"How are you doing?" said the voice on the other side of the phone.
"I'm doing good, great, wonderful most of the time. And the rest, I am anxious and sad and worried."
"Still?"
My heart sank a little hearing his question. I wish that grief is a type of malady that passes soon enough. What I find instead, is that it gives you a myriad of darkness that sucks things in and sometimes kicks you in the gut. There is something obsessive and incoherent about it. The more I try to run away, the more it grips and tangles over.
There are places I go to sit and heal. One of them is a tea house rimmed with blue linings at the glass window, the corner of Seven and Luck avenues. I have three good friends I frequently meet there.
Hassan, is the first one I met. I call him Hass. One of our first talks was absurd, which is always a good sign of wonderful friendship ahead. We talked about llamas. Hass likes llamas, and amused, I asked with a snort of giggles I couldn't help, "Why?" He said, "Look at their faces. They're just so relaxed, not happy and not sad. They are the zen of the animalia. I'd like to be one of them." "You? You want to be one of them? You're trained in bio-molecular engineering and you want to be a llama?" "Why not?" And we burst in laughter together.
There were nights we just sat at table 23, me turning my tea cup round and round, him with his work. And I'd say things like, "Hass, I can't breathe again," he'd stop his work, looked at my face, and put both his palms in front of his chest the shape like a lotus bud. "Now concentrate on my hands, and as I open my palms, you breathe in; and when I close them, you breathe out."
The lotus-hands bloomed slowly and closed again. That was how I learned to breathe. Hassan taught me.
The second one was Jordan. Now he is the jolly one. We joked and teased each other about having grown up in religious household and ending up a total deserter. Last I met him, he told me he finally bought those casual business shirt he needed for a meeting. The irony. Jordan and I did not get to see each other much, but he's my black belt in emotional taekwondo. Mash that up with a figure of a human teddy bear. How can you top that?
The last one, I accidentally met when I was alone with my old copy of Azar Nafisi. This man was sitting aloof in the corner seat, almost hidden under his flannel grey flat cap. He had on a brown woolen tweed suit and a ginger colored tie. His thin face was framed with graying stubble. One book titled, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" was in his hands and he was attending it attentively. Another book I could not quite see was on the table.
I played with the thought of interrupting his reading to start a conversation, the way I intrusively do from time to time with strangers. When he finally put down the book, rubbed his eyes, and saw me across, he smiled. So I got up and approached him. "Excuse me, but that book seems exasperatingly interesting. Can I have a look?"
We ended up talking for hours about authors and terrible movies and trying to define the conundrum of "what is your favorite color?"
He seemed so wise and well put together that all the while we were talking I kept having this word in the back of my head - connoisseur. A savant in life matters that knows the secrets of all secrets, the knower of knowledge.
After two hours perusing memories of titles, I jolted at the realization that I did not know his name. I extended my hand and said, "Call me Gaya. And you?" He glanced over to the book next to his elbow, a Penguin edition of Les Misérables. He grinned and said, "Call me Penguin."
to be continued-
"I'm doing good, great, wonderful most of the time. And the rest, I am anxious and sad and worried."
"Still?"
My heart sank a little hearing his question. I wish that grief is a type of malady that passes soon enough. What I find instead, is that it gives you a myriad of darkness that sucks things in and sometimes kicks you in the gut. There is something obsessive and incoherent about it. The more I try to run away, the more it grips and tangles over.
There are places I go to sit and heal. One of them is a tea house rimmed with blue linings at the glass window, the corner of Seven and Luck avenues. I have three good friends I frequently meet there.
Hassan, is the first one I met. I call him Hass. One of our first talks was absurd, which is always a good sign of wonderful friendship ahead. We talked about llamas. Hass likes llamas, and amused, I asked with a snort of giggles I couldn't help, "Why?" He said, "Look at their faces. They're just so relaxed, not happy and not sad. They are the zen of the animalia. I'd like to be one of them." "You? You want to be one of them? You're trained in bio-molecular engineering and you want to be a llama?" "Why not?" And we burst in laughter together.
There were nights we just sat at table 23, me turning my tea cup round and round, him with his work. And I'd say things like, "Hass, I can't breathe again," he'd stop his work, looked at my face, and put both his palms in front of his chest the shape like a lotus bud. "Now concentrate on my hands, and as I open my palms, you breathe in; and when I close them, you breathe out."
The lotus-hands bloomed slowly and closed again. That was how I learned to breathe. Hassan taught me.
The second one was Jordan. Now he is the jolly one. We joked and teased each other about having grown up in religious household and ending up a total deserter. Last I met him, he told me he finally bought those casual business shirt he needed for a meeting. The irony. Jordan and I did not get to see each other much, but he's my black belt in emotional taekwondo. Mash that up with a figure of a human teddy bear. How can you top that?
The last one, I accidentally met when I was alone with my old copy of Azar Nafisi. This man was sitting aloof in the corner seat, almost hidden under his flannel grey flat cap. He had on a brown woolen tweed suit and a ginger colored tie. His thin face was framed with graying stubble. One book titled, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" was in his hands and he was attending it attentively. Another book I could not quite see was on the table.
I played with the thought of interrupting his reading to start a conversation, the way I intrusively do from time to time with strangers. When he finally put down the book, rubbed his eyes, and saw me across, he smiled. So I got up and approached him. "Excuse me, but that book seems exasperatingly interesting. Can I have a look?"
We ended up talking for hours about authors and terrible movies and trying to define the conundrum of "what is your favorite color?"
He seemed so wise and well put together that all the while we were talking I kept having this word in the back of my head - connoisseur. A savant in life matters that knows the secrets of all secrets, the knower of knowledge.
After two hours perusing memories of titles, I jolted at the realization that I did not know his name. I extended my hand and said, "Call me Gaya. And you?" He glanced over to the book next to his elbow, a Penguin edition of Les Misérables. He grinned and said, "Call me Penguin."
to be continued-
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