You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June, 2007.
The floor was icy cold when I crept over your sleeping form which quietly sighing every time you exhaled. You murmured and turned as I hovered precariously over you – I always demanded the inside of the bed – and I whispered, “I’m just going to the bathroom.” Content with my answer (or was it just that you wanted to get back to your dream?) I rolled back over as I maneuvered my remaining foot from the blankets. Quiet and lithe, like the kitten you say I really am, I tip toed out of our room, the only room in the house with heat it seemed and hurried down the stairs.
It was so cold I could see my own breath and felt my skin prickle in goosebumps as I ran down the stairs. I found all the things I had hidden in the house the night before and stood on my toes in front of the fireplace, wishing it had been lit. I found a large rubber band, just strong enough to hold up the stocking, and held it in place preciously with a pumpkin sitting on the mantle. Must have been left over from Halloween or Thanksgiving. Everything in place, I scrambled back up the stairs, leaving behind a trail of white cards, to jump back into bed and get warm under the covers.
What I love most about being in bed (with you in it) during winter is how you never complain that my feet are cold. You wrap yourself protectively around my small frame and tuck my icy-cold feet between your calves, and place my palms on your wide chest. Face to face, I can tuck myself in the various nook and crannies of your neck and shoulders, or just lie there, and lose myself watching you watch me. My hands and feet, they’re always cold. Even in summer. But never when you are around.
In bed, I turn my back to you so we can spoon, and I can sneak a peek outside the window. It is grey outside. The kind of grey that occurs only in winter nights, when the snow seems to muffle out the first rays of light, before cracking open to reveal the white, glistening light that reflects off the snow. It is grey out, and next to me the cat is purring. The three of us, in a row lying back to front. Spooning from smallest to largest like animals huddled for warmth in a cave thousands of years ago. I close my eyes and try to fall asleep, or at least try not to wake you, not for a few more hours anyway.
A few fruitless hours later and I can’t wait. I take the thin beam of light making its way through the makeshift curtain you have rigged up using a sheet and a computer cord (you were so proud of yourself) as permission to wake you up. I turn around and squeal-whisper “it’s morning!” and you hrrmph and go right on snoozing. I give you a little shake, and this time, you turn over taking most of the blanket with you. I try not to get impatient, but my eyebrows furrow a little – the beginning of a pout. So instead I turn back towards the window, grasping the little corner you’ve left me and try to re-claim some of my lost blanket.
I hear you get out of bed and for a moment wonder if you’re peeved with me for waking you up. But I hear the toilet flush somewhere down the hall and figure it’s just the morning grumps. Footsteps later, you’re back in the room and instead of climbing in, I feel a big furry thing near my abdomen. Too big to be the cat and looking down, I see an adorable brown bear and you hovering over us. “Merry Christmas” you say and I spring upright and throw my arms around you – the bear sandwiched somewhere in between. “Merry Christmas” I whisper back.
The presents – one for morning, all day, and night. The bear for the nights you can’t be with me. Perfume, so I’ll wear your scent in the morning and think of you. I squeal through the wrapping, and you watch with this grin on your face. Unable to wait any longer, I ask you if you’re ready for yours. I tell you to put on your glasses and look. You look around the room, a little puzzled and finally notice a small card on the floor. I’m amazed you didn’t notice them before – a trail leading down the stairs.
We get up, and tramp down the stairs to the living room like children. It is Christmas morning, and so today we are. In the mantle hangs the two stockings I made. One for you, and the other for Dante, the cat. You start to peek in but I make you follow my silly little traditions and so we tramp back upstairs and sit on the bed, and you pull your presents out one by one.
Some are silly – the “coupon book of significant other privileges” various candies and a game for the X-box (which we play together and beat. This you brag about to your friends – your girlfriend who plays video games like a boy.) I give you your last present and watch with joy at the look on your face when you unwrap it. An elegant fountain pen, with your name engraved on it. “Promise me you’ll sign your first contract with this” I whisper. And you nod. So many of our dreams hinged upon those early plans.
I am cleaning up the wrapping paper, and you place a slender box in my hands. Just when I thought I could not be spoiled any more. “It’s not a ring.” You say, before I even notice what’s written on it. Zales. The Diamond Store. My jaw falls and I start to push it back towards you. But you insist, and I open it. Slender and delicate, it glistens back at me. I am at a loss for words, so picking it up, you supply them for me. Sapphire and white gold. For my birth month and for preciousness. You fasten the delicate chain around my wrist, and inwardly I know I will never take it off.
