The Friendly Ghost

It seems this week my past has come back to haunt me. But it’s more Casper, less Poltergeist.

Right after E. broke up with me, way back in 2004, I started hanging out with new friends. Guy friends. It was nice to be surrounded by testosterone but in a non-threatening way. It made me feel relaxed, like I could finally figure out who I was unattached. This new group of guys also introduced me to JB.

JB was attractive to me in all the ways that E was not. He was 6 years older, about to go to NYU for graduate school, funny in the most sarcastic way, and so comfortable being one of the guys. He heard I had a crush on him and started sending me instant messages. He was sweet. When I got into NYU for undergrad, he was so excited for me. “You can come over and we can do our respective homework together,” he said. He was six months ahead of me getting to New York.

By the time I got there, he had met someone.

We’d chat every once in awhile online about everything from politics to new music (did I mention he was born in Seattle?) and then one day he deleted his AIM account. And then his Facebook profile was gone. It was 2005 and our mildly flirtatious friendship was over.

Cut to today. July 2010. Five years later.

Hey Lauren,

It appears I reactivated my Facebook account just in time for your birthday. Happy Birthday!

How's life? What's new?

JB

Hello, Casper. Nice to see you again.

Packing

T-shirts. Jeans. Pajamas. Dressy tops. Socks. Dresses. Skirts. Jackets. Purses. The piles grow higher as I sort through everything. The bags are open on the floor, empty, waiting for my life to be filled into them. These tights have seen their last days, I decide, adding them to the pile of "to-gos" on the floor. Those shoes have served me well too, but unfortunately they too must go.

I find the corners of my mouth drooping silently. I fold up shirts and socks.
I find my eyes getting heavy. I place a pair of jeans on top.
I find myself sitting there staring. I handle a soft dress delicately.
I shake my head. These bags have got to be packed.

My photographs come out of their frames and into a notebook for safekeeping. The cards that lined my shelf in the living room get tucked away as well.

I make a list: pick up dress, buy macarons and chocolate and cheese, mail my box of things that won't fit, buy a book for the plane.

I sit on the sofa then, suddenly tired.

I pad over to the desk where D is studying for his exam. I kiss his shoulder. I shake my head when he looks up. I wish this hug would never end.

My bright orange living room smiles at me reassuringly. You'll be back, it seems to say. But not to live - at least not soon, I cry back. And silence.

I don't have any music as I pack. I find it makes me too sad. The happy upbeat tunes seem out of place and the melancholy ones feed into my mood too much. Me and my thoughts, then, folding, placing, stuffing, closing.

My bags are almost filled. And yet somehow my life seems to be flitting around, evading my reaching hands, refusing to be packed away just yet. Come on, I say. We've got places to go. We'll do brilliant things and have some fun. It's been a good ride, I think to myself. I just wish it didn't have to end just yet. I know exciting things await, but. Some part of me, it's here to stay.

Before Sunrise, Before Sunset

I carry you / You'll carry me / That's how it could be / Don't you know me? / Don't you know me by now?

By no means am I film critic. However, that does not mean that I do not have discerning taste, because I do. I much prefer a low budget, critic's darling to an over the top Hollywood spectacle (though certain superhero movies are an exception). Eyes roll whenever I casually mention an obscure foreign gem or say I haven't seen a universally deemed "classic." But, all of the above notwithstanding, I love a good movie. And I absolutely love Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.*

In Before Sunrise (1995), Jesse meets Celine on a train from Budapest. He spontaneously asks her to get off the train in Vienna (she was supposed to continue to Paris) and spend the afternoon/evening/night with him, since he will be on a flight back to the States in the morning. To their surprise, she agrees. Unsurprisingly, it's totally awkward at first - neither knows what to say to the other - but during the course of the night, they say it all. They have those intelligent but entirely nonsensical conversations about life and death, love and heartbreak that you have with your closest friends. They shop for records, watch street performers, play pinball, drink beers, and kiss. It's both realistic and idealized, in the sense that, should you meet someone in such a way, you'd hope for the same. (At least I would.) What makes the film so charming, though, is that it manages to capture the innocence and spirit of their nascent love without schmaltz.

