at a university cafeteria. The friend this time also happened to be Romanian. We met on a train in Romania, and we don't write to each other more than once a year, but we're close. Still, I know she likes me still, after all these years, since that train ride to a German-speaking Romanian town in 1999, I know she likes me, and we know I never felt the same way. Nothing weird happened between us, but with her I know how it feels to be unable to return love. At the end of the afternoon walks, she had to return to her city of Reims. From the TGV train she repeatedly asked me to come back with her, visit her place, her life there. She knew I was madly in love with a woman who would either bring me heavenly joy or abysmal dejection, but still, she begged me to go back with her, assuring me that there were two beds. I had visited her once in her native town in Romania back when I was living in England. I never stayed overnight, but I saw her small, sad-looking apartment in a sad-looking Communist style building. And when it was my time to board the train to leave her town, she kissed me. I felt very sad for her. She is the total opposite of me: expecting nothing complicated, nothing serious, from life. It doesn't mean she doesn't get into complicated situations, but we are too different; I seek adventures in the world, no matter the cost; she is happy being in one little, quiet place, being a surgeon.
The major difference between this trip to Paris and the other trips is that I danced a lot of tango. Four nights out of five. I tried dancing last time I was here, but I was still not confident enough. This time I was more open-minded and more confident. I had a good time. I was also curious what I was getting myself into, in terms of tango, at least, if I do move back to Europe. It's not as fantastic as New York, but still.
Tango or no tango, I found the love of my life, in the most complicated, tangled web I can imagine my life to get into (I guess at least she's not married with children). This suspense of not knowing what her decision process is like, not knowing the final result, drives me crazy. I try not to think about it. I try to assume the worst. After all, she is going on a New Year's trip to Hawaii with her boyfriend. I don't quite understand what that means, why she decided to do that. At the same time, she is writing me poems everyday, and the two times we actually chatted, she reminded me how much she missed me.
She will decide soon, it's just me having to cope with the unknown. It's better if I can just not think about it and enjoy my time here, and I am enjoying my time. Paris I felt in love with the city again, as always. Today's my first day in London and I met up with another old friend (this one there is not an iota of drama with). Now I am in a cafe with bad hot chocolate, waiting for my best friend to come back from her work. I don't know what we will do, but we will see. She knows about my tangled web of events, and she, being very emotional of a Spaniard, is all confused and frustrated and happy. She doesn't want me to be hurt again, of course.
But as I told her, whatever happens, I am blessed with one thing: for the first time, the woman I am crazy about is crazy about me. And I know how that feels for me. And, from now on, I won't settle. Before her I always had to work very hard trying to convince the girl to give me the same attention back. And it never worked, often backfired. Part of the problem is what my friends always told me (and many of these "friends" were actually the very same girls before becoming friends): I need to know I deserve better; I need to believe I am damn good. For the first time in my life, I realized, yes, I am really that good; I don't need to go running after every breadcrumb that comes my way just because she's beautiful. Dignity in myself. As another friend told me, let the girls come to me.
I used to have as my signature a quote from a Portuguese writer: Take care of your garden and the butterflies will come to you. I always ran after girls trying to prove I have a lot to offer, when I didn't have to do that; I already had a lot to offer. Their failure to see my beauty is not my problem. Having met a girl who absolutely adores me makes me see what it feels like to be myself while still being in love. Being in love doesn't mean I have to work so much.
I have one more week left before going back to reality, and by then, hopefully, a decision is made. But what I really should do is not think about that decision. It's her decision, not mine. I have already decided on spending my life with her. It's time to move on.
But the memories that stood out most on this brief trip belong to the first time I came to Paris. It was my second trip to Europe. It was the summer ending my sophomore year, there I waited in the French capital for my college girlfriend who had just broken up with me to be with this other guy. It was at times a little awkward, I mean, we were sharing the same bed though nothing weird happened. It was nonetheless difficult. Looking back I realized I had already put myself in such awkward situation early on. That was 1995, June.... More than 16 years ago. I was there. She took me to see all the different places, showed me tricks on saving money, saving time, being a good Romanian used to circumventing "the system".
I went to a lot of places she had taken me. Some places I had revisited a few times since then. Some, like the Musée de Rodin, I had not been back since. I remember taking a picture of her next to the famous "The Kiss" sculpture. I remember, in my head, we were standing in front of the "Gate of Hell", Rodin's rendition of Dante's "Inferno". There were more flowers and the trees had more leaves that summer; now it was cold and the trees were stripped of their grandeur by the recurring winter. And, of course, I was alone.