This was our first Christmas together. Three years later and in the middle of June, I can still remember every minute detail. The feel of the old, the warmth of the sheets and the taste of your kiss. How is it that we can be so far from those dreams, and still feel the call of them as strong as that first Christmas morning?
I spent father’s day sharing someone else’s father. We went back to their home and mom, daughter, father and I piled into the kitchen to make one of Jamie Oliver’s concoctions. Over lunch, we told stories and laughed. I asked about work and colleagues, whom I had met, being his intern the summer before. And while they were entertaining me, I inevitably feel when I am with people that are older than me, I am entertaining them. Like a member of the court, singing for her supper.
The above is not intended to seem as harsh or bitter as it may be read. I am grateful that while I don’t have one father, I have several. Growing up in a church is like growing up in a village. There are always more mothers and fathers watching over you than just your own. I am grateful for the influences in my life that have not only kept me sane, but safe; and given me a home to come back to. The principles that kept me rooted are buried somewhere amongst these elders and their generosity.
I left lunch nearly seven hours later, with a collection of photography magazines, three lenses, a light meter, a photographer’s backpack for lenses, various filters, hookups for my job hunt, and an upcoming trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. Is it a wonder that on father’s day, I have so much to be thankful for?
I often get asked why I picked NYU. My response is usually, “well I put my finger on where my mom was on the globe, and spun it twelve hours and landed here.” When it comes to my mother, my instinct is to run. As far away as possible. But now that I’m (technically) grown up, and (will be) working it’s probably time I faced the demons of my past. Because as trite as the saying is, it’s true. When you run you’re running forever.
I can literally count the number of times my mother and I have talked while I was in college. She has the type of personality that vacillates wildly between “sincere” contrition (it probably is, for those five minutes anyway), raging fury, and boundless love. Talking to her is like trying to have a conversation with a five year old. Who is paranoid schizophrenic and has her finger on a nuclear bomb. The best you can hope for, is to come out of the ordeal still in one piece.
Having dealt with her for years, college was this golden freedom. For nine months out of the year, I didn’t have to see, think, or listen to her. As a teenager I had a good head on my shoulders and never had the desire to drink, do drugs or rebel in any form. I attribute it to my mother and the circumstances surrounding my brother and I when we were growing up. We had actual problems to deal with and didn’t care to create any more for ourselves. So when college came, I sort of just.. took off. Literally and figuratively. I struggled with moving to two different countries, finding housing as an inexperienced teenager in a foreign place, landing internships etc, and juggling my brother and my finances while abroad. It was a piece of cake compared to living at home.
Somewhere around junior year, I cut off contact with her all together. It had something to do with an incident involving a butcher knife, a contract, and my getting on a plane. It’s difficult to say whether things went downhill or no where at all, since she became virtually non-existent to me. While my life has become a lot easier since then, it’s placed an enormous strain on my brother. At times I want to shake him by the shoulders and tell him to wake up, and that our “family” is as good as it gets, and to grow a backbone. But in reality, I probably don’t give him the credit he deserves. Neither of us are cowards in our reactions to mom. I am the headstrong, come-hell-or-high-water type and he is the idealist who sees what is but hopes for what could be. There is need for both our roles and now probably time for me to shift gears to see things from his perspective.
As Sean says, there are two reasons why I shouldn’t continue my way after I have achieved a comfortable boundary with her. First, the strain it places on my brother and second, for my own sake given the culture we are in. Our culture does not take kindly to children who “abandon” their parents. Even as superficial as maintaining appearances may be, the cost of not doing so far out weighs the benefits. I care more for the former incentive rather than the second. The truth is, I have established comfortable boundaries with my mother, enough for me to achieve the things I need. Namely being able to function a normal life without too much drama and interference. Any further distancing is just.. icing.
The problem is when it comes to my mother, I fundamentally melt down. As much as I am frustrated or despise her, I have to admit that she knows what she’s doing. She knows what my buttons are, how to push them, and I keep letting her. There are two ways to deal with someone who has weapons. Either you take them away, or you get a bigger gun. When it comes to my mother, I think I need to have a dual approach. I need to figure out how not to let her get to me, and second give her no excuses.
Right now, her main grievances are that I’m “running wild” mostly because I refuse to let her “in” or keep her posted on my whereabouts and plans. Sean thinks the best course of action is for me not to give her any to complain. It is like employing a silent method to deal with someone who is determined to argue with you. Sooner or later, they run out of steam. In order to do so, I must appear well dressed, have a respectable job, and have all the veneer of respectability and ambition befitting a young woman my age. It may well be the most powerful way I can win this battle.
