How I Have Been Spending My Time As of Late
Shochu Night
I meet Taka in the Lower East Side on a Tuesday night. This Japanese restaurant is cozy but not crowded, with the perfect low light ambience and wooden furniture. He's a regular here. The staff greet him with handshakes and hugs. At the bar, we stand with his friend and coworker Yasu, examining an array of over fifty different kinds of shochu. Taka tells me that shochu can be made with sweet potato, rice, or wheat. He smiles at that last one - mugi, after all, is my name. Mugi-chan, they say later, chuckling. It sounds like mugicha, barley tea. So cute, squeals one of the girls. At the table we're joined by Zhengdong, a handsome fellow from Jiangxi province. I don't think I've ever met anyone from Jiangxi except him. He speaks fluent Japanese, somehow. They call him Sei-chan. He, Taka, and Yasu are a trio of sorts. There's also a wide-eyed stylist girl from Nagasaki and a flirtatious Filipina who also speaks fluent Japanese. Pia is her nickname. Her real name is Princess. She drapes an arm across Taka and Yasu, teases and laughs the whole while night. I realize in this setting that they probably don't know I'm gay. I only met Taka and the boys last Friday at a birthday party in the East Village. And here we are, less than a week later, drinking shochu on a beautiful spring night. I love your style, gushes Pia when we leave the restaurant. I've since put on my light jacket and hat. You bitch, she says breathlessly. Maybe she does know I'm gay after all.
Wednesday Morning
I woke up early for a run and did two miles around McGolrick Park instead of making my way to the track. Golden light, the 100% perfect spring morning. It made me remember Murakami.
The Healer
We're naturally healers, he tells me as he massages my hand. I'm stoned in my living room after a long day date with this fellow. We walked all over Queens, going from squat, sensual Noguchi sculptures to the maddening meditation of a Tsai Ming-Liang screening. We had dinner at the Mexican-Taiwanese fusion place by my apartment. I invited him over, of course. This is only our second date, but suddenly we've become that much closer. He has a sweep of long black hair. When he takes off his glasses, I feel like I'm seeing someone completely new. It frightens and thrills me at the same time. He asks me questions like, Who do you think really gets the essence of things? He seems bemused by the things I say in response. Aww, he coos at me in bed, like I'm a child or endearing animal. The real scary part about this is the moment when you recognize sadness in another person. This is only our second date. I can feel his sadness like an object I can touch, a smooth stone, an unpolished rock. Is it much more, I ask myself, than the sadness we might all carry? That I might carry within? I don't know yet. I'm willing to find out. But I need to take time. Marc called me naïve when we were in DC, drunk and stoned at two in the morning. It's great that you're so open to meeting people, he said. But sometimes I think it makes you naïve. You're not naïve, countered my therapist last week. I don't think I am either, I said. I just feel weak and scared to be on my own, to be left alone, after I get used to having someone in my life. It's so clear now. Of course I am this way because of how I grew up. I have to remember and truly feel that it will be okay, all will be okay even if I am by myself. I know how to go it alone by now. That is not to say that I wouldn't like to have someone to be by my side, to take my hand, to protect me, to heal me. But I have finally realized that trust is something to be earned. Trust must be earned. Love must be earned. I stand by that now.
Wednesday Morning, Continued
I glide into my sunlit office in Manhattan slightly stoned and settle down at the computer. Maybe a morning run really is what I need to do a bit more often now. I am rejuvenated, full of ideas and hope, felt so many things on the commute and less of the anxiety that has shadowed my life as of late. I want to sit down and write about it all. On the subway, there were two black men wearing all beige sitting where I was crammed in. It reminded me of an early image I had of Los Angeles, perhaps sometime freshman year coming back from downtown on the bus: three Hispanic women, all strangers, sitting in a row, wearing matching teal and black outfits. The gratitude I had for Los Angeles then is the same I feel for New York now. It's about the possibility of synchronicity and connection in a lonely world, all the beauty and wonder that life offers at any given moment. Maybe it's because I exercised, or I feel good about my outfit today, or the state of my dating game or the friends I hold close, but I have to remember that that beauty and wonder still exist, are thriving and alive, in spite of any pain and hurt that temper this world. There is beauty in springtime, in love, in life, if you allow it for yourself.
Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.
I meet Taka in the Lower East Side on a Tuesday night. This Japanese restaurant is cozy but not crowded, with the perfect low light ambience and wooden furniture. He's a regular here. The staff greet him with handshakes and hugs. At the bar, we stand with his friend and coworker Yasu, examining an array of over fifty different kinds of shochu. Taka tells me that shochu can be made with sweet potato, rice, or wheat. He smiles at that last one - mugi, after all, is my name. Mugi-chan, they say later, chuckling. It sounds like mugicha, barley tea. So cute, squeals one of the girls. At the table we're joined by Zhengdong, a handsome fellow from Jiangxi province. I don't think I've ever met anyone from Jiangxi except him. He speaks fluent Japanese, somehow. They call him Sei-chan. He, Taka, and Yasu are a trio of sorts. There's also a wide-eyed stylist girl from Nagasaki and a flirtatious Filipina who also speaks fluent Japanese. Pia is her nickname. Her real name is Princess. She drapes an arm across Taka and Yasu, teases and laughs the whole while night. I realize in this setting that they probably don't know I'm gay. I only met Taka and the boys last Friday at a birthday party in the East Village. And here we are, less than a week later, drinking shochu on a beautiful spring night. I love your style, gushes Pia when we leave the restaurant. I've since put on my light jacket and hat. You bitch, she says breathlessly. Maybe she does know I'm gay after all.
Wednesday Morning
I woke up early for a run and did two miles around McGolrick Park instead of making my way to the track. Golden light, the 100% perfect spring morning. It made me remember Murakami.
The Healer
We're naturally healers, he tells me as he massages my hand. I'm stoned in my living room after a long day date with this fellow. We walked all over Queens, going from squat, sensual Noguchi sculptures to the maddening meditation of a Tsai Ming-Liang screening. We had dinner at the Mexican-Taiwanese fusion place by my apartment. I invited him over, of course. This is only our second date, but suddenly we've become that much closer. He has a sweep of long black hair. When he takes off his glasses, I feel like I'm seeing someone completely new. It frightens and thrills me at the same time. He asks me questions like, Who do you think really gets the essence of things? He seems bemused by the things I say in response. Aww, he coos at me in bed, like I'm a child or endearing animal. The real scary part about this is the moment when you recognize sadness in another person. This is only our second date. I can feel his sadness like an object I can touch, a smooth stone, an unpolished rock. Is it much more, I ask myself, than the sadness we might all carry? That I might carry within? I don't know yet. I'm willing to find out. But I need to take time. Marc called me naïve when we were in DC, drunk and stoned at two in the morning. It's great that you're so open to meeting people, he said. But sometimes I think it makes you naïve. You're not naïve, countered my therapist last week. I don't think I am either, I said. I just feel weak and scared to be on my own, to be left alone, after I get used to having someone in my life. It's so clear now. Of course I am this way because of how I grew up. I have to remember and truly feel that it will be okay, all will be okay even if I am by myself. I know how to go it alone by now. That is not to say that I wouldn't like to have someone to be by my side, to take my hand, to protect me, to heal me. But I have finally realized that trust is something to be earned. Trust must be earned. Love must be earned. I stand by that now.
Wednesday Morning, Continued
I glide into my sunlit office in Manhattan slightly stoned and settle down at the computer. Maybe a morning run really is what I need to do a bit more often now. I am rejuvenated, full of ideas and hope, felt so many things on the commute and less of the anxiety that has shadowed my life as of late. I want to sit down and write about it all. On the subway, there were two black men wearing all beige sitting where I was crammed in. It reminded me of an early image I had of Los Angeles, perhaps sometime freshman year coming back from downtown on the bus: three Hispanic women, all strangers, sitting in a row, wearing matching teal and black outfits. The gratitude I had for Los Angeles then is the same I feel for New York now. It's about the possibility of synchronicity and connection in a lonely world, all the beauty and wonder that life offers at any given moment. Maybe it's because I exercised, or I feel good about my outfit today, or the state of my dating game or the friends I hold close, but I have to remember that that beauty and wonder still exist, are thriving and alive, in spite of any pain and hurt that temper this world. There is beauty in springtime, in love, in life, if you allow it for yourself.
Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.