Wrapped in optimism, I started this year in Oak Park, Illinois. As much as I tried to fall in love with Southern California, it never worked. Like a jilted lover I kept thinking of my life in New York. As preposterous as it sounds I would still prefer the stenching MTA tracks over the defeaning silence in Venice Beach by the evening. My reality about dating someone from the mid-west fell apart soon after I returned back to LA. And there I was in a city ,that did not feel like home. Jaded, loveless and occassionally lonely. The month end brought back some amazing news. I finally had an opportunity to move back to New York City.
In a parallel world my sibling moved to Europe and I took this opportunity to visit her. The trip, like most trips was a metaphor aimed at ameliorating my internal conflicts. Of pesky life choices, lost love and stifled sighs. In an unexpected turn of events, I managed to visit Berlin. It came to me with the scent of an European Marzipan, the discordance of bicycle gears over a tram rail, the fragrant bundles of peonies scarlet by the Fernsheturm, and the sight of the burly TV tower. That relic of futures past, piercing a teal evening sky. I forgot my life and my anxieties.
March started terribly. The pandemic clawed the country. Unusual hobbies to veil our surging qualms locked inside our apartments. Loneliness and restlessness competed for the crown. Somedays felt longer than others. Fortunately I found a friend who was as obsessed as me when it came to Indian takeouts. Our evenings spent at the courtyard complaining about non existent love life, police brutalities and the raging crisis. March turned to May and by June I decided I should move back to NYC. There was nothing holding me back. On my final day my friend baked me a lemon tart. As I texted him from the airport, thanking him for the lemon tart, he said the french would be angry and I should call it "Tarte au citron". I laughed, and boarded my flight. It took myself a week to realize that I am finally back. The city was same and yet different in many ways. Desolate New York lane is a fictitous thing. When were New York streets ever empty ? Except that it was true this time. I remember walking past mid town on a Saturday not recognizing the city ocassionally stumping onto red buildings with tiny windows.
August ended in a rather bad way. Both my parents tested positive. 21 days later Baba left us. When my sister called me, I could not cry. Seeing my father being offloaded from the stretcher to the van for cremation, my heart broke. In ways, that I did not know. I cried that night thinking about my father. We share the same initials he used to joke often. Friends leaped in to offer help. Some cooked meals while others spoke for hours on the phone. Almost surreal how grief united us all extenuating the bitter reality. I worked more, to distract myself. I met people I had lost in touch with. Ocassionally indulging in the sickness and delusion of reaching out to an ex. It was finally autumn. With the leaves outside bursting red the pain grew proportionally. Somedays I would stare at his picture for a good 10 minutes until a zoom calendar invite disrupted my thoughts. Somedays an old facebook post would bring in memories. The year had almost finished I told myself. A year that had so much promise, but did not deliver.
With December almost there I am anticipating my trip back home. I want to sit on the chair in my fathers office. Perhaps use his computer again. Seeking comfort with an agonizing sense of foreboding and inevitability of the emptiness. At 28, I'm aware of the passage of time in softer forms. It is winter again. I decided to move to Lower East Side. Out the window of my new apartment, I see a withered tree as the sky turns darker.