Windows

There is that phrase that eyes are the windows to one's soul. I open them to allow my thoughts to escape. I close them to contain myself and keep it all together. I take in the words on a page to allow my thoughts to blend with that of the author, so to not feel so alone. I expel words to permanently tack my thoughts down to stop their pestering. And when I cannot find the words, the pressure forces out teardrops to leave on the page. I look into the eyes of another to see what I want to see - that he understands.

It explains why I have difficulty keeping them closed to fall asleep at night. They keep snapping open to release the crowded thoughts within. I am relieved I have them to open and close as I please. I wonder sometimes whether they become weary from the traffic they must contain or reveal. They inevitably become worn and laced with fine wrinkles and creases as the years go by. The creases remind me of the thoughts that have trespassed through this little mind and the words that were transcribed.

Magic

I wonder if trips will ever stop feeling like this: so unbearably, unrealistically intense. It somehow feels even theatrical, with a distinct beginning, middle, and end that have always meant to be. The encapsulation of what transpired into the boundaries of space and time somehow relieves it from the chaos to which I’m accustomed, as the covers of a book relieves the words on the pages. And of course, I am left again with the sadness that nothing will ever happen again in just the way it did within this story. I have a hard time believing and not believing that it was all as magical to everyone as it was to me. I suppose if I have learned anything in life it’s that it is filled with unilateral magic.

There’s nothing like traveling just to see friends. I was passed this time from one to another, like a series of trust falls without ever touching the ground in between. I’m inevitably impressed by their capacity to take care of me and absorb me into their life for just a little while. The exercise has completed its task: I trust them more than ever now. It gives me the false illusion that San Francisco is filled with nothing but warmth, friendship and good times.

A certain phrase danced at the tip of my tongue over the past few days, and it was a movingly awkward line delivered by none other than Hugh Grant in the movie Notting Hill. After Julia Roberts had spent the night, woke up terrorized by the paparazzi, and stormed out screaming at him for ruining her career, he said quietly, in that Hugh Grant sort of way: "I on the other hand will always be glad that you came to stay for a while."

Classic unilateral magic…or so it seemed at the time.

Cows and wives

I read in an article in the NY Times today that in the Sindh Province of Pakistan, there is a saying that goes: "If your cow dies, that is a tragedy; if your wife dies, you can always get another." I have to admit that this made me feel a little more sorry for myself. Despite the cultural distance between upper Manhattan and the Middle East, somehow the meaning of the word "wife" to me became a bit heavier and flimsier. Will "wife" mean walking alongside my best friend for the rest of my life or being a vessel of procreating robust offspring? Does being chosen as "wife" mean that we are destined to fuse in spirit or that I am just the most attractive available specimen of the lot for now? As "wife," will I be just as unique and strong as I am when I am just myself, or will I become the generic, disposable, easily replaceable character in another man's play?

Of course, like all answers, this answer is somewhere in the middle. But somehow, this one is a bit more difficult for me to reconcile. To reconcile seems to entail being persistently disappointed that I have neither found the magical scintillating vision of love I have always pined for, nor attained the high state of wisdom to recognize that such a vision could never be realized in this tragic world of ours. I would be forever stuck in limbo between hoping and giving up. It is like the pain of not knowing whether there is a God or not and watching myself shift from one side to the other depending on which side is more convenient at the time.

So then perhaps the definition of "wife," like the belief in God, is simply again just a conscious choice: a choice that annoyingly cannot be made based on the outcome of where that choice might take me as I will never know that outcome until I have already chosen. Everyone has their opinion of course, and everyone will speculate about which is ultimately the right answer, but they are just as reliable as their debates on the existence of God. Whatever I choose, I risk being alone and disappointed. But I suppose the good news with a choice like this one is that I'll never risk being wrong - or right for that matter.

I've noticed I always like to end these posts with having come to a conclusion of sorts. I unfortunately have to break that tradition this time if I want to stay honest. I confess I'm still too afraid to make a decision on this point, fearing what it might mean for my fragile future happiness. So there it is, my first incomplete blog post - suggestions on the ending are welcome.

Heroes

I remember when I didn't have to tell myself it was unreasonable to be so excited that we were going to have my favorite flavor of ice cream, to be so disappointed that we couldn't play my favorite game after all, to be so sad that everyone would be leaving the party so soon, or to forget so quickly that the world was perfect/going to end just a moment ago. It was a time when things were so much more colorful, a time when really, anything - the best and the worst - was possible. In them I see all this: the child I once was, and the child I'm still trying to become.