They meet again in Paris in Before Sunset (2004). I won't reveal under what circumstances, but let's just say much has changed in nine years. He has to leave, again, for a flight to the States, so they decide to walk around the city for an hour or so (the film takes place in real time). At the beginning, they exchange pleasantries, but as the day wears on, they delve into the heavy stuff - fate and circumstances, successes and failures. Since you know these characters, it's neither too melodramatic nor too burdensome. For lack of a better word, like Before Sunrise, it seems real. That being said, the ending always makes me cry.

Out of happiness or sadness? Watch and find out.

*Be warned! What follows may include some spoilers. Now, I won't divulge everything, but maybe just enough to compel you to (re)watch the movies.

A Sweater

It was chilly. I pulled down the sleeves of my sweater and gripped onto the ends. Hugging myself for extra warmth, I brushed my cheek on the cashmere. With that small action, I was transported.

It was the Monday after Thanksgiving break my junior year of college, and I couldn't sit still. When would this infernal class end? Didn't my professor realize that that morning, filled with nervous excitement, I had picked out an especially cute outfit? That mi amor and I had spent four whole days apart? That I could burst with missing him? After what seemed like eons, it was time. In his hat and this sweater, a new purchase from a department store sale at home, I rushed over to the coffee shop. There he was in a similar hat (after all, he had given me his for a reason and we both agreed it looked better on me anyway) and cashmere sweater. I edged past the line, and he left his post behind the counter. Happiness restored. In the softness of the wool and the tenderness of our new love, the world fell away.

And in the conference room this morning, my eyes welled up at the memory.

Missing the mark

I've tried writing this blog post about three times already. Every time, words have failed me; or I them. At times I am too bitter, at times too whiney, at times it just seems like a rant. At times I am too chipper, I turn something impactful into a quick joke with a turn of a phrase, I gloss over the parts that I think will make me sound bitter. And I struggle to strike that balance between reality, emotion, and the perspective that time creates. It isn't just for a blog post. I've tried to write about it before, just to clear my mind, just to take that experience, that weight, that package out of my heart and unwrap it onto paper or a screen. But maybe it hasn't been long enough. Maybe it's one of those things that makes a chapter in a memoir, sixty years after the fact. Maybe it's because I didn't write about it at the time itself. Too much distance? Too little distance? Who knows. What I do know is that if I try to write about the experience I cannot even think of a title. "Moving" or "Middle School and High School" or "The Immigrant Experience" or "New Kid on the Block" or "The Wonder Years." See, even now I resort to gimmicky references to bygone pop culture to push under the rug something I still don't understand myself but that has been such a large part of my still-short life story, and one that has been so impactful as well.

Friends have asked:
- Was it difficult for you, to move to a new place, a different country, at that age?
And I give my much practiced and much perfected answer with just hints of hestitation thrown in here and there at exactly the right moment to give the effect of a spur of the moment spontaneous response:
- Yea sure, I mean, I don't know. It's difficult at first, ya know, you're leaving all of your friends and stuff. And I went to an all girls' school! Imagine being thrown into a middle school with boys! Even girls who'd been in co-ed school all along didn't know what to do with that! But I mean, you know, you make friends, you learn the culture, you find your niche, and suddenly it's like you're a part of it. So yea, it's kind of tough, but it teaches you a lot about adapting to a new environment, ya know? And then you're fine.

Every time I say it a little part of me mocks myself. Didn't I cringe when my parents would say "Oh kids adjust so quickly"? Didn't I want to scream "No! They don't! It's as tough as raw leather!"?

But isn't this the answer that works the best? Do I really want to go into how I didn't know what "Billabong" was? Do I really want to talk about how I stopped wearing skirts because all the other girls shaved their legs? Do I really want to explain the embarassment of having a guy ask you out in awkward twelve-year-old fashion and not knowing how to respond because a) I was twelve and b) about 90% of my interactions with the human species were of the female variety and c) why were people thinking about dating, hadn't I been more interested in barbies until last week? Do I want to go into an explanation of how much effort it took to be able to look into the mirror and see a friend, and not someone to hide? The answer is a resounding no. And so I fall back on my practiced pauses, the little smirk here, and sympathetic sigh there.