But how to go about figuring out what my buttons are? And more importantly, how to become immune to them? In confronting someone who knows and exploits all your weaknesses, you must know yourself better than they know you. Something I am fast beginning to realize in my demeanor with others (mother or otherwise) is that I have only two modes. Open, or closed. In or out. I have no layers, and wear my emotions on my sleeve. You can read my face like an open book.
Last night, at dinner with Sean and his friend, I began to realize this about myself. I am open about my family history, my personal life.. etc. Sean had been wanting to introduce me to his friend, who in his words, we are exactly alike. And as I conversed with her, it was eerily like looking in the mirror. We are both bubbly, like meeting new people, and probably far too open for our own good. And it occurred to me (finally) what someone meeting me might think, and to be honest, I didn’t like what I saw. Someone far too interested about spewing the details of their life rather than asking about others. Far too ready to give their opinions whether it’s wanted or not, and had little sense of when to stop talking. For the first time last night, I was asked a direct question about my relationship past and didn’t bother going into the whole story about Veer, and in fact avoided the whole thing all together. It felt a little weird, but at the same time I think I felt another “layer” grow on me.
An internet quiz:
“You are a wanderer. You constantly long for a new adventure, challenge, or eve a completely different life. You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. You feet may be on the ground, but you’re head is in the clouds. Your near future is in a very different place (both physically and mentally) from where you are right now.”
Not that I’m pretending that I take internet quizzes any more serious than I do fortune cookies, but it does coincide with my thoughts lately. For the fifth time this week, I had someone tell me that Jetsonville is just a pit stop, and that I was always meant for something.. bigger.
I wonder whether it was because I was younger, that this city seemed so huge to me. It is just as busy as I remember, but smaller in so many ways. It seems there are only the old haunts to revisit, and no more to discover. In Manhattan, there was always the outer boroughs, and if not that, then New England and the rest of America. And with friends scattered in most of the major cities, I was never left wanting for a temporary change of scenery. But here, there are only malls. Lovely and air conditioned, but at the same time fueling the same needy, grabby, wanting culture. Every nook and cranny is crammed with trinkets, which are never enough to sate one’s sense of wanting.
In New York, I was anxious and restless for change. Maybe it was the break up, or the disappointment in senior year (trying to do too much in too little time.) The world seemed so big, and I was so anxious to be a part of it.
Things in Jetsonville are starting to take off a little. I spent several hours apartment hunting yesterday and have a few prospects. It also helps that my budget is nearly twice what I had initially expected and hence, am taking the time to find a place that I can call home, and not just a place to go back to at night. I am gearing up for all the work for interviews, etc, and going about the business of re-starting life.
But all the while, I can’t shake the feeling that this place only holds so much for me. And while I could stay here for a year, maybe two.. sooner or later I would outgrow it and so I’m starting to figure out where I want to go and how to get there.
It’s funny because I guess I had the impression that once college was over, things just sort of fall into place. But this business of being an adult, the thing that separates the ones that go far and the ones that don’t are those who keep dreaming, keep planning, and keep wanting to explore.
Somewhere over the pacific, I lost myself. Whether it’s because I finally left behind too many pieces of myself in too many places, or because the aimless wandering has finally stripped my sense of direction, I woke up to find myself in a city of seven million and utterly lost.
Perhaps it is just Jetsonville. It is the Bermuda Triangle for all who are young, or like placing a magnet on even the most infallible of compasses. I don’t remember why I decided to come here. Whether it was a well thought out plan, a long-term dream or a whim. Maybe a little of all three. I’m not sure. This city is like a cyclone. Whirling activity and chaos, but the same rubbish and debris spun over and over.
I had forgotten the visceral effects of this place. The humidity that seeps in through the walls, and the smell and taste of it when you breathe. Everything seems so much smaller and crowded. There is so much of everything, and yet everyone looks the same.
I feel like a giant. Vertically and horizontally. Whereas in New York, I would be considered petite and exotic, suddenly I am a giant, far too curvy and tanned for anyone’s taste. And it’s not the language, but I forgot how difficult it feels to communicate. Because when you’re raised in the west, and have the mannerisms of the east, they look at you with a visible apprehension.
There are reasons why I chose to come back, but I’m beginning to wonder if they were the right reasons. There are a few things Sean pointed out that make me think seriously. It’s not that coming back here was a “dream” per se. It was more a realization that this is my one opportunity to be here before carrying on with the rest of my life, which is much more likely to be in the west. In Sean’s words, it’s a pit stop and I’m restless for some action.
The more time I spend here, the more I wonder if I’ll wind up settling here, or anywhere in particular. I’m not sure if I’m adventurous or just inherently unable to settle down. I feel like a massive ball of confusion, unsure of what I want and therefore, unsure of my decisions.
