people feel like possibilities.

and i went from feeling friendless to feeling missed and remembered..

therapy is teaching me that people's response to me is often not about me but they themselves. and thus the realisation that there is often no need to feel embarassment or offence or frustration or anger. I'm feeling more magnanimous with this realisation. if people have galoshes or blinkers on because they're just protecting themselves, then I can be the one to extend an arm out and to smile, even if often they don't notice it or are unable to smile back.

and I'm discovering a lot of music. Rosa Balistreri's voice, reminiscent to me of Chavela Vargas', and through the former, the world of Italian folk (try Cu ti lu dissi), John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards because Mubi happened to have Stranger than Paradise on its movie of the day list y'day (one of the cutest funniest movies ever), some i am already forgetting but Spotify will keep in mind for me: Mose Alison, Screamin Jay Hawkins. 

our therapist asked each of us one day to express what we meant by trust, what made us trust people more or less. my answer was long and descriptive, harping on 'honesty' which she later summarized as focused on 'authenticity'. his was mostly "i don't know, its instinctive", but before he said that he also said almost apologetically, "my answer is not as pretty". that sums up a lot of our thoughts or rather our expressions on things. we were watching 'the banshees of inisherin', and at the end he asked me what i thought it was about. "what is it about? i think it has at least a few themes running through it... why, what do you think its about?" "i think its about how people can never really forgive each other." "maybe, but its not just about that. i think it has 2-3 themes: one, is something on the lines of 'posterity' and what you leave behind and what matters to us as human beings; two, how different people value different things and whether it is okay to classify people as one thing or another; third, if there is a third theme, it is probably something about 'niceness' or more generally what do we owe each other. so yeah, as a whole its probably about what it means to be a human being, how we are different, and what we owe each other. there, even here my answer is prettier than yours." both smile. recently i've been on a women's writing spree. Mary McCarthy, Tove Ditlevsen, Toni Morrison, Hannah Arendt, Emma Forrest, Janet Malcolm, and a Magda Szabo that my friend gave me but I couldn't bare to keep reading cos it was disturbing. and today i came across some book review on nytimes where the words "why women need to read other women" caught my attention.

the cup of my desire to write has not been filling up. yesterday, two old men told me that some of my work would not count toward the tenure decision without bothering to specify the line that separated what counted from what did not and without assigning weights to individual items. i succeeded at not expressing my anger and frustration at them but of course broke down after. it took me more than half a day and a night's sleep to wake up with the realization that my reaction was very like that of the apes who express anger at not being treated fairly, about who I was telling my students just a couple days ago in reference to explaining 'fairness' both substantive (outcomes) and procedural (rules). at least i can still laugh, ex post, at my anger. we were watching the portuguese movie 'The metamorphosis of birds' on Netflix the other day which had poetic narration and a strange experiential theatre-like presence. somewhere in it i heard that before we started to understand that birds migrated, people had believed that they had seasonal metamorphosis such that birds seen in one season were believed to have changed into those seen in another season. thus the title of the movie. today we were sitting on our terrace eating lunch when something about the birds around made me mention that aloud again - how cute and interesting it felt/sounded/must-have-been. K didn't quite get it and kept saying that if people saw birds fly in one direction in one season and fly back in the opposite direction in another season, how could they have understood it to be anything other than migration. i tried to explain that birds don't systematically just fly locally in one direction in a season; they usually hang around making travel stops wherein they fly and eat around for days etc such that people wouldn't have necessarily seen them fly only in one direction. and that it seemed very plausible that if people saw one type of bird in one season, then given their ignorance regarding their migration, they might have interpreted the sightings as arising from the metamorphosis of the same birds such that they took on different forms in different seasons. it was hard as sometimes it is hard to explain ideas to someone, esp him. i gave him an example to illustrate the limited knowledge that comes from local observation/information-collection: how early humans (before the ability to fly; sorry, before math proved otherwise) believed the earth was flat cos from our perspective we could only see as far as our horizon of vision which revealed nothing of the spherical nature of the planet. he still looked half convinced. and then the perfect example came to my mind, bringing the idea closer to home, to the birds. the male sunbird changes color only in mating season, and because we see male sunbirds as green the rest of the year and shiny purple in mating season we understand that it undergoes seasonal metamorphosis. similarly if we had never followed birds' long distance flights and our only information was local from place to place, then if blackbirds were seen in spring and some green ones in fall, we might have simply thought that the blackbirds turned green in fall, or vice versa. i really dig ideas, logic, thought, epistemology, ... and i still very much like the person i have grown to become.