But life wasn't so different. I was in a similar situation, in that I was involved with a woman who had a boyfriend. Difference is that she is making her decision on what to do next. And I was kept in suspense throughout my trip in the French capital. If she decides to be with me, then good chance that I will be returning to Paris many times as she intends on moving back to Switzerland, or Europe, at least. That was on my mind, too. A future with her, if she so chooses.
I didn't do much site-seeing. I went to touristy places, but not snapping pictures at the oft-snapped sites. I went to Montmartre, recalling the "Fabulous Tale" of Amélie (that's the approximate translation of the original French title). Some people's love stories are simple. Mine, for some reason, has to be incredibly complicated. I don't choose simple people, simple situations, or life decides that I deserve something more than the simple mundane thread existence.
I also went walking around Quartier Latin with another old friend who had been living in France for a while. This area also helps me recall the first trip in Paris. It's where I had cheap canteen food at a university cafeteria. The friend this time also happened to be Romanian. We met on a train in Romania, and we don't write to each other more than once a year, but we're close. Still, I know she likes me still, after all these years, since that train ride to a German-speaking Romanian town in 1999, I know she likes me, and we know I never felt the same way. Nothing weird happened between us, but with her I know how it feels to be unable to return love. At the end of the afternoon walks, she had to return to her city of Reims. From the TGV train she repeatedly asked me to come back with her, visit her place, her life there. She knew I was madly in love with a woman who would either bring me heavenly joy or abysmal dejection, but still, she begged me to go back with her, assuring me that there were two beds. I had visited her once in her native town in Romania back when I was living in England. I never stayed overnight, but I saw her small, sad-looking apartment in a sad-looking Communist style building. And when it was my time to board the train to leave her town, she kissed me. I felt very sad for her. She is the total opposite of me: expecting nothing complicated, nothing serious, from life. It doesn't mean she doesn't get into complicated situations, but we are too different; I seek adventures in the world, no matter the cost; she is happy being in one little, quiet place, being a surgeon.
The major difference between this trip to Paris and the other trips is that I danced a lot of tango. Four nights out of five. I tried dancing last time I was here, but I was still not confident enough. This time I was more open-minded and more confident. I had a good time. I was also curious what I was getting myself into, in terms of tango, at least, if I do move back to Europe. It's not as fantastic as New York, but still.
Tango or no tango, I found the love of my life, in the most complicated, tangled web I can imagine my life to get into (I guess at least she's not married with children). This suspense of not knowing what her decision process is like, not knowing the final result, drives me crazy. I try not to think about it. I try to assume the worst. After all, she is going on a New Year's trip to Hawaii with her boyfriend. I don't quite understand what that means, why she decided to do that. At the same time, she is writing me poems everyday, and the two times we actually chatted, she reminded me how much she missed me.
She will decide soon, it's just me having to cope with the unknown. It's better if I can just not think about it and enjoy my time here, and I am enjoying my time. Paris I felt in love with the city again, as always. Today's my first day in London and I met up with another old friend (this one there is not an iota of drama with). Now I am in a cafe with bad hot chocolate, waiting for my best friend to come back from her work. I don't know what we will do, but we will see. She knows about my tangled web of events, and she, being very emotional of a Spaniard, is all confused and frustrated and happy. She doesn't want me to be hurt again, of course.
But as I told her, whatever happens, I am blessed with one thing: for the first time, the woman I am crazy about is crazy about me. And I know how that feels for me. And, from now on, I won't settle. Before her I always had to work very hard trying to convince the girl to give me the same attention back. And it never worked, often backfired. Part of the problem is what my friends always told me (and many of these "friends" were actually the very same girls before becoming friends): I need to know I deserve better; I need to believe I am damn good. For the first time in my life, I realized, yes, I am really that good; I don't need to go running after every breadcrumb that comes my way just because she's beautiful. Dignity in myself. As another friend told me, let the girls come to me.
I used to have as my signature a quote from a Portuguese writer: Take care of your garden and the butterflies will come to you. I always ran after girls trying to prove I have a lot to offer, when I didn't have to do that; I already had a lot to offer. Their failure to see my beauty is not my problem. Having met a girl who absolutely adores me makes me see what it feels like to be myself while still being in love. Being in love doesn't mean I have to work so much.