And there you are. That response, just like this blog post, misses the mark. Somehow I can't get to the story. The real story. The unshaven legs and the unfashionable clothes story. The smelling like Indian food and not having perpetually shiny bouncy smooth hair story. The tears in the dark and the comfort in books story. The resentment and the anger story. The not thinking dating was normal in middle school story. The realization and the adaptation story. The first awkward friendship and the friendship with myself story. The growing up story.

Perhaps it takes more growing up to write about growing up. Perhaps it isn't just my story, but the story of every girl who ever went to middle school and high school. For now the practiced little speech stands me in good stead. For now maybe it suffices to be able to think back and not cringe, to be comfortable in my own skin.

Carrying the Weight of the World

"The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it." -Mignon McLaughlin

I’ve been called negative before. A cruel jerk in middle school used to call me Daria. Occasionally I blame my parents for my glass-half-empty outlook, having grown up hearing things like, “If you keep your expectations low, you’ll never be disappointed,” “hope for the best but expect the worst,” and after a hopeful statement, “Don’t jinx it!”

So I have kept my expectations low for a lot of things, and you know what? I’ve still been disappointed. And the disappointments accumulate like a snow drift, piling on top of me, so hard and so heavy that sometimes I can’t breathe. I carry the burden with me like a pack, referencing past heartaches as reasons why I am so pessimistic now. I’m allowed to feel wounded because I am wounded.

So is it better to always hope for the best and expect things to turn out well, even if there’s a good chance they won’t? Is it better to raise up our voices in optimism and shout out what we hope will happen, regardless if fate hears it and then deems it false? I don’t know if happiness and optimism are connected. In my reassembled little heart, they never have been. But I’ve been thinking about beginning my own personal Year of Yes.

Huzzah

I just submitted my first (of six) grad school applications a few moments ago, and so, here are the openers to the personal statements that will never be (and one that was)... enjoy?

My grandmother is the most beautiful woman in the world. She is particularly luminous in a photo from 1961. Her wavy short brown hair is pinned back to reveal chunky gold hoop earrings, her makeup impeccable. Surrounded by her three young children with a baby in her arms, she wears a sleeveless white top and a skirt dotted with stars and moons flows around her. Her legs are crossed at the knee with towering white peep-toe pumps at her feet. This photo was taken in Kabul, Afghanistan.


One tugged at my arm to show me her schoolbooks, another pulled me in the direction of her dolls. Each wanted to exhibit her treasured object. "Didi didi! (Sister sister!)" the girls called after me, mischievous eyes twinkling. We played hand clap games and peekaboo and munched on biscuits. A fidgety group stood up to sing a nursery rhyme in English, perfectly, and all giggled at my Hindi accent. Some were former street children, some were turned over by parents who could no longer support them, and yet at Udaan Ghar, a shelter home for street girls just outside of Mumbai, everyone was family, including me, the visitor from abroad.


Over the past five years, each kid has left his or her mark on me. A quirk, a gesture, a surprise gift.

EJ lacks the coordination to carry his lunch tray and open door to the library simultaneously. He knows an awful lot about transportation systems for a third grader, shreds ketchup packets, and throws his arm around me whenever I'm particularly animated while reading to him. Edvin, the Energizer Bunny, liked to be chased. We built flying Lego monstrosities, and each tried to shoot the other's spaceship down. Our down time had me judging his singing abilities a la American Idol. Emmanuel often played me inappropriate hip hop ringtones on his cell phone. We fought epic Connect Four battles, him chanting, "I'm gonna win you!" and me correcting, "No, you're going to beat me." For Valentine's Day, I brought him his favorite candy and iced tea, and the following week, he gifted me with a chocolate Easter bunny. The only girl, Chelsea, had the smallest voice. After the requisite homework help hour, her face would light up for arts and crafts. I pulled out everything I could remember from grade school: stencils, paper bag puppets, construction paper cutouts, and I always left our sessions with a token from her.


He didn't answer my question. Although, it was to be expected.

The "he" in question was a lieutenant general at the German Ministry of Defense who gave a group of American Marshall Memorial Fellows a talk about the German effort in Afghanistan. Despite my staff status, after all this discussion was not intended for me, I piped up during a lull in the question-answer round. I made the comparison between a divided Germany post-World War II and a currently segmented Afghanistan. Japan, solely occupied by the United States, has proved itself to be a great power in the region and in the world, while parts of east Germany still struggle with development-related issues. Given the recent discussion in the news about an "Americanization" of the Afghan war, what was his opinion on the future of the country?