And yet here I am. For better or worse.
I hadn’t given much thought to what my final moments in New York would be like, but it donned upon me as I stood in my apartment with the suitcases packed and my life crammed into boxes, that there could be no better scripted farewell or the turning of a new chapter. It went a little something like this: utter madness. In the last two hours, hoards of friends showed up to loot and pillage the remainder of things I couldn’t take (and some that my roommate had left behind). I watched as my neighbor and his friend heading out for dinner, take a detour into my kitchen and march out with my microwave, a floor to ceiling bookshelf, my shoe rack, random cups and glasses, etc. The boys that originally came for a small shelf somehow wound up with all the mirrors, a tv, the stand it sat on, and moving a full-sized futon to Queens. On the subway. I stood in this impromptu apartment-givaway/farewell gathering and laughed my head off, all the while waving my hands and gleefully telling them to get all that crap out of there.
The doorbell rang and my ride was here to take me to JFK. So we spilled out into the sidewalk, the boys lugging my suitcases and me being passed around like a hot-potato for final hugs and farewells. Far be it from me to end the looting and pillaging by leaving. I handed over my keys to Keith so they could carry on as I headed to the airport, and looked outside the window at my beloved West Village and the countless memories its streets contained.
My driver was a little Pakistani man from Lahore. He spoke as they do in old black and white movies depicting British colonialism, peppered me with questions and began every answer with “yes ma’am.” I loved him a little for it. There was something so wonderfully charming and old fashioned about him. It seemed fitting that I was met him while leaving New York City, the great melting pot of society.
As flights go, mine scored maybe a 7 on the hell scale. On the plane, I swapped places with a girl so she could be with her classmates on a school trip and got an aisle seat in the back of the plane. It wasn’t too bad, save for the two screaming babies in the row in front, and the woman next to me who spilled her drink all over both our seats. I was more peeved at her boyfriend who virtually shook me awake every time he needed to get out of the row. I briefly considered making a break for it at our stopover in Vancouver, partly to be free from being trapped in the flying tin can for another 12 hours, and to find the part of myself that I had left behind there. But alas, alack. I realized that even if I could enter Canada and stay with my friends, my luggage would still be sent to Jetsonville, and so I stayed.
On long haul-flights, I feel like you are only semi-alive. You half-sleep, read, eat and watch movies in dim light, are told when to sit, when to buckle up and what to do if we’re all going to die. But clearly everything went alright, and the rest of the trip went smoothly, except for a minor hiccup at the airport when I couldn’t find a piece of luggage. “It’s black, and sword-shaped” I told the man in the maroon vest, and five minutes later I was strolling out into the big marble expanse, looking for Sean’s grin in the crowd.
It is now a little under twenty four hours since I landed, and cliche as it sounds, it all seems so surreal. As much as I love this city, I’ve forgotten how crowded, how small it is. I am strangely homesick for I’m not sure where. Whether it’s the humidity or the concrete, I find myself longing for Costa Rica, the rolling hills of Monte Verde, and the bronzed faces of smiling Ticos. Sean is perhaps the only person who could have taken the edge of all this coming and going and has been wonderful to me. We spent the conscious part of my day re-visiting old haunts and shopping for SLR cameras and shoes, because amidst the chaos of moving I had lost my runners and shipped everything but a pair of heels and flip flops. And though I am still emotionally confused and a little daunted at the apartment and job search, I think I really am glad to be back.
What I have come to realize is that when it comes to you, I have no resolve. And how can I, when the most natural thing in the world is for us to be together. The two of us, we are either soul mates or kryptonite and there is no easy way to go about figuring which of the two is right.
So I am running away. I am leaving this city, my friends, the life I have carefully built up here for three years and getting on a plane in two days. I haven’t packed, save for one box that remains to be sealed. I haven’t said my goodbyes, though I think instinctively, my friends know what I am doing. One by one, they take me out for lunch.. spend the day wandering around galleries and pontificating in coffee shops, all the things I’d much rather do with you.
I have no resolve because I hate that I am going, hate that there is no easy way out of this loop, and hate that there has always been a rider typed in fine print to our relationship. I hate the fact that I love everything about you but there is a “but.” If you were a little less ambitious, a little less romantic.. in short, a little less “you” this would be infinitely easier. Instead you are as you were the moment I fell in love with you. Passionate and a wild dreamer, but wise and steady. You are strong yet gentle, perfect but flawed enough to just be human. You hold my heart and all its hopes in the palm of your hand and offer me yours in return. Most of all, I hate that we are both trying to do the “right thing” and it is making us miserable.