I have one more week left before going back to reality, and by then, hopefully, a decision is made. But what I really should do is not think about that decision. It's her decision, not mine. I have already decided on spending my life with her. It's time to move on.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Late Entry
It's been a while since I've written anything here. I've been busy writing a novel for the November Novel month.
I wanted to put a few notes here.
The plan was never to date someone who has a boyfriend. But life never goes as planned.
Where do I start? I mentioned her. Pianist, also. Coincidence? Probably not. So many people date someone looks just like the one they broke up with if they don't wait a while before jumping back into the dating pool.
But the coincidence is not important here.
She's really amazing. I know, I always say this about everyone I am interested in.
But listen. We clique easily. We know what the other person is thinking most of the time. We make each other laugh (and now cry for the first time). It's like we've known each other for a while, and we both know we've only known each other for a few weeks, meeting usually just once a week.
But every time we meet, something even more amazing happens. The latest is this phenomenon I had only dreamed but never done it with anyone. It's intense. It's looking at each others' faces, communicating by reading that face and letting your soul seep out to be read. For the first time I feel I am getting to know a woman as a woman, as a human being, more than just friendship or anything else. I am often tempted to touch her face, but then I know that's just me wanting a shortcut, being impatient, not letting myself become absorbed in this connection.
And it's natural. We look at each other and we don't let go. We don't look away until something external pushes us (like it's time to catch the subway or we'll be late for the milonga).
I remember feeling a newly deep connection a long time ago with this woman from Lithuania. That was after college. We had a deep connection, talked so naturally. But then one day she announced that she was going to see this boy she was interested in all the way in Seattle. They ended up getting married. I was devastated. I never looked at my own feelings, inspected them, but then when she told me she was going to see someone else and going to marry him, my world collapsed and I stopped talking to her.
And that's sort of what this pianist did. She told me after I pressed her that she was going to start a new life with her boyfriend, start a family.
I felt so lonely. I asked myself what was the point of this connection. I wanted to never see her again.
By talking to friends (well, really just shooting one friend with lots of emails whenever I had a thought) I slowly realized how much I wanted to have someone, to have a family, and how that desperation always prevented me from enjoying what I currently have. I don't know if I will ever find someone I can connect with so well, on sense of humor, on philosophy, on belief system. And this connection through the face. I am afraid of the future, afraid I won't find someone.
But I am not enjoying what I have now. This is the girl that randomly sends me a text to tell me to look at the moon because through that silver disk she thought about me. The girl that brought my treats always as a surprise. The girl that took me to all these places in New York I didn't know about. The girl I am never bored with and whom I never bored.
And then to hear her lay out her plans in the backseat of a taxi in front of me. My world collapsed.
I wanted to put a few notes here.
The plan was never to date someone who has a boyfriend. But life never goes as planned.
Where do I start? I mentioned her. Pianist, also. Coincidence? Probably not. So many people date someone looks just like the one they broke up with if they don't wait a while before jumping back into the dating pool.
But the coincidence is not important here.
She's really amazing. I know, I always say this about everyone I am interested in.
But listen. We clique easily. We know what the other person is thinking most of the time. We make each other laugh (and now cry for the first time). It's like we've known each other for a while, and we both know we've only known each other for a few weeks, meeting usually just once a week.
But every time we meet, something even more amazing happens. The latest is this phenomenon I had only dreamed but never done it with anyone. It's intense. It's looking at each others' faces, communicating by reading that face and letting your soul seep out to be read. For the first time I feel I am getting to know a woman as a woman, as a human being, more than just friendship or anything else. I am often tempted to touch her face, but then I know that's just me wanting a shortcut, being impatient, not letting myself become absorbed in this connection.
And it's natural. We look at each other and we don't let go. We don't look away until something external pushes us (like it's time to catch the subway or we'll be late for the milonga).
I remember feeling a newly deep connection a long time ago with this woman from Lithuania. That was after college. We had a deep connection, talked so naturally. But then one day she announced that she was going to see this boy she was interested in all the way in Seattle. They ended up getting married. I was devastated. I never looked at my own feelings, inspected them, but then when she told me she was going to see someone else and going to marry him, my world collapsed and I stopped talking to her.
And that's sort of what this pianist did. She told me after I pressed her that she was going to start a new life with her boyfriend, start a family.