when we started dating I could tell it made him happy, and there was something about it that gave me joy. just making him happy. now with the slow realisation that outward happiness can often be an unconscious front, and possibly for many other unknown reasons, something of that has gone away. now he says he has never felt better, but I feel uncertain of what I'm doing here. there's also this strange feeling that this was probably the purpose of us meeting in this life, and that my work here is done?!

we have stopped fighting, he has a lot more control over his anger, and on his compulsions. but I am always nagged with the thought that what I see is only the tip of it, as was always the case.

but much more than that I wonder if I owe more to myself, in living elsewhere, a different life. I thought I didn't want children, but then I felt this unexpected momentary desire this summer for it, that I still recall clearly, and that made me wonder if my want or lack of it was conditional on the life i am living. 

Laura Marling's lyrics "there's a life across the river that is meant for me..." resonates. but then there's also "stop desiring a life that you want, and live the life that you have" or something to its effect that keeps knocking ... 

I listened to Anderson Cooper's podcast 'All there is' driving up and down to work mostly yesterday; there were horrible traffic jams all over. him and his guests talking about loss and grief, and there was so much of both. I hadn't known about Gloria Vanderbilt witnessing her older son jump to his death, I hadn't known Stephen Colbert's tragic loss. but I had seen the film 'Dick Johnson is dead' and the maker was a guest too. and another guest Laurie Anderson said some things about death and how it reminds us guiltily of what more we could have done (and how we make it about ourselves) that reminded me of something I had written here a few years ago.

and then there are these conversations i have with my new friend at work, that always leave me feeling that he has barely experienced life, it's brutality it's unfairness, but also it's variety and beauty, and that his worldview is immature. 

K said y'day that he worried about me because I got angry and upset at every rejected paper, but barely savoured the few positive responses and little successes. to me those always feel much delayed and much played down, like crumbs thrown out at me as consolation prizes.

I tried therapy one day, on my own, to figure out if I have fallen out of love. but it was all too much to explain to a stranger. plus my feelings keep flipping too. 

one of my teaching assistants has OCD, bipolar disorder, and delusions. and then this one day two of my colleagues and i were having lunch when one of them started talking about their anxiety issues and how their PhD advisor had first realised it and spoke to them about it. then the other colleague started talking about their unbearable anxiety while on the job market. and then both talked about their journey in therapy. the woman said she had had a hard time with an American therapist because it had entailed her having to explain her cultural baggage from scratch. I feel quite the opposite or i feel judged unfairly by Indian culture and those brought up in it because I seem to want to dissociate and distance myself from all that my home towns, cities, and country have offered me and taught me. and i don't feel apologetic about it either. in fact in another conversation when my immature and bookish friend said he missed being younger and innocent, my reaction was that I was only stupid and brainwashed when I was younger andnow i finally have my 'own' opinions...

