stories and gaps

what pushes me?

What begs to be said? Lately, I have realized that there is a tension in my life. A gap that needs to be filled. It’s not a gap that exists merely between me and things. It is not a god-sized gap which can be filled with devotion to the cause of my life. It is rather smaller. It’s not insurmountable in fact, they are gaps that can be easily jumped over. Only sometimes.

I don’t know how to approach people about things that are real other than to either ignore it, or to face it head-on, with absolutely no tact whatsoever. I have stories that I’ve collected here that beg to be brought up in conversation. My entire soul blooms as I tell these stories. Mostly because they’re funny, but also because they represent a part of my life that I can interpret in my own way to be funny. To be absurd. It communicates my joy for life. The joy I find in the experiences that I have. Maybe not during, but after the fact. The enjoyment that I can reap from the experience again and again.

An example of such a story was something that happened to me before I went to Venice. I’d been messaging someone on Hinge, a prominent dating app, for a bit before we met. She was a nice-looking woman who had similar interests to me. The conversation was nothing special, but I was hungering for some human connection so we decided to meet up for some coffee.

We met at a café called Phil, in the 7^th district. I got there early and snagged a seat for us. I set my stuff down and went to the bathroom, so I wouldn’t get any sudden urges to expel myself violently during the date. I saw her directly after leaving the bathroom. We got to talking immediately. My first question was a logistic one: “Where do you live?” I asked, wondering how long it took her to get there. She told me that she lived in the 16^th, she asked me the same. I said I lived in the 10^th. As soon as I said that, her eyes lit up with a sense of familiarity. She immediately said “Oh! I know the 10^th a little bit where exactly do you live?” I told her I live on Neilreichgasse. “I teach at the school there” I said, suspicious of what would come next. Her face turned to a look of slight surprise with a certain air of disappointment when she said “I go to school on Neilreichgasse”. So I was on a date with a student… She was 21, so don’t go on judging me readers.

What I regret most about this date is that I didn’t tell her that I wasn’t interested sooner. We talked for 2 hours about life. I learned a lot about her family background. I learned about her relationship with her father and her life in Bangladesh before she moved to Vienna. I learned about her struggles obtaining a visa and with integrating and going to high school at such a late age. By the end of the date, we were sitting by the Donau, she had told me about herself, I’d told her about myself. After a small silence amidst out conversation, I told her that I couldn’t pursue anything romantically or physically with her. “I don’t think that I can date a student. Even if you don’t have classes with me, it’s still something I don’t want to mix”. She seemed slightly sad about what I’d said. Maybe it was more a look of disappointment. The date was clearly over. “Well, I have to go to class now” she said…

I accompanied her to class, maybe rubbing salt in a sore in the process. It wasn’t necessarily hurtful, but it could’ve been if there was more of an investment. I hugged her goodbye in the lobby of the school, then I went to the bathroom and went home. Later that night, I took a train to Venice, later to meet with fate but in another way.

I’ve told that story a million times, I’ve told it so much that it has taken on a life of it’s own. I don’t even think about the words when I tell it to people now. I feel the vibration of my vocal chords and the smile that stretches across my face from ear to ear. I feel the sense of warmth I get when I tell the story. I don’t really think of the story anymore, I just think of other’s reactions to it.

I would always try to fit it into a conversation for those that hadn’t heard it. I wanted to fill the gap in the conversation. To jump over it and into an open world of exchange. This was my part of the exchange. Everything in my being begged for this story to be told.

Yet there are some gaps that beg to be jumped over but I just can’t bring myself to jump over them. Sometimes there’s a tightrope that I can walk to get over the gap. Other times, I turn away in disappointment. Mad about the lack of courage I feel when I can take a leap of faith. I’ve gotten better at facing these gaps. At facing them head on, creating a point of communication when others don’t want to.

Some prefer to enjoy the gap. Once you cross the gap everything before seems so real. You can’t build a bridge back. Sometimes there is a playground before the gap that you can only play in, but in silence. There is no giggling, no cries of joy there. Just equipment, just something to play on but nothing to grasp. Only once you cross the gap can you play without silence. You can talk, you can scream, you can grasp. But there is a danger of loss of the playground. There’s a danger of crossing the gap and losing everything. Only to find yourself in another state of openness, where you have to find your way once again. There is no dwelling-place to go back to.

I’m afraid of these gaps, but I will take them on. Even if there is a danger of being lost across the chasm of destiny I will not shy away from each moment. Each moment to feel alive. To not merely dwell in silence in wait of an easier gap to surmount. Some gaps are insurmountable, however, and so I hope I am able to see that.

124

In the horizon of the infinite. We have forsaken the land and gone to sea! We have destroyed the bridge behind us - more so, we have demolished the land behind us! Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean; it is true, it does not always roar, and at times it lies there like silk and gold and dreams of goodness. But there will be hours when you realize that it is infinite and that there is nothing more awesome than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that has felt free and now strikes against the walls of this cage! Woe, when homesickness for the land overcomes you, as if there had been more freedom there - and there is no more 'land'!

-Nietzsche, the Gay Science