The Girl

I went to the courthouse the other day for the first time in my life. I was shuffled in to a courtroom with two dozen pews quite full of people. I looked around the room of course to check out who else was in the miserable state of irony that I was in, having been charged with a ticket for riding my bike on the sidewalk two blocks down from my boyfriend's apartment.

They were mostly young men of color, except a girl sitting across the room who caught my eye. She wore a white dress with short sleeves, pretty plain actually. Her hair was black and neatly pinned in a pony tail and a strand of delicate pearls hung around her neck. She kept her head down so it was difficult to see her face. She appeared deeply emerged in the book she was reading, possibly too emerged for it to have been truly of genuine interest. She looked up once in a while to scan the faces around her and then for a moment she appeared at a loss of what to do with herself, before opening her book again to duck back into her camouflage of literary engagement.

A police officer announced a few names. A few of the men responded and walked up to the podium, took some pieces of paper and walked out of the courtroom. I looked back at the girl to see whether she would respond to things happening like normal people do. She was looking up alright, her book still held open by her thumb, the binding sitting snugly between her thighs. The others in the room went back to staring at their feet, quieting their children, and playing with the paper slips we were given to sign, but she continued staring straight ahead. The cop walked to the side of the room, but her gaze didn't budge. I couldn't stop staring at that point, not until I figured out what was captivating her.

Suddenly, her head dropped, breaking the spell, but something else fell onto her lap. She brushed her eyes with the back of her hand and I realized that of course, it was tears. Tears. Surrounded by benches full of anxious people fondling pieces of paper. She was lost in her tears. Tears that obviously had nothing to do with her petty crime and reason for being here or her silly book, tears that obviously could not be understood by anyone sitting in this room, tears that she is completely and utterly alone with for the indefinite time that we will all be stuck here. For what felt like several hours, I stared at her in pity.

And then, a man walked into the aisle beside her and broke my view. He was an older man, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts like most others in the room, not particularly attractive, with a small protruding belly. He reached out his hand, looked straight at her blotchy face, smeared with her hopeless tears, and smiling, introduced himself as if it was the most natural thing in the world to chat up the only person crying in a room full of people. She appeared shocked for only a split second after which she smiled back. He talked to her. She talked back. A few minutes went by and her tears have dried. They were chuckling now. The officer hushed the room to be quiet. She smiled at the man and returned to reading her book, not as engaged as she appeared before, but more convincingly so. He had saved her somehow.

Clinical Equipoise

We discussed the concept today. Definition of equipoise

The state in which there is no clear knowledge of the answer to a question. I find myself resting in this state for most of my life about many questions, like does God exist? Do I give dollar bills to street performers? Is it better to read the Times or a Pulitzer Prize winning novel?

A professor told us today that watchful waiting is often the wisest decision for these times. Wait for the next big randomized control trial to confirm the last, for a trial even bigger and well-designed than the ones before.

Then there are those moments when I finally do decide: Yes, I WILL give dollar bills (but not five's) to street performers and the homeless, but only when they seem to me at first glance as 'good' people; Yes, reading the Times IS better than reading a novel, but only on Fri, Sat, Sun when I get my Weekender on my doorstep; Yes, there IS a God!

I have to say these are moments worth celebrating, the endings of a dark yet wonderfully confused time full of possibilities. With each of these moments I feel a bit older, more chiseled and hardened. It's relieving to finally stand for something. Although it's hard to attribute these moments to randomized controlled trials at all, or even to personal experience. Perhaps they were the product of my impatience at being young and malleable, although I hope it was more magical than that.

More likely I decided when I was finally cornered by circumstances: when faced with street performers 3-4 times a day, when faced with the choice of reading material on every subway ride, when overhearing discussions about God and the lack thereof over beers and martinis one too many times. I like that feeling though, of only deciding when forced to. It's a bit like being shoved into the role of a leader not because I chose it, but because it chose me. Yes, to be chosen by my choices. In some ways that's the only way I would be convinced my choices were right. How else could I be justified in breaking clinical equipoise without randomized controlled trials?

One day I will miss the darkness of this state of questioning. It is, after all, the realm I was always drawn to: the frontiers of knowledge that the annoyingly bright headlights of science have not yet penetrated. But I suppose my choices, even after they're made, unlike science - or like science for that matter, sheds no additional light into these beautiful chasms at all. It's comforting to know that the darkness will always be there, and that all I will ever do is to paint my own stars within it.

