I still miss the quiet guy. the first time I met him was at the workshop, him and others were each presenting their work and i was exempt cos I had just arrived days ago. I didn't think much of him, his work seemed like a lot of theoretic work that I feel disconnected with; mechanism design they all call it. then during a break i happened to share one of those small circular stand around and snack tables at conferences. and i remember he asked me if I was there working on my Masters thesis. I thought to myself "am i underdressed for the workshop, in my jeans, i mean Masters student?!" but I said aloud to him, "you haven't seen all my white hairs yet" with a brush of my hand to reveal some. another colleague at the same table then added that I was an Assistant prof .... then i remember asking him about his country.. and toward the end of that day when his friend asked me if I would join them (somehow only the guys had collected) for a drink i said "okay" after a moment of self deliberation that told me to accept friendliness when I got it instead of complaining that Europeans weren't friendly or inclusive. I remember walking to that bar by the Danube, near the 'baleine', when I saw his friend talk in Hungarian with the waiter, and i wondered aloud to him, and him chuckling and telling me that his friend was in fact Hungarian. for weeks after i just remember thinking he was a sweet nice older guy. the day after that first day in fact he walked in the shared office and said with a half complaint that I had taken his place. I responded with a gentle mock-remorseful 'Haww'. but every other time I left it for him, using it only on the days when he didn't turn up. otherwise we sat together in one of those shared rooms, noticing each other's conversations with others and talking to each other briefly and sharing lil things about work etc. I remember asking him if he had known that economist who had died in the hiking accident cos they both worked in the same country and felt like about the same age. 

It was around the office daytrip i think that him, me, and the cold-hard to read guy, started hanging together, quietly walking mostly; or maybe around then we three also started finding ourselves available for lunch with no one else around. that night when saying bye and walking in the opposite direction with other people, i remember asking him if he wanted to get some dinner before going without thinking much of that invitation. after the trip in fact, i remember, creating a shared pics link, and him having trouble adding his cos he didn't use the Google photos app... and me realising that day what a dinosaur he was as he complained about his phone running out of space and about the app asking him permission to read all his files etc. I smiled and helped him, feeling physically close to him for the first time, and yet not touching him or his phone, thinking "this guy is from another time, man". I found his being lost with technology and his voicing it and asking for help very sweet somehow.

He felt shy around me, but he also felt shy in general, and i didn't think much of it other than maybe that he didn't talk with the other women around much maybe cos they weren't around him much. maybe cos I was as usual more comfortable talking to men anyway. and that maybe he liked talking with me or just being around. I still remember the day something struck me about it all. his friend, him, me, and this other woman went out for lunch; and his friend asked him at least more than once if he wanted the chair next to me. I pretended not to notice that exchange, but something shifted between him and me in that moment. I noticed him differently, or I noticed him noticing me differently. there were more moments since then.... the time when he smiled and asked whether I wanted to accompany them for lunch when so far it seemed like the two friends were going by themselves (i said i was in the middle of something, which I was); the time when he caught me drinking water from the tap and was embarassed to come closer to the sink because my body was blocking it (his face then ...); the time when I was sitting in another room far away and missing his company and later when I saw him in the pantry and our eyes met and both of us in turns kept trying to keep the conversation going so we could delay bidding goodbye...; the time when he left for home just before lunchtime and while saying bye searched for my eyes around the lamp that was standing in between... that was the day K was to arrive and i remember I went still after meeting those eyes and slowly seeing them leave, sighing to myself to get out of that moment that seemed very long.

what was it that we shared? the last few days when we walked with the others, to and from lunch or my farewell drinks, him and me lagged behind, walking quietly side by side, me somewhat trying to tell him that I'd rather walk with him than with the hard to read guy cos I felt strangely that he felt jealous/leftout every time I spoke at length with another guy colleague.

