7/31/00 5:24 pm
So much happened this weekend
it's hard to keep track of. I'll try a chronological approach...
Dinner Thursday night - Sushihatsu, disappointing but not bad. ----- came a few minutes late but was parked immediately outside the restaurant on 1st Ave. - she came to where I was seated; we hugged passionately, gleefully greeting one another after THREE WHOLE DAYS of being apart; she asked me to come sit with her in her car while she waited till it was OK to park there (about 10 minutes). I obliged.
We overshot the parking time by about 10 minutes, lost in ourselves and our intermingling. Seeing her again was a great relief of tension, seeing her face again which I could not reconstruct accurately from memory. We went in, had dinner, talked a lot (If I could have transcripts of all our conversations I'd love that, though they would fill volumes even now).
After dinner we walked together to the club in a light drizzle, from which we were amply sheltered by my large umbrella. ----- apparently felt very shy at the club - there was not much going on, but she watched the $10 chouette politely and quietly, trying to absorb all the new things in this world. She did not stay long since she was tired and needed to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I sent her emails after she left about how happy I was to have seen her that night, and I must have been expecting a response, because when none came I became very anxious, plagued by visions of her getting into a car accident on the way home, etc. It was all a little exaggerated, but I did feel genuine concern and was made painfully aware all of a sudden of how much she meant to me and how gravely her loss would be felt [i have to spot biting my nails]. She wrote a long letter the next morning to me in response to my concerns.
Friday - we met again at the cube. I had before stopped briefly in Warehouse Wines + Liquors on B'way (the best wine selection I know of at human prices) and then at Barnes & Noble to find the translation of the Tao te Ching which ----- had had and which had spoken to me very deeply just before the ice storm, as a gift for ----- and myself. There were so many books on eastern philosophy and religion there, and they seemed to be very haphazardly organized, so it was only just as my time had run out and I really had to leave the store in order not to keep ----- waiting that I finally found it. We embraced long and passionately there by that cubic hunk of metal, some people amused by our openly romantic mood, taking pictures of us, suggesting we go to St. Marks Hotel, etc..... from there we walked to the Odessa so ----- could eat something - she had a mildly upset stomach and was craving mashed potatoes - she had a baked potato and lean steak thing w/cottage cheese, I had a cheese & kielbasa omelet. From there we went shopping for Indian groceries, all of which we found at two of the stores on 2nd Avenue leading up to E 6th St. Outside it had grown very cold, so we decided to head for her car, pack away the groceries, and then go to her dance space so she could use the john and show the space to me (not necessarily in that order). I liked it - saw lots of people from all walks of life trying out new steps, and I felt completely non-intimidated by the idea of taking dance classes with her (Saturday we made a deal to take a tango class together starting sometime after August - not sure when this happened but learning to tango with a woman/partner has been a fantasy of mine - how could it have lay dormant all this time? the tango to me represents a highly ritualized and aesthetic form of lovemaking)..... I offered to wait while she did her dance practice, but did not feel like participating that evening... she finally decided not to take me up on that and drive home with me instead.
She had a patient at 8:30 Saturday morning. I got up with her, or at least stayed awake, watching her go through her morning rituals - showering, drying her hair, brushing her teeth, dressing, etc. When she left I went downstairs and made green tea, finding a seat at the dining room table to study the C++ Primer Plus. I luxuriated in the suburban morning, reading, listening to the landscaper mowing the lawn outside, feeling very much like at home in this strange place, serene and beautiful, fantasizing about our lives merging together in this house, watching a girl across the street stretch before running, making some more tea. When she got home I greeted her fondly. Time on Saturday melted away in napping and talking - the continual discovery of each other, our experiences, our desires, our dreams, our fears, our hurts, who we've been and who we want to grow into, and our growing fondness for one another. Sometime in the afternoon we managed to get up, dress, and drive to New Rochelle to buy the remaining groceries. About 8 o'clock we began cooking, which lasted longer than I expected but was generally successful.
Dinner consisted of the following dishes: plain basmati with pistachios and a little too much ghee (grin) baighan bartha (which I thought I had ruined completely with too much salt and vanilla yogurt instead of plain but ended up being quite tasty), gingered chickpeas, spinach and tomato (which came out very well, the spice mixture having been beautifully assimilated by the other ingredients), and the lamb with saffron, yogurt and coconut milk, which was very delicious but too thin and liquidy - I definitely have much to learn about cooking with meat. ----- enjoyed and appreciated my meal. I was happy to cook for her and reopen this treasure chest, once such an important part of my life. To cook well and eat well daily is to live.
I am so in love with -----, and for so many reasons I simply cannot put into words. I have addressed all of it so much in conversations with her an in email messages that I feel I can omit much of the truly intimate material (this is why these accounts of my daily life may seem somewhat superficial.. it is not easy to discuss deep feelings here, other than give mention to them.)
Sunday: up earlyish, it was very
rainy. We spent a lot of time in bed again, rising only to eat and for
her to drive me to the train station. We had a lovely weekend.