The Heights

Yes, I live there now. A place called Washington Heights. It is what most people call the borderless area between about 145 and 190th streets on the west side of Manhattan - what I've started to call 'nosebleed' section of the city - because they're the parts so far north that some people cringe when they hear that you live there and immediately hope that you could eventually afford to move to some place more sensible like the upper west side or the lower east side. Here in 'the Heights' liquids of various smells and colors run in the grooves between the concrete blocks that piece together the sidewalks, so I step carefully. There are piragua carts and fruit stands selling pineapple and mangoes on sticks at many a street corner.
what is piragua
Even the Indian pharmacist who works at the drug store and the Chinese man who runs the take-out place speak a few phrases of Spanish out of necessity. Boys, girls, men, women, and elderly sit along the wall lining Riverside Drive and on the doorsteps of the apartment buildings or bodegas on sunny afternoons commenting on the people passing by, namely the women. The clothing cling brightly and tightly to their full and rounded bodies, behaving perfectly as they claim the streets beneath their stilletos and platforms with their confident swagger, featuring the tantalizing sway of their ever-so-distracting hips. They stare, I stare, everyone stops to stare. These pauses make up the natural syncopation in the passing of the days around here. The streets are always alive with chatter, occasional yelling, and the beats of bachata, reggaeton, salsa, or merengue blasting out of wide open apartment windows or sedans parked along the side of the street around which young and older men hover.

I am unfortunately still an outsider here. I give the occasional apprehensive smile in answer to 'oye, chica.' I wonder just how out of place I appear. I attempt to emulate the commanding strut that even the ten year old girl appears to possess and wonder if I could ever be successful at owning these streets like they do. I am humbled, no - outright intimidated by the connectedness the residents seem to have to the place, how well they know each street corner and lottery ticket vendor. I believe it may take a lifetime, or several, to build up that kind of bond. These days, I take joy in the smallest of victories, like finding out which subway exit to climb out of to place me at the optimal street corner, finding the absolute closest bodega to my apartment in the case of an emergency when I'd be out of toilet paper, and learning to tell from the sound of the cables which floor the elevator is on and whether it would be more prudent to take the stairs. I may never be a Dominicana, but I suppose I will enjoy the steep learning curve for now.

Bitten

Einstein, my hamster, bit me today. I was trying to get him to crawl into his exercise ball and he wasn't moving, so I grabbed him. He turned his neck around immediately upon contact and stuck his two front teeth into my index finger. I felt a surge of animalistic rage at being physically attacked. This was followed by a more civilized sense of guilt, hurt, and disappointment that my pet has turned against me. I'm sure I will feel this same sequence of emotions with my children one day.

In the future, I shall 'herd' him as prescribed here:
http://exoticpets.about.com/od/hamsters/f/hamsterbiting.htm

On Blogging

I always ask myself these days who I am writing to here. I ask because I write here so much more often than I have in my journals since the time I was thirteen. I check the counter on my blog compulsively, to see if he who I'm writing to has seen what I've left for him. I hope relentlessly that this may just be the day that he has decided to write back a 'new comment.'

If I could describe 'him,' I suppose he would be my perfect friend...that imaginary friend some of us may have had at one time. The one who always listened, understood, was thirsty to hear more, loved me not just despite but for my faults, etc, etc...

There is a filter that comes with writing here. I'm sure there is an unofficial bible of what is 'bloggable' and what isn't already posted on the web. Actually, http://www.tipjunkie.com/2008/05/blog-etiquette-or-blogtiquette.html.

It's a fascinating medium actually, something apparently so honest and raw, yet possibly deceivingly so. It is, after all, for my best friend whose opinion I treasure deeply. I want him to know the real me, yet I want so badly for him to keep loving me the way I imagine he does.

The Metro

One of my favorite activities here in NYC is to sit on the subway by a window and stare out at the passing stations, columns, flickers of light between the columns, people waiting with their hands in their pockets or on their iphones...I think of how many times this path in the ground has been taken, by how many forms of life, in how many situations and for how many purposes. I think of how many stories I pass by, how many dreams are being dreamt alongside the bright yellow paint lined gutters, how many songs are being heard through white budded strings. It is all too familiar: that alternating light and darkness streaked by the speed of time over the damp image of a man standing still at the side of the rails, looking in the direction of the train he awaits. It is a typical photograph, or scene from a movie. It had been archived into my library of emotion-soaked visions before, but it is now real, everyday. But what's more, I am now part of it.