Little Bit

I haven't heard from the Hungarian in four days.

I'm a touch sad.

Joy and Pain

This totally made me cry at my desk just now.

Blast from the Past

"You look absolutely gorgeous in all of your shots from S's graduation. I can't wait to take you places come fall so that others will think I did something admirable to have you next to me."

Meet B.

We held hands through middle school hallways and fought when high school came around. I asked him to Sadie Hawkins my junior year. He invited me to his school play. B- the last boy I kissed before I packed up my bags for New York.

Flash forward four years, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, senior year of college. Our eyes locked across the bar, and the room disappeared. We separated from the crowd and grinned over a drink. What followed was a delirious bit of youthful indiscretion better known as a serious make-out session in the parking lot. I still laugh at the thought of it. And I kick myself.

I call him Flaky B to his face, because he is both impossibly charming and unbelievably frustrating. He distances himself when you take interest, making plans but never following through. He reasons it's one part selfishness, one part insecurity, one part unconcern, one part genuine forgetfulness. It's beyond inexcusable but... we have history, on top of the little fact that I actually like the kid, and so I forgive him each and every time, even when I put up a fight.

Two sentences from him (sent from continents away, I should add) make me giddy, and I love and hate him for it. It just might be masochism, knowingly setting myself up for disappointment, but after ten years, ruefully, I don't know any other way.

A hug. A kiss.

I no longer remember being able to give him a big bear hug, though I know I once did. However, as I throw back my memory as far as it will go, at least I remember being able to give him a proper hug. Maybe not the jump on you and get lifted up into the air kind, but at least a solid, proper hug - one where your hearts meet for an instant, where for a moment the world is no longer a scary place, where you know there is something, someone, solid, to anchor you.

I was in the habit of randomly giving him a hug or a kiss on my month-long summer vacation visits. An outpouring of affection that was meant to make up for the rest of the year when I would be across an ocean and out of hugging distance. I still remember the soft skin of his cheeks, the stubble that was all white. He stopped going out too much because it was exhausting, and so he would walk around the flat. Thankfully it was large so going from one end to the other about ten times, especially when you're walking pretty slowly, took up some time and was enough exercise. I would walk with him sometimes. Other times I would be reading a book in a chair in the sunlight and every time he would pass he would lay a hand on my head or exchange a comment about my book.

One day I was just getting up to get another book from the cupboard that houses books that have belonged, at one time or another, to some member of the past three generations of my family. Our paths crossed, and I reached out to give him a hug. A sick sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I felt him falter. A fear in his heart, a fear in mine. I retained my balance and he regained his. And I went and got another book, and he continued his back and forth.

Since that day my hugs became gentler. I warned him that I was putting my arm around him by saying a random 'Hi' a moment before I slipped my arm through his. I cuddled up to him when he was sitting on the sofa. When we hugged, he was not the one pulling me in, I was the one supporting him.

And then came the day that I saw him wince as I gingerly leaned over the side of his hospital bed to brush my lips against his cheek. Even the slightest movement of raising his head to receive my kiss required more effort than his emaciated body could summon. Since that day I held his hand, wishing, wanting, to somehow make my own life flow into him. My hands were warm, his were habitually cool and dry. The pulsing heat that quickened my blood didn't make it past my hands into his, past my heart into his.

I remember the last time I kissed him. Cool, dry, like soft thin silky paper, his skin stretched across his face, his cheeks, his forehead. I can feel, distinctly, his hands in mine. The memory of the countless times I have held them does not fade from my palms. I feel his earlobe still in my fingers. As a child I had a habit of holding on to it whenever I would sit in his lap. I don't feel his skin against my lips as I recall that last kiss. He had already left by then. There was nothing to feel.

"Whatchu thinkin' about?"
I looked at D, startled. He had been telling me about how he is going to visit his grandparents in a month or so, and I had fallen silent, leaning my head against the car window.
"So how long will you be there? That should be fun!"
I didn't want to start bawling in the car.

Not so secret

I read a blog post today on one of the random silly websites that I would never really own up to reading but that sometimes make me think about interesting things. This blogger asked: can you sum up love in six words? A modified haiku, shorter perhaps because of the breadth and depth of the topic at hand – love. Readers had posted some responses – some were hilarious, some were sad, all were wonderful.

