M29 on Sunday Evening

February has come with an interesting turn of events, although most of them not worth writing down here. Back at Pora, - specifically, facing the stove, right before the riddles came up - a seed was implanted in my brain: I've started ballet. Damn, those athletes look like elegant flamingos swaying in water, but omfg it is so much work (& math). I look more like a hurried chicken who can't keep count. The instructor Lucie is strict and savvy and reminds me of my Russian gymnastics coach Vania, which was probably what got me to go back a second time, despite the humiliation.

Lots of tripping - getting some of it into writing as I'd like for my brother to review a series of essays when I see him for a couple days next week. I assume he won't have much time, but a girl can dream.

Speaking of dreaming, some of it is related to my redefinition of The American Dream, a thought I began working on last year (if I recall correctly, we may have touched on this briefly) - not the fantasy whose purpose is only to feed the machine, but the dream that exists despite it. The dream which, for a moment, did not seem to be very American at all. Over time I have concluded that it is, in fact, very American, to me. It is the dream born of the Great Migration, the dream I share with James Baldwin, the one that took root in me long ago, shaped by my latino parents, immigrants from across Asia, and the Jewish community of Greenburgh. The result of resistance against racism and gender discrimination, but also of a rough culture forged through patriarchy, colonization, slavery, and hardship; terrors that long predate the culture of the country as we now know it. A culture that was mine to grow within but in fact not my true heritage at all - nor exclusively anyone else's - making me even more of a "new yorker".

It seems pointless to describe the experience of having had such an intense history embedded in me since the beginning of my life, or to describe my love for that city and its activists and surroundings. Yet, perhaps New York is no longer the place I'd choose to live in. That aspiration belongs to an older identity of mine which no longer seems to serve me... I was reminded of that when I encountered one of my oldest blog posts, dated June 2009 (another humiliation). Can't help but wonder how long it's been the case. I find myself thinking I may need not grow in NY as much as I have already grown there. (?). There seems to be a shift in my perception of it, more as an origin and enabling structure than a selected environment. The kid who dreamt of going home could not distinguish the two. It kinda feels like I'm possibly concluding my everlasting NY decision, which is relieving. At the same time, it is with deep sorrow that I acknowledge my excitement for this question to no longer occupy so much space in my mind and instead make room for something else.

Anyways, I have been able (and intend to continue) to ramble about this with an American acquaintance, Colin Seven, who called me while on the M29 bus on Sunday evening, a gesture I appreciated as a fellow caller over texter. He lived in New York for some time and has been in Berlin/Europe for what seems longer than I have. Ironically, he is from California.