a few days before my last day, in the new office, i called him to show him the windy balcony, and then another day the open terrace, both those time it was just the two of us. but what left me speechless was the moments when we said bye. once when both of us said exactly together the same words, "it was really nice getting to know you". and then when I met him after a week, alone, to steal a last conversation together for the final goodbye, when he said, "i am sure we will meet again, at some conference". I just looked at him, thinking to myself (but saying nothing), "i don't trust the future; this will not be again I am sure"... Earlier that morning as I walked to the cafe where we had agreed to meet, i questioned myself aloud why I was going, the cafe was empty and i felt safer being the first so I had time to gather myself, but soon as I sat down on a bench outside in the cafes window he came upon me from the opposite side to which I had thought he would approach, with a smile and a hi. I broke into a smile too at the sight of his face, but soon felt uncomfortable, as if I had been watched by him while I thought I was 'safe'. we had this way of looking into the others eye while the other was talking, a lil unselfconsciously. and that day the sun was getting into his eyes so he took his sunglasses and put them on, but then put them away soon, possibly because they prevented us from talking effectively, from seeing each other's eyes...

and then when we got up to walk away finally, in opposite directions, i felt a hug coming from both of us, but i extended my hand out to shake. 

I wonder ...

Infecting him with Covid this way, and trying to recover together in hotels, while sharing the feeling of a wasted holiday on which we have also spent a lot of money in last minute travel-change-plans and rescheduled tickets, is a reminder of all that we share, of what marriage means. Of how despite his anxiety of covid and sickness, he wouldn't leave me alone when I was sick. 

(I could have isolated better if hypochondriac sister in law hadn't forced us to move to a hotel last minute where it became unreasonable financially as well as difficult for me to be alone in one room and him in another).

He got it from me and is now sick, and roles have reversed, although I am still weak and feel woolly headed after walking just a bit. we are in Barcelona now. I made him lift all the suitcases thinking I was sick and was even congratulating us on keeping him safe, but soon after we got here his health gave way. 

Our hotel is in El Raval, the neighborhood of Barcelona that is referred to as 'edgy, dangerous, dynamic, immigrant, artistic' and used to be the Chinatown of the city years ago. Now the dominant language seems Punjabi, the predominant people desis and pakis, their families very traditional and conservative with men mostly seeming the breadwinners and women seen around children in salwar kameezes. even the young girls wear those. but all these people speak Espanol like native speakers, call you their sista if you try helping their stuck machine in the laundry shop, and their faces suddenly soften if you smile at them knowingly or greet them with a namaste or ask them if they are from Lahore or Dilli. they seem like most of them came in one immigration wave. their kids run around till 11pm in the park here in front of our hotel, screaming playing riding their scooters. Barcelona in this part of the city feels very latin american, very developing country, very alive. there is also the Rambla nearby, and I havent been able to walk beyond that yet, or to the beach. there are also people from Africa and the Arab world and of course some Spanish locals and lots of tourists and they all seem to blend in together easily. I am growing very fond of this neighborhood, despite warnings of keeping my wallet closely clutched in Barcelona; I realise all you really need to do is walk with an air of seeming confidence or an easy smile, greeting people...

we will definitely have to come to Espana again, for longer than this visit, and after getting all possible vaccines and boosters.

I am watching hubby sleep. In his Budapest tshirt and jeans, with an N95 mask on his face (that is sliding off his nose as he peacefully slumbers) because we are sharing a room while still trying to protect him from me, and because I was eating with my mask off when he dozed. and i watch his pink feet, with their unnaturally high arches, his unkempt hair that needs a cut, his gentle breath filling him and coming out again, his childlike innocence, and I feel like kissing his feet but I am maintaining my covid distance. 

he has gained quite a bit of weight, as a side effect of his medication, and because I was away for half this summer and not around to keep him eating and exercising mindfully (he spent that time with parents, who continuously snack, and then with brother and family). I'm a lil worried about the weight gain, in more ways than one. I am worried about the risk of diabetes, which also is a side effect, but more of how I feel around his body. I remember some years ago, a long living-together couple, his friends, had suddenly changed such that the guy lost significant weight and suddenly looked very fit and attractive. I remember then telling hubby that I thought that was a threat to their relationship cos the guy had started to want the woman also to lose weight then, and i said something to the effect of 'when a person in a couple suddenly loses or gains considerable weight it upsets the equilibrium in a relationship, especially when the two people were more alike before the change'. I feel like a protagonist in such a movie now. 

and yet there is "unless you really care about the person", words my colleague said that evening when we were talking about fidelity and monogamy. although he said it while explaining why he didn't understand how people could restrict their desires for their spouse's happiness, making it sound almost like an impossibility. and i had blurted in response, "that's a big 'unless', no?".