And what else can I do? As hopelessly lost as I am in my feelings and desire for you, there is next to no hope for us to be together. And if this were to continue, how long before we exhaust all hope and turn on each other, looking back with regret? I have never been more bitter or angry at God and at circumstance, because I finally found the one thing my heart desires and I can’t have it.
So I am running away, with the last bit of resolve I have. And when that plane is on the runway, I hope it is able to take off with the burden of the bitterness I feel or the anguish I have felt for days. It may not carry me to new horizons, but at least it will put some thousand miles between us, before I do something stupid, like show up at your door and throw my arms around you.
Dear God, I hope that this is the right thing. I hope we can learn to be “just friends.” I hope that this is not the mistake that I will spend years regretting.
Four years ago, I started a habit. For thoughts too scandalous for me to record in a journal (or a blog) or feelings I didn’t want to admit I had, I would write on looseleaf. It seemed an appropriate medium because it seemed as fickle as my thoughts.
Clearing out various files and papers in preparation for the move, I came upon a stack of writing in the summer between my freshmen and sophomore year. It was without a doubt, the most confusing summer of my life. It was the summer I came to learn that love is not love if it comes at the expense at the one you profess to care about, and the summer in which I began the painful process of growing up. In reading what I can only remember now as the most fervent of thoughts, I realize how painfully innocent I was, and in many ways, still am. It was all too evident in my inability to assume anything but the best in people, and particularly those that I loved. I believed that any romantic interludes extended towards me must have been with the purest motives and agonized over the smallest details in our interactions.
Most amazingly, the thoughts and passions I was so ashamed to admit to, I now recognize as painfully naive and idealistic. It felt so strange to read the words of a girl much younger and much less experienced than the person I am today, and the many things I wish I could have told myself at 18. More than anything else, a part of me wants to protect the girl that I was from trusting the wrong people simply because they had invested in my life. I want to tell her that she will find infinite sources of support, and not to ignore the little voice inside her head, because wrong is wrong, no matter what age you are.
And I look at this collection neat handwriting, on the back of scrap paper in most cases, this snapshot of transitory feelings, caught in a wrinkle in time. I think about the moments in the yet-to-come, the conversations both with others and with myself. I think about the confusion, the pain, tears and blame, and I begin to forgive myself because the girl that wrote all these things, truly didn’t know any better. She was simply caught up in the belief that people are genuinely good and kind. That those who profess to love her, actually do, and at the end of the day if you are contrite enough, anything can be forgiven. She was caught up in the the airy, idealistic fantasies of love. That first anythings are always the truest and purest. It was not a stubborn refusal to believe, rather the idea that someone could be completely self-seeking just never occurred to her. More than anything else, she just didn’t see herself as the world had begun to see her.
I think about the hopes hinged upon this lost relationship, the far-off happily ever after. I think about the sincerity of my beliefs, the all-encompassing ache, and I compare it to what I experience today. There are moments in which I believe this is all a tremendous mistake. That Veer and I are more than just kindreds, but meant-to-be’s. I think about the terrible mistake I am making in packing up and moving across the planet, to chase what I think is my dream only to find that my dream is what I am leaving behind. I wonder if, another four or five years from now, another girl will want to tell the girl I am today that in the end, everything works out for the best. That this was not a mistake, and that there are some things you should never compromise on.
I wish my posts weren’t filled with so much drama, or that my writing didn’t seem to wallow in so much of it. I wish instead my journal is full of more of the things that make up who I am, or the adventures of a more interesting person. But at the moment, so much of my thoughts circle back on my relationship and I can’t seem to help that this seems like I am… pining. Perhaps this too, should be writen on looseleaf.
Dusk falls, and the city is stifling. I am restless in my apartment, where everywhere I am reminded of you. This no longer seems my home but a graveyard of memories that I am unwilling to let go of. The heat is unbearable. Logically I blame the piping, the kitchen downstairs, or even the weather. But secretly, I wonder if it is the memory of you that is seeping up from the wood floors.
I walk. Westward, if only because it takes me just a little closer, futile as it may be. The city’s constant sounds fade to a dull hum, as I face the river. There are couples everywhere. A city of twelve million people, and the only person I want is thousands of miles away. And though we have never been here together, it feels so familiar. It just fits.. you and I, taking a stroll on the Hudson on a warm summer’s night. You are everywhere in this city, in my home, and always in my thoughts.
I face the river, a small huddled silhouette. And every aching heartbeat tells me that you are hurting too. You are hurting and I am powerless. There is nothing I can do to comfort you, not when I am your hurt and you are mine.
