Roofs

It seems that there is something with me and roofs. I found myself on one today - the roof of my apartment building - trying to fall into a book while bathing in the inescapable blazing sunlight and engrossed in my own thoughts that, for all my efforts, prevented the book from being anything other than a paperweight to my reeling mind. I woke up feeling uncomfortable, hot, almost feverish, but not the sort of fever that comes with illness; it was an internal heat, a message from my mind that it is hot, too hot, that it needs to breathe a little. And so i went to the roof, hoping for the occasional breeze, but inevitably found only the scorching sun, daring me to search for peace under its glare.

It's not the first time that i have sought solace on roofs... just a little less than a year ago, i remember running to yet another roof in the middle of the night, needing to escape for a little while; I remember pacing and then sitting there for several hours, clearing my mind, refusing to return to the real world below until i had resolved something, anything. I have sought out other places in search of peace... i've wandered through parks, sped through empty highways, stared down the precariously inviting necks of foreign vodka bottles. I have tried to drown in marathons of sitcoms, to occupy my mind with chess, to express myself through art and poetry. I've curled up on friends' couches, blasted Metallica, and even sang a little. All of those things have served their purpose and yet it is roofs... desolate, dusty roofs, in pitch black nights or on painfully bright days that have brought me peace. Don't think the irony is lost on me - so many before me have come to roofs seeking to end their lives, looking for a way out. But that is as far as possible from my own motives... i don't look for endings on these tall platforms, away from everything; for me, those quiet hours are like a new beginning.

I have my good days and bad days... today, clearly, was one of the latter. I'm tired of Indian food... i can't stand the rice anymore, the runny daal, the over-spiced, oily dishes that make my mother's marinated fish look appetizing (umm... sorry mom :). I want a sandwich... just one decent sandwich, with some hard sliced Russian salami, a few pieces of cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, mayo and a lot of mustard, with a pickle on the side. Maybe two pickles. I want to leave a piece of cookie on the table without causing an ant invasion... I want a drop of cold milk in sugary breakfast cereal; I have never before wanted the simple gooey goodness of Kraft macaroni and cheese so much. I've spent days - weeks, even - backpacking before, in Alaska, in Peru... spent days with just the minimum iodine-flavored water and granola bars, gone without showering, shivered through the night in a poorly insulated tent, and even - i'll admit it, Susan! - survived a bear encounter. But this experience of mine... this living in rural India, separated from everything and everyone i've always known, connected only by the flimsy cable that barely manages to hang on to a cranky internet router - this is different. This is a lot harder, and in ways i never expected.

It's not about food really... or about mosquitoes, dirty water, or the heat. I'm not sure, even, that the internet makes things better, because in some ways it's just a reminder of how far away i really am. It's like a false messenger: "Here it is, everything you know! You can look, but not touch...". There are many things that bother me about living in NYC... the traffic, the pollution, the hectic pace that forces you to forget the possibility of a much simpler life. I often fantasize about leading a calmer life, one with my own organic garden, with a house near the water and work that lets me travel, but always come home at night. That's what i'm really missing here... that sense of belonging, the sense of a real home, which is not, after all, a place so much as it is an experience; it's where you can hang up your day and look at the stars, knowing exactly where you are without needing to know anything else.

I love this experience. I know it may not sound like it, but i love it for its difficulty. I wanted to challenge myself, to leave my comfort zone and plunge into a world as foreign as possible. Well, i'm here... i've been here for three and a half months and I have two more to go. I have my work, my books, email, and the roof. In six weeks i'll be finished with my project and i'll have the beach and surf also. In some ways, that's more than enough... it's a lot more than many people ever get. But I know the facts... the stars overhanging my beloved roof aren't my own, and even if the constellations are familiar, they look down at me from foreign angles. I am learning to have an inner peace, but my mind continues to work without my permission. I suppose it is that mind that is both a gift and a curse... Descartes said "i think, therefore i am"... how incomplete that is, how simultaneously it embraces everything while saying absolutely nothing about the real experience of being human.

Anyway, to conclude this admittedly odd post i'm including one of my favorite Robert Frost poems, from "A Further Range", 1936...

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field i looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it - it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less -
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places