the banjaras or gypsies understood life better - nothing is permanent; don't get attached. this September and October it has been raining like crazy in Delhi. our walls are getting soaked and the water is seeping in. our laundry room on top of our lil terrace is turning to mush with all the water; we are just praying its roof doesn't cave in before we manage to put up some jugaad protection. the people I learned to know in the summer already feel hazy as if they were dreamed. those i have known for many years also keep flipping in who they claim or show themselves to be. and then there are the new ones i am getting to know... one reads and has been giving me books, its rare i meet someone who has read what i have and more. its rare we go into a bookstore and i show them something and there is a history of what we have said before that gives it meaning, or we realize upon random browsing in the store that we have read the same book recently, something very few people around us have. and then there are the indefatigable ants in our kitchen who keep finding new holes and gaps in our walls to travel to and from, and we keep barely catching up with them in plugging the holes with tube-paint-caulk. sometimes in doing so i think i bury them alive in these holes, wondering whether there is an exit for them on the other side somewhere such that they have tunneled through the bricks in our walls. i also wonder what the new arrivals to the now sealed hole are thinking, whether they panic when they suddenly turn around and reconsider their path, what they tell each other when they meet on their path in opposite directions - the ones bringing news back from the disaster and warning others to abandon their journey to it, and how they deal with the loss (if that is what it is) of their peer as they persevere on simply exploring and finding a new hole a new home a new purpose. can they also smell sugar and crumbs of carbs? is their community the organism? and what do they think of us.

I've been alone and I've thought a great deal. and I've read and am just about to finish Milk Teeth by Jessica Andrews; the girl goes to Barcelona in this. familiar names of neighborhoods and important streets crop up; names that I had barely learned there, barely reached. He had spent years in Barcelona, was telling me about his time there when I told him I was off to Spain and that would be my last stop. coincidences. K comes back tomorrow. I wonder how i will feel when I see him, i haven't seen his face or his body in the last 10 days, we just talked. I went to a party in the rain, rain enough to cancel plans, but I went because I wanted to feel different i wanted to talk to near strangers i wanted to see how i felt about people. most still don't move me, i feel as if they lack a curiosity of the soul and a carefulness that understands fragility. K has that, and so did he. I miss both and i can't afford to lose any such people. 

I'm on my own for some days. I have a friend at work now, but he's a kid almost. K is away and i am wondering who I am missing more. I feel like life sneaked up on me, caught me unawares, and i can't recognise myself anymore. I'm not able to work much. Sometimes i binge watch something that feels close to my situation. Everything seems to be trying to tell me something. When did this unraveling begin, how did I not see it then. The last two years have been heavy but just when it feels like we have done well, i realise I've forgotten myself somewhere, I've obliterated my memories because they all felt corrupted. I don't know what our life has been about anymore. Were we together to work this mess out. Was it when the confessions began, was it when he began to gain weight, was it Budapest and how alive i felt there, was it what happened in the hospital, was it the things my sister said, was it me feeling like I was here only to 'care for' him. I've been cursing, exclaiming, and holding my head in frustration again and again today. Why aren't we taught to recognise and deal with our feelings ever. Mister Rogers' senate speech from 1969 popped up in a show i was watching, in a very powerful scene. I've been watching his speech on YouTube again and again since then. "What do you do with the MAD that you feel". I wish he had been raised like that.

I've also been more blatantly ignoring his parents now. what's the point in obligatory respect and conversation? they don't even acknowledge our truths, our struggles. they are full of prejudices and sexism.

I remember quoting Vikram Seth's words from golden gate when he had proposed. to make the point that some people thought in that way but I didn't, or didn't want to. but I guess it was too much attention from someone i was also in awe of somewhat, and as with much of what's happened in my life i fell into what was chosen for me by life. what is it that life is trying to realise through me now? why must i always be on the edge of something precarious? why is it so hard to understand what i am feeling 

snatches

how much is too much when it comes to expressing hurt felt due to, or affection for, someone you newly know.

can we truly really know anyone, other than possibly one's siblings.

is falling out of love a thing? and if so, what does it mean to prevent it, to rekindle ...? one doesn't 'try' to fall or not fall in love, then why 'try' to not fall out? is it because the falling in destroys nothing but the self but the falling out devours all around while giving birth to a new self?

awkwardness, and the things unsaid, those are what i care about. let us talk them out aloud.

when is a relationship simply co-dependency, and when is it mutual addiction? the friend who once told me she feared being single because she feared being alone (in response to someone else's break-up news) lost her husband to cancer some years ago, and is now left with a daughter. the other person who shed tears when her decade long relationship broke off, saying she feared she was too old to find someone again, got married about last year.

why have my students not heard anything of the opioid crisis? why are my colleagues not aware that Italians in Europe are stereotypically similar to Indians in the world? and why do i care that I stand out amongst my people and feel different; abroad that doesn't bother me much.