I felt so lonely. I asked myself what was the point of this connection. I wanted to never see her again.
By talking to friends (well, really just shooting one friend with lots of emails whenever I had a thought) I slowly realized how much I wanted to have someone, to have a family, and how that desperation always prevented me from enjoying what I currently have. I don't know if I will ever find someone I can connect with so well, on sense of humor, on philosophy, on belief system. And this connection through the face. I am afraid of the future, afraid I won't find someone.
But I am not enjoying what I have now. This is the girl that randomly sends me a text to tell me to look at the moon because through that silver disk she thought about me. The girl that brought my treats always as a surprise. The girl that took me to all these places in New York I didn't know about. The girl I am never bored with and whom I never bored.
And then to hear her lay out her plans in the backseat of a taxi in front of me. My world collapsed.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Making Peace
Today was the first time I saw snow on my commute since April, when the last dusting happened. Today was the first time I saw snow on my New York commute. I wonder if there will be more a year from now.
The sun has gone under its blanket about half an hour ago. The sky is still a dark blue, illuminating the white strips of snow along the tracks. The cars that race past the train, at least those on the fast lane, all have their lights on, and from the comfort of my seat, I see them as alien spacecrafts in the sky. The commute to New Haven didn't have cars along the train track like this, and I usually saw them with their red tail lights glistening like Christmas tree lights.
Making peace is the step I am trying to take today. "Making" peace, not just talking about it, analyzing it, but rather, making it, making it with myself, with the life I have now.
Just before I started writing this entry, I realized, already thinking about peace, that I have spent much of this year being away from peace, or having no peace because I was busy in the war with the French girl. She is constantly surprised at how long it is taking me to get over my anger and frustration with her. Just this past Friday I got upset that she chose to spend Friday night with her guy than with me. She doesn't understand why I was still upset.
You can't blame her; it's been so long, this relentless war. But luckily, it is dying, breathing its final months.
What I was thinking wasn't really about her. It was about how I have preoccupied myself with tension all this year, so out of touch with peace. Watching the snow, watching the anonymous cars and their headlights, I remember the feeling of peace when I started commuting to Stamford. But I also remember the weekly battles with the same French woman. It was a proxy war with my past that I couldn't fight then, as a child, as a teenager.
Saturday night I went to a concert with the pianist, who gave me free tickets to hear one of the best known violinists play with a pianist at the 92Y. Afterward we had a poorly prepared dinner at a nearby restaurant and then the battle started. The snow was falling heavily when she refused politely and indirectly my entreaties to go home with her. She tried to make the best out of the walk to the bus stop, but I was upset. I told myself before hand to not get upset if she said no, but as always, I couldn't take a rejection. It didn't matter that nothing good would have come out of going there with such an ambiguous relationship, as I could tell first hand from many experiences in the past few years. It didn't matter. A rejection was a rejection.
Peace was nowhere to be found inside me despite the quiet streets, the quieted city blanketed by a quiet blizzard. I couldn't sleep that night. The heat was making whistling and clanging sounds, but the loudest clanging came from inside me. I spent the night absorbed in my own chaos.
The next day we followed up on our plans to go to the opera house to see a recital by an upcoming male tenor, the next star, the next Pavarotti, perhaps. We enjoyed it. But afterward I had to tell her, simply, but not without immense difficulty that it was best if we didn't have any communications at all. She stood up and was about to leave. I touched her hand without really knowing what I was going to do. She gave me a hug when I told her that in the end she needed to know at least that I liked her a lot. She said she liked me too. But without words we knew that was somehow not enough.
Then she left. This time her back to me.
She wanted to be friends. Like all these other women who somehow couldn't handle what I wanted to give and what I wanted from them.
This is how drama permeates my life.
I walked from Columbus Circle where I saw her last all the way to Herald Square where the milonga would be. On the way I picked up a lamb gyro from what I was told the best street car in the city, a block from Rockefeller Center. That made me feel better. The City, I could always count on to make me feel a little better. It was cold. My winter clothes were still in New Haven. I was wearing my corduroy jacket for the opera house. But I was sad. I felt numb inside. I couldn't understand why it always happened to me that women in the end wanted to be my friend. But I was grateful, and I told her too, that she didn't try too hard to be my friend, like the French girl did. She is a bitter Russian woman from the middle of Siberia. She knew that life was never fair, that she could never expect much good from life.
And if I am not her knight in shining armors, there was no reason for her to be in my life.
