Brooklyn ambivalence

Well it's passover in Brooklyn, and the tree outside my living room window is blooming. It's a beautiful tree, with white flowers. It was the last to lose its leaves in the fall, and now the first to gain them in the spring.

I spent much of today in Prospect park, being out in the sun. I have a bit of a suntan from having been in Florida for a few days, and have been catching up on sleep. This has done wonders for my mood. Sleep, sun, food, and also not writing. I am feeling the itch come back, which is very sweet, but it has been great not being so Jewish, so gay, so constantly talking about both. When the subject comes up, great. But a lot of spending Passover at my mother's involves sidelining any notion of deep Jewish work. As it happens several interesting conversations did come up. It would be Buddhist to say "because I allowed them." But actually they came up because I stimulated them, at seder and afterwards. Truly allowing and not forcing means allowing the self to express, too... without forcing.

I am looking forward to summer in Brooklyn - it seems to me this is one area in which Brooklyn would really beat Manhattan. Summer in the city is just hell on earth. Here, with more space, I have hopes. Sitting by the lake in Prospect Park, I had a great Brooklyn moment -- people speaking Russian, Chinese, and Spanish (the Russian and Spanish speakers actually tried communicating with each other in English, since the Latino guys were fishing and apparently had a live fish in a bag). I appreciate multi-ethnic Brooklyn. I like also that I'm not too "cool" for my neighborhood - I really hate feeling like I'm too smart, cool, or in any way good for where I am and who I'm with. It brings up all kinds of self-judgment about arrogance, etc. So it's nice that there is diversity, and nice that there are cool people around. Not as many lesbians as I expected, though.

I wonder whether I'll move back in November. I love the way my apartment looks, but the noise is just unacceptable to me. It woke me out of my shabbos nap today. It's going to get worse when the weather gets warmer and the windows stay open more. It's just not the right setup for me, as beautiful as it is and as hateful as moving is. So, since I am going to move, I could do the reverse of what I did last November, which was to say "Well, if I'm going to move anyway, why not move somewhere new, like Park Slope." Really, moving 3 blocks away and moving back to Manhattan are virtually the same degree of hassle. I feel like living in Manhattan is "it" and this is "not it." The question is, which is preferable. There is the center. There is Central Park, the buzz of the city, the being in someplace filmed, thought of, the capital of the world. Here is more relaxed, definitely not the center. Things are on a more human scale, and I do seem to be writing better out here (when I'm writing). So it's just a question of taste - which is better.

I feel like if I do get a place upstate, I'd rather be in the city when I'm here. The coolness factor really doesn't impress me. It is nice to be away from the upper west side's yuppies and the sense that I was the only one on my block who was having fun after 3am. But... meh. Also, I don't like how much I resent my Manhattan friends for refusing to come to Brooklyn. I have several friends who have never been to my apartment, and I know it is because of that Manhattan bullshit of feeling that this is so far away. I know because I used to have that bullshit. I have definitely not made more friends in Brooklyn - in fact, I don't think I've made a single new friend here. The new friends I've made happen to live in the city. I don't know what I thought the mechanism would be for "meeting people." Just being around? Striking up a conversation at the grocery store?

In fact, here it is Saturday night, and I don't have plans, and I was wondering: when is the last time someone asked me to do something Saturday night? Last week was 4/4/4, which was a lot of fun, but which of course was me asking people to do something. The week before that I was out alone at the Roxy. I can't really remember when I last had a date, especially one I didn't ask out. Self-pity.

I realized in the park today that I really have given up on finding a bashert. I'd like to meet someone to date, but I realized as I was watching some couples act coupley that, it wasn't something I had to think about or bemoan, I have just deeply accepted that that will not happen for me. I've always been a weird loner, from when I was a little kid preferring to play make-believe games with myself to when I was a teenager who hardly ever saw anyone socially, even to college when I spent a lot of time on my own, or hiding so people wouldn't know I was on my own. The certainty of this - well, it's not certain, of course, nothing is. But the near-certainty of it does give me a great deal of sadness. I wish I could have someone to love, and to love me. I would've liked a family. I suppose that may still happen. But I'm not looking anymore. When someone gets in touch, my heart no longer races. They will, soon enough, give up on me.

That issue is a tug-of-war between my buddhist and my jewish side. I would like to accept whatever happens, and that I think is where I am. But there is a little western voice saying "no! don't give up! never give up!" Giving up actually makes me more attractive, less desperate. So that's how I quiet that voice. But there is the tug-of-war.

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. I can handle it, if I can just get a little bit of success on the creative side.