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...

my life feels like snakes and ladders. I go from 'salary is stuck due to unknown paperwork missing' to that plus 'I'm unable to pay rent to my Hungarian landlord cos my Desi bank won't let me add him as beneficiary and the slightly insane landlord doesn't want cash anymore..' plus 'my (only) bank card suddenly froze and was declined at multiple locations such that I can't access whatever little money I do have' !! and then soon back to just the first again. 

even at this age I'm always at the brink of homelessness. what would I do without hubby and family. did I mention last month when I moved from my first Airbnb here to a flat with a lease, i found my shower drain to be clogged (in a fancy 'Gurgaon-style flat with blue night lights on the loft-bedroom stairs') such that after a few days I had to book a day-hotel just to bathe, and fight with landlord that clog wasn't my doing and that he needed to get it cleaned asap. 

on the cheery side, cos sunlit hours are so many here in the summer, I've started going for 5:30am runs. and my flat happens to be a block away from the large city park, that also has a nice running track with laid in cushion. this one morning an older fit sweet guy was running in the opposite direction and smiled and waved at me the first time we crossed. and then the second time, he extended his hand sideways and we did a really cool running side-five. another morning though there was this homeless guy on a bench having a conversation with his imaginary friend/colleague/landlord/enemy...

an Italian woman colleague said last month that as the weather was getting out of spring and warming it's way into summer she had started noticing homeless people, and she asked me if my walk after our late group dinner had felt safe..? I did admit that that was the first time here i felt a lil unsure of walking alone.. I met a couple harmless drunk fellows, but also said that maybe my feeling unsafe wasn't warranted cos nothing happened, and that a homeless person doesn't have to be a threat... 

I was also watching an American documentary on homelessness... 

back to my problems - real and imaginary - this one Sunday morning some guy was peeping into my (ground floor) windows, and even knocked on my door. that morning I froze with fear and was dead silent waiting for him to go away. turned out he was some technician and with a friend he worked the whole day pulling out wires from on top of every door in this building around our shared courtyard. 

and one day my phone just slipped out of my hands and onto the sidewalk and it's glass screen shattered. a few days later the best I could do here (this is not Motorola country) was get a Jordanian guy to stick a plastic screen on top of it so that glass shards didn't keep chipping off into my fingers as I touched it. 

that's the life I live.

I've had some fabulous langosh (with beef beans and sour cream, and paprika) recently btw in Drum cafe. it's the Hungarian substitute for pizza dough i guess, which they top with various stuff, the dough is fried though almost like bhatura, also reminding me of something very similar in Navajo country that's called a Navajo taco! 

and some cherry (cold) soup! these guys love their sour cherries.. even boiling it in a milky soup..? and serving cold (the broth feels yogurtish with the sourness of the cherry almost curdling the milk, but is nice!)

and some Egyptian Koshary. tomorrow will try it with liver (whose I'm not sure). Goose liver is very Hungarian btw..

I am also getting hooked onto the many gelato shops around.. y'day i got a scoop from a sidewalk counter of Nandori cukraszda (was it?) just before a hoard of kindergarten littloos who had been shepherded there by their teachers (I'm guessing)... summer is nice here.

I like the Europeans who accept that they are prejudiced against Americans. even though I also now find the only American colleague here 'loud' and his responses predictable.