I didn't get the quiet guy I connected strangely with to meet hubby. I didn't know how they would each feel, especially the former, cos with hubby i had been more honest. but also because I didn't want him seeing us at this point in our lives, with us looking so different; i felt he would misjudge, he wouldn't understand that this is temporary or transitory, and that there is a lot much deeper that cannot be revealed to someone outside the marriage. I felt like he would get the wrong message, a false lead, some false hope.

but I do miss him a lot. and i believe we both communicated to each other enough that we really liked each other's company, and that we were sad it couldn't turn into something larger or that it had to end here, for now.

and he has a surgery today. I wonder if he has someone to take care of him. and i told him I got covid so he could test too if he felt like it, as he was one of my close contacts a couple days before I tested positive. i.e. we are still emailing..

"nothing really matters; and you make the best of what you have".

we saw an art exhibition on Klimt and his contemporaries in Belvedere palace in Vienna. unlike most art exhibitions, this one attempted to penetrate into the psychology of the painters, especially their love and sex life and how they interpreted love and sex and their impact on mental health (as understood in their times). very few people realise that love, and sex especially, is not so much a symptom of desire as it is a reflection of mental and intimacy needs, and that sex can be immensely destructive especially when it breaks trust which again is not just that but a huge and irreconcilable rejection of a person, or when love is unrequited or incestuous. but apparently these painters understood that. 

I do believe that monogamy in man and animals has evolved because it gives us a strong sense of security, of being wanted and loved no matter what, for better or for worse, it keeps us sane.

my favorite was Egon Schiele, for his very bold, colorful, somewhat grotesque, and beautiful (in their courage to occupy space and emotion on the canvas) paintings. you have to see them to understand what i am saying. the grotesqueness can sometimes seem ugly even, but I have always found ugliness and brokenness beautiful, what other people find beautiful i don't always, and in fact the words beauty and ugly thus both carry equal attraction and wonder for me.

remind me to get a couple posters/prints of Schiele's works to put up in my bedroom back home.

What makes it hard to be sympathetic to a hypochondriac is not so much their constant worry about their own health, but that in that preoccupation they care so little about other people. Hypochondriacs can rarely adopt the role of caregivers. God help you if your mother and sister in law are both hypochondriacs.

I am in Basque country, in Bilbao. I met the guy separately to say a special bye, to communicate without words what his company had meant. Y'day when we were flying - an early morning flight to Valencia and then another one after a longish layover to Bilbao - my throat felt scratchy and i felt like a corpse because the European low cost airlines have uncomfortable seats and no built in mould-able pillow in the seat back such that I couldn't catch up on sleep. And then we reached the Airbnb that others had booked and invited us to, to share a holiday together. Bilbao was hot like Delhi in May, yesterday. But we still got out and sat outdoors in the heat to order numerous pintxos like tourists at a bar. Because la otras mujer is still not comfortable taking her mask off indoors with other people. And then this morning I got out for a run, to a large pretty park and then along the estuary of the Bay of Biscay, to the Guggenheim museum here, and the giant flower-garden bear/dog in front of it. I felt alive and fresh, and felt like my unexercised bums had needed just this the whole of last week. I got back sweaty and happy and had a cold water shower, which felt a lil too cold. And soon after i started to burn and feel feverish. I tested positive on a home self test covid kit. And we were soon thrown out of the shared Airbnb by the otra mujer. We are now in a hotel, the weather is cooling off, i am now feeling cold but am feeling better and hungry and asking hubby (who tested negative although we had been sharing bed, water bottle, pintxos, and what-not) to get me empanadas. I was also trying my broken Espanol y'day and at one point the waiter, exasperated, just asked in English, "what do you want?". hubby says people are much friendlier here than in Budapest (and Vienna) but the airport bathrooms in Valencia were keeping the stereotype of Spanish disorder, and Budapest really grew first on me and then on him and my sister who also visited. the grittiness of it, the laidbackness of it, it's language and its people, it's Jewishness and it's strange night life; the day we finally left we needed a cab at 2 in the morning which was proving to be difficult. In the process we realised it was the time for parties and conversations to get over, an open pub near our Airbnb suddenly let out a group of mellow drunk youngsters, men and women, who strolled out calmly, depositing their empty glasses carefully at the bar counter (where i was trying to get help calling a cab) and then one of the women walked out and sat on the ground/sidewalk to wear her lace shoes which she had taken off inside. Other people were also walking back home or getting dropped off from similar gatherings, talking but not noisy, drunk but not disoriented. A cabby finally showed up and was very courteous and polite. This is the one thing I wish I could take back to India, the physical freedom women have in the west....