There wouldn't be drama in a person who lives with peace. I am full of drama and of little peace. I realized it slowly. I got to the milonga before the pre-milonga class even started and I felt an urge to explode, let me feelings go. There was a friend who didn't take the class and who was just hanging out. So I had her sit next to me and I asked her if she had ever been in a situation where she wanted to be the friend of someone she didn't want to date but that he refused that friendship. I asked because I wanted to sympathize with the pianist. It hurt me to see her turn around and leave.
Drama is for those who can't just let go, who hangs on the sentimental for as long as possible, making a taffy out of it just so he can drag it out a little longer.
It was good to be with my friend. She was, to my surprise, going through her own drama that she didn't want to specify either. At least we commiserated each other, and we reminded each other that in the end friendships are important, and we were the living example right there.
The turning point for my decision to make peace was this morning. On the train I realized I couldn't understand and therefore couldn't accept that a woman who likes me would still not date me. She felt guilty she couldn't give me what I wanted when I was giving her more than she could ever expect from a man. And her guilt materialized into sharp pain whenever I showed disappointment with her distance. She couldn't take it anymore so she had to cut it off. I thought that was such a stupid reason to break up. It would be my reason to break up with her, not her reason since she was the one getting the better end of the "deal", if that is the best way I can put it.
At work I couldn't take it anymore so I got myself a notebook, went up to the cafeteria, and wrote an imaginary letter to her, demanding that she explain to me why her guilt was the reason we weren't together. Why it could be accepted as a reason to break something that had so much potential. As I wrote it out, I started to make peace.
I realized making peace is not about making sense of the nonsense. It's about letting go of things. Letting things be. Not controlling everything, not even to comprehend it, for the desire to comprehend is very much a form of desire to control. I started to allow the reality that people will do what I might not find reasonable, and no amount of reasoning on my part, overt or just in my mind, would change what other people do. The best way is to accept it.
And slowly, I started to let go of the past, the future that I fantasize. I started to let go of the beautiful few weeks we had together, minus the very few battles. The images that had been hurting me started to find their places in the peaceful seats of my heart. The image of us posing for the New York Times photographer as we looked at the twilight over the Washington Bridge that evening before the hurricane came. The image of all my poems I have written to her. And many more. Many remain difficult, and just the thought of them creates a constriction in my throat.
But at some point, I was started to see the phrase I think she deserves to know, that I think I deserve to hear from myself. "Don't feel guilty about not giving me what I wanted. I never thought you took advantage of me. I always felt grateful to have the opportunity to show my love." It's true. No woman I can remember had allowed me to go so far, to be the gentleman I wanted to be, to treat a woman the way I wanted. All these women were so afraid of what I was offering that they just fought back much sooner than the pianist did. It's true I deserved someone who liked me just as much, who lived up to the erratic and irrational expectations I had at a given moment. But I wasn't focusing on that then. Having written that imaginary letter I started to remember how happy I was, how I was looking forward to writing her the poems, to getting her the flowers, or just opening the door for her. My happiest moment was when she told me that no one has ever made her feel so special before. She gave me that chance to be the boyfriend I had always wanted to be.
Making peace means letting go. It means not let the ego get in the way. It kills me to know I have failed. I have failed to build a long-lasting relationship. It kills me that a woman I cared about could just break something I thought we were both building, willing to build. Obviously, as with the French and India girls, it was torture to see them choose someone else before my wounds had healed. But whatever right I have to be angry, the problem is that it doesn't do me any good. It doesn't matter if these women become my friends or not; I am tired of spending another month being angry, being spiteful over a lost past and a forbidden future. I just have to live in the present.
One day can't change everything. I wish today I can make peace with the French girl and not let her current relationship get to me. I wish today I can see the pianist and not feel regretful that we couldn't build what we wanted. But I am not so far. I will see her tomorrow because she is coming to the practica now. I wonder if by then I will have made enough peace to offer her my olive branch. It still feels like defeat: friendship. It still feels like it is the best I can get from not winning. A consolation prize. But my anger, my frustration, can't compare to that with the French girl's even before I started suspecting her nascent relationship. I hope I am maturing in this sense. To let things go. To live in the present. To live in the present for my own sake, not for someone else's, not for someone else's desire to be my friend, to have my company. It is for my own peace that I will decide how I interact with these people who just couldn't handle my love.
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.
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.
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