And in a group of Europeans, talking with them in what one called 'international English' today, I sometimes start speaking broken English too.

today I explained amused, to a bunch of them, how many of us in India are more comfortable in English than in our 'native' language. heard an interesting historic summary of how the official/scientific language in Europe shifted from Latin to French to German and since the end of WW2 slowly to English as German was abandoned or as Germany and Habsburg etc. failed it's scientists who fled to English speaking America. 

also heard a different perspective on maternity leave in Hungary. had earlier heard from another bunch that it's very liberal giving the mother 2-3 yrs wherein her salary slowly decreases as a percentage. today these guys gave me a different perspective, claiming that it was a Soviet era policy to pull women out of the workforce by enticing them into motherhood, and also to keep unemployment low.

very interesting conversations, again more with and from men than women...

one woman said that she couldn't imagine making America her home because the country was too large (compared with European countries) and thus lacked in her imagination (she has never been across the Atlantic) the feeling of cosiness, of small friendly close-knit neighborhoods, ... 

and I wondered about cultural and social and neighborly horizons...

when I asked a guy here about his country, Latvia, I noticed his description his answers were all in the nature of a comparison between Latvia and UK, where he now lives and works. in India I don't feel sexy. I don't know whether it is the weather and the heat most of the year, or the pollution, or the umpteen social and other demands on one's time and the navigating of the traffic and the city it takes to get to them, but we barely have time and mood for sex. here, there are quite a few sex shops, and there is something about the place that is keeping me aroused. and it isn't just being alone (that also tends to do that by allowing me a lot of free time for exploration) because it isn't like before. unless it is something about the verge of turning 40, about the spurt before it will all finally slowly die out... y'day I wore shorts to office cos it is getting too hot to be in pants and walking around, and I do have a longish walking commute that I prefer to taking public transport. I compensated by wearing a bright white shirt tucked in that is soft and just a lil see through, and dangling earrings that seemed to go well. (earrings I have been doing since I got here as I am always negative on make-up anyway and silver jewellery is the only thing I am bonkers about given some time to bother with, which I am getting here). office was empty, no one else had turned up, a few are travelling, a few have left, one I know went to a doctor... later I saw a colleague and with him a friend of his who is also trying to get a contract here it seems. the new guy was checking me out quite visibly and maybe this is just me but I felt his mood dampen soon as I mentioned 'my husband' in conversation. is being desired a usual turn-on? it hasn't always been for me cos I do remember warding off a few people in my history who seemed to want to get close and also being ew-ed by it a bit. but then there are others you don't mind and brush away, some who surprise you because just then in your life you thought you were losing your youthfulness and charm, some who scare you a bit (like hubby did in those early days) because well because you hadn't expected it and you don't know whether you want it and whether its something you can handle (I remember those days I avoided dressing up even a bit when I was expecting him to be around cos I didn't want to stir anything), and some you seem to warm up to because of it. and then just yesterday I was wondering whether my self-diagnosis of being bi-sexual is mostly wrong because its been a while there's been a woman in that list of people I have felt anything for. and I got my answer this morning. I was walking across the large expanse of city park (near where my apartment is) on my way to the other immigration office to register my address, in shorts a sleeveless cotton shell with a rain jacket tied around my waist cos the last couple of days here have been monsoon-like; I passed a few runners as it was still not late in the morning, and then saw this particular one - small in frame, short hair, in a tank and shorts, running up to me. I couldn't tell whether it was a guy or a girl (my eyesight isn't great either) but there was something about the running posture, something about the gait that I kinda related to, made me want to join in. as I got closer I first saw the reddish face, hot and sweaty but happy with the running, and I just smiled wide, a lips-only warm smile that seemed to communicate I saw her happiness and I understood it. and she smiled back at me, mouth slightly open and breathing heavily, as she passed me by. I didn't even need to look back to get another glance at her, something profound seemed to have been exchanged in that one look and smile. in case you are still wondering, the answer wasn't just that I am attracted to her, a woman, but that it didn't matter whether she was one or whether I could tell but there was something about her as a person and about how I related to how I thought she was feeling, and how she was enjoying something I do too, and that she saw it and responded, something about all of that in this case, that left no doubt in my head as I walked on with the memory of that moment in my mind's eye, still smiling.