its my last day at work here. the office recently moved to a different wing in the same building, its fancier now, river facing, large deck/terrace, more space, looking over the local statue of Liberty and Gellert hill, the castle, etc. but I kinda miss the old office. the rooms here look unfinished, unhomely, not yet ready for conversations and musings. today though I found a nicer one unlocked; it looks onto the old office windows and doesn't get the sun either in the morning or in the afternoon. (it is summer here too, and finally I am turning away from the sun). most women fellows when they leave, they spend time saying their goodbyes to other women, getting them small gifts, having cake with them... and a brusque handshake is enough for their male colleagues. to me it feels both like my first day was just yesterday and that I was a different person when I came here. it feels both very short and memorably long. and the two people I feel I got to know the most are men. my saying goodbye was thus a few drinks at a place. it started out slow, but soon we were talking about age and gender, and from there onto monogamy and fidelity and philosophy/bullshit. the guy I at first thought was cold, is actually just hard to read, and I told him so after a couple of caipirinhas. the other one mostly just watched and listened to our opposite views. it all grew into something we will remember for sure. I walked home wondering how and why i let out so much; I also divulged that I think I am bisexual and that maybe there is no line separating hetero and homosexuality. and so today I am relatively quiet even though the talker was goading me into a continuation of yesterday's conversation... the quiet guy i have felt a strange connection with. it calms down when we are together. people around kinda blur out. and he talks when others are missing. he said he doesn't like opera, ballet, or poetry. and the last thing he read was something by Bukowski: short stories. are a poet's short stories that different from his poetry? what is poetry anyway? since the conversation with him, I looked up the short story that lent its name to the collection. and I read a couple poems by him too. poems feel like short stories without the skeleton of one, i.e. without the skull, ribs, bones of a story, without the assertion of having a beginning a middle and an end. poems feel like moments picked randomly out of a continuum of storytelling. and that short story felt like a poem, with the rythm and life of the person who was its theme, her energy and death both tragic and lyrical. i saw mental illness in it, and some history of trauma (that's what I have been reading about). but you could say we are all ill, traumatized, and tragically beautiful. alive, and in death if someone grieves for us. i am in a strange mood today. its not sadness, its not regret. its stocktaking maybe. or being quiet after an unplanned confession of sorts. a few days ago I told hubby i was falling for this guy. that i could finally probably understand how someone could love two different people simultaneously. yesterday's conversation with drinks, however, gave me perspective; i barely know him and vice versa. maybe in a different universe it would have gone differently. and today I saw his eyes rest for a moment on my white shirt, maybe my pink bra was showing through under the breast pockets. the thought causes me discomfort. and yet it feels like a small detail to forgive, in comparison with the air that we share, the times his eyes searched mine while going out of sight, and the way we ask how the other is the very next day as if we can sense and want to ease the turbulence we cause each other. life sometimes overwhelms me. and at times like these death seems a small part of life itself. like today's news of Shinzo Abe being shot. how are we capable of feeling and absorbing so much. how do we not drip, leak, and spillover?

another couple, long time friends of ours, are expecting a baby. I hadn't known they had been trying, had had at least one miscarriage, had given up, and then suddenly got pregnant serendipitously. 

every time I hear of another first pregnancy, another couple planning or trying, i question my rejection of motherhood. Am I missing out, am I supposed to try to get on, should I want to not miss out...? the bandwagon..

but I am also reading about how emotionally insecure parents bequeath insecurity to their children. we do have enough on our plates and i don't want us to force another life to be part of it, to bear it, or share our burden, or grow up with it and be shaped by it...