This also reminded me of a book I recently received as a gift – A lifetime of Secrets. Frank Warren, the author, started up a website where you can send in your secrets and he will post them up for you. Because of the power of anonymity, everyone who sends in their secrets is starkly, painfully, horridly, beautifully truthful. A woman who knows her lover is having an affair, a man thanking a teacher who saved him from molestation, people’s fantasies, their desires, their dreams, their fears, their truths. Catharsis.

So I thought to combine the two and write down some secrets or just some thoughts in six words each. Of course I am not, after all, anonymously posting on someone else’s blog or writing an anonymous postcard. Perhaps not completely catharsis. But still, something.

• When I’m with you I’m happy.
• I see through you. Won’t tell.
• You’re not funny but I laugh.
• Will you be at my wedding?
• She used to smile. He died.
• I’ll always be in your life.
• I am not exotic. Just me.
• You were beautiful; now only thin.
• Thin paper stretched over dead wood.
• The only one with sparkling eyes.
• I really truly laugh with you.
• Since when do you smoke? Why?
• He liked the idea of me.
• I wish you had lived longer.

In the cracks of the pavement

It was about three years ago that I was walking along somewhere between Little Italy and Soho with a couple of friends. He held her hand, she and I murmured a few disconnected lines here and there, he cracked a joke, we chuckled. It was a crisp autumn evening, warm enough that I was wearing sandals, but just cool enough for a light jacket. I was cozy in that comfortable peace. We were walking by all of these restaurants filled with people who seemed hell bent on having the merriest night of their lives. The lights were extra sparkly, their laughter extra tinkly. It was the kind of evening that comes around once in a while when everything is light and airy and possible. You could run into that knight in shining armor around the corner – and he’d be wearing a light sweater and carrying a jacket which he could proffer for your use if you happened to catch a breeze and get goosebumps on your arms.

And my heel got stuck in the pavement.

There I was, stuck, in the midst of all this possibility. That knight in shining armor probably took a cab and went home without ever having the chance to offer me his jacket. The laughter suddenly seemed as if it was either too far away or too close, mocking me. The lights were now too dim for me to see as I struggled to get my sandal unstuck.

I got it free and hopped once, twice, steady. My friends were waiting for me and we strolled off again. That little stroke of reality lingered on but possibilities enveloped me once more.

I must remember this.

The Ex Factor

The Divine Mrs. V

I am always confused by how I'm supposed to feel about the past... nostalgia? To quote Diana Vreeland:

"I loathe nostalgia."

Who wants to look back on the past fondly? Not I. I got a text message the other day from The X: "Just drove by the dance studio and thought of you. I'll be in NY in a few weeks. Will you be around?" The sight of his phone number on my cell phone makes my stomach turn a little and a statement like that makes the bile rise in my throat. Of course I'll be around. I live here. Do I want to see you? No. Not even a little. Okay... maybe a little.

Maybe it isn't the past that gets me. It's the feelings that the people in my past dredge up. There is a need to impress, a desire to achieve a reaction. I'm doing better than you thought I'd be doing, right? I'm better off without you. Is that what life is? Of course we hope we're happy but what we really want is to prove to all the nay-sayers that we could make it. Look at me now!

Sometimes I think I'm not trying to prove it to The X. I'm trying to prove it to myself. Sure, I was happy with you, but now I'm happier. You didn't break me. I'm better now than I've ever been... better than I was with you.

"Hey -- I'll be in Dublin from the 10 to the 17 [LOOK AT ME! GOING ON VACATION! LIAISING WITH ATTRACTIVE EUROPEAN MEN!] but after that I'll be here." Part of me prays hard. The same part of a woman that prays she won't find cheesecake on the menu because she knows she'll cave in and order it.

"Great! I'll give you a call when I'm in town. Have fun on the green isle!" And because I was angry at him for visiting, for breaking my heart a hundred years ago, and for getting the name of my beloved home wrong, I shouted out loud in my empty little stark apartment.

"The EMERALD isle, you idiot! EMERALD."

Maybe I'll pretend I'm out of town that day anyway. Because I might not be Diana Vreeland, but I loathe nostalgia, too.