Fast forward, I’m standing still

I’m excited about never ending coffees with always present friends at never changing cafes.

I’m excited about pork, pork, pork and a little bit of turkey. I’m excited about aquavit, which makes me retch, but its still Christmas.  

I’m excited about Norwegian chinese food, Norwegian Italian style salads .. and simply Norwegian food. 

I’m excited about paying $10 to rent a movie, and to do it every night. I’m excited to spend an hour at the video shop trying to all agree.

I’m excited for Trivial Pursuit, Passport and Kortskalle. I’m excited about sitting in her couch and smoking all the cigarettes I haven’t smoked so far this year.

I’m excited about performing Hajj to the windy beaches, my Mecca, to the mountains, my Medina. 

.. and mostly I’m excited to return to New York in the New Year.

He might not bring you flowers or call you everyday, maybe he doesnt even tell you that you’re beautiful.

But when he automatically puts out his hand so you can spit your olive pits in it ..

That’s suddenly all you need.  

We are in the same room, and he approaches me. An awkward scenario I had dreaded for a long, long time. When imagining it, I looked him in the eye and turned away. When it happens, I smile and stay.

He is uncomfortable with the decision, but determined. He has made a decision. And he holds me. In the absence of something better, something certain, I enjoy it, yeah, I welcome it.  Suddenly we are somewhere else, all alone. And he cries. Perhaps I am flattered by it, or just surprised, maybe that is why I am so happy in this situation. He is lying down, and I sit next to him as he cries and makes no attempt to hide it. The apology is so sincere and so unexpected, so full of remorse and shame. "I can’t believe I did that to you. I can’t believe I said those things. I can’t believe it was me that sat by and watched it happen." He wipes his tears and its my turn to hold him. And I don’t care. The apology is magic, the tears on my skin a serum that cools my hate for him and all things associated with him. A potion for forgiveness? A love potion? Or simply a potion to cure the loneliness? Somehow it’s okay to forget about cruelness and welcome a familiar body that wants to hold you.

And me? I can’t believe I am happy. I can’t believe that I betrayed all principles, all pride and all good sense for a stream of tears.

So I woke up disgusted. I wanted to spit every remnant of his memory out on the floor. Then I saw that I was here. In my bed. By myself, and the only person I’d let down was my feverridden unconscious self. Still, a wake up call and a warning of unlikely future events. In every kind of way.

 

To me, some things only happen in the movies. Even simple things. Perhaps some things are just American, and thus can’t happen in Norway. A lot of these things relate to romance ..

A few things repeat themselves. One of them, ice skating.
I went ice skating with my friends today in Bryant Park. In the dark. It was freezing outside but the rink was lit up and music was playing. And I kept thinking I should have been there with a boy. One of us should have been really bad at skating, and we’d be holding hands. And I’d twirl and swirl towards him and we’d kiss. Because that’s how they do it in the movies.

Another one is painting. Painting always leads to sex, that we know. A little splash here, a dash there, and suddenly you find your face covered in paint and the next thing you know you’re making out with a really cute boy. Because that’s how they do it in the movies.  

Oh, and when you’re standing under a lamp post and the first snow flakes fall.

People always claim that spring is the season for romance and falling in love, but I think I prefer the winter. When everyone is covered up and huddle close together, when the mystery remains, when the weather plays tricks on you and the unexpected happens. And .. when its too cold to go outside so days and days can be spent in bed, with coffee and newspapers. I might curse the cold in the mornings, but .. Winter ain’t that bad.

 

 

Last night I had a surprising dream. It was me, quite clearly, living with an Indian family, a large family. With my Indian husband and our newborn. There were new parents, new brothers and sisters, their partners and children. All living under one roof.

It sounds like a nightmare, to me.

But I loved it. I loved being surrounded by all the people, I loved helping my mother-in-law cook dinner, seeing my daughter’s cousins take care of her .. I loved caring for so many people and not just myself. Privacy was not an issue - I didn’t need it. I had everything I desired, and I was entirely content.

My first thought when I woke up was that the wretched Devdas had jumped from my computer screen during the course of the night and that his not-quite-that-handsome black-and-white-and-very-thickbrowed features had somehow poisened the mind of this individual-centred feminist, that he had triggered in me some need to be subservient, to wish for a place at his feet. But while Paro is an idiot, I am not.

Instead, I return, as usual, to the so often recurring question; what would my therapist friend say? (I’ve never asked her any of my question, but I clearly hear her responding to them). She would say that "You dont believe that you, as an individual, is deserving of specific attention". She would say that "Your family never expected anything from you, they never demanded everything, they let you go your own ways. This is your way of showing your gratefulness or perhaps even your guilt for not giving anything back". I take great pleasure in these quasi-psychological artificial dialogues. But maybe I am just realising that its time that I become part of something greater than myself. Or simply that the country that broke me and then re-made me still has its hold on me, its still pulling on me, nudging me, trying to tell me something. Simply. Maybe.