My feet have hardly hit the ground and I’ve been running, but I keep asking myself where to? I know from where — first from Paris, where I did not want to leave and wanted to stay, where I felt, as always, back at home, and after that, New York City, where I went to see friends, editors, agents, family, and there again, not wanting to return here, but knowing that this, too, is also home. So how then to define where I really belong?
All of this raises in me the question of where home really is, which raises the issue of recognition. In New York City, with one exception, I did not meet a single person who was from America. Everyone was from somewhere else and like me, they were ex-pats, grateful to be here, but missing a sense of home terribly. It's a tough thing. You come and you are so grateful, but of course, you miss what you know, and you naturally seek it out in others, which is what I mean by recognition. I suppose it is why we sometimes gravitate to those who seem familiar to us in some way — whom we sense that we "have known them our whole life."
In a way, we have. We have because we have known ourselves. And in knowing us, we know them. It may be the small things — how they move, a look or the color of the eyes, their innate nature, their particular way of thinking, even their neuroses which perhaps at first may seem even charming (ultimately annoying as hell, but in the beginning, a comfort that, at last, someone is like you.)
More, if you are, like me, of mixed blood and descent, of mixed religion, then you also know what it means to be torn in two directions — you're an Anglican Jew. Go figure. Maybe you denied one or the other your whole life. Or perhaps never allowed yourself to be one. Or perhaps others pigeon-holed you as one (because you look the part, in my case, a WASP — how very convenient for them). Step outside of your social role, and people get very uncomfortable. This I’ve learned and it is much to my surprise. I never thought adults could be, well, so much like the adults I knew when I was a child. But I suppose people are people. Ultimately, we seek out what we know, which is not to say we form cliques or ghettos, but that we do seek recognition, and we do seek refuge and shelter from the storm (and yes, life can sometimes be a storm). We will do this with someone in whom we see ourselves.
Article comments
1 - Steve
Hey, Sadi,
Just discovered your article. You must be feeling quite a loss (and be 'at a loss' to boot) right now, if I understand what you wrote correctly.
I wonder about your friend's motivations, if you were correct about what he has said to you in subtle ways in the past. Not having any backstory, there is no way I could speculate with any certainty.
I do wonder if perhaps he is willing to deny the relationship you thought you had with him because you are now married (if you haven't seen him in a long time), or perhaps, because he has become closer to someone else more recently and does not want to acknowledge what you had in the past with him because he may worry the new relationship might be jeopardised in some way.
Either way, though you may feel hurt, his apparent dishonesty about your past relationship may be his (perhaps inept) way of protecting either himself, you, or both of you. If so, better not to take the rejection too personally.
2 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
hey Steve,
all astute observations to be sure... but none that i can see that would really apply here. hardly an affair or anything that would approach, so it's just all too bizarre, unless the perception was such - or perhaps something he felt, i can't say.
To me, the whole thing was good and innocent and rich and just a safe harbor and a thing i truly valued with someone i truly love and still do. I would never shut that door, but hurt me and hurt me hard, then yes, i will shut that door and when that door closes, it closes forever.
i don't drop my guard often. in fact, i haven't dropped my guard in twenty plus years, so it was unusual for me to do in the first place, which is perhaps why this hurt(s) so very much; it's such a major rejection of major effort it took and what it means for me to drop that guard... which is a lot (hence, lack of acknowledgment) and also, a lack of acknowlegment of what was truly a very very close friendship - re-edit and revision of what certainly WAS (and no, this is not my perception.
i am, let's face it, a journalist and a documentarian, hence, i save everything, so yes, i have his own words to prove and thank god, because otherwise, i would doubt my own sanity... right? but no... i'm not nuts. He is a revisionist. That is unfair to both of us and worse of all, it is a total dismissal of a relationship that was, at least at one time, very important, i think, to both of us (rather, i KNOW) important to both.
As to protecting "us" - he's not protecting ME from anything. He is protecting only himself - and from what? From me? What the hell am i threatening? Some perception he has, which is likely false and absurd. I wouldn't let him off the hook so easily.
I face every day with the pendulum of epilepsy swinging over my head... and sure... yes, any one could get hit by a car, blah blah... the difference is that i know that car has come and is coming down the road. That is a difference and in this, and because of my life, i may be or not be a lot of things, but i am NOT a coward. I thought he and i had so much in common ... and when we fought he kept saying we do not.. and i was so hurt because i kept thinking we did... and now that i look at it, i think "right" ... we lack one major thing in common and that may be the very fact that i face up to things and confront them pragmatically and practicaly and head on... no matter how emotional and how much of a "poet" i may be labelled, it is I who remains the problem solver, the pragmatist, and certainly NOT the coward.
There is nothing i hate more than a coward or cowardice. That and a revisionist. How sad.
Thanks for writing ... and thanks for all...
s.
3 - Steve
Thanks for the clarification, Sadi, I guess I took the lyric quote at the end of your article (re. lover) too literally.
Well, I guess I can only empathise with your loss, it's not fun to lose a friend, especially when they deny they've had a change of heart re. you in the first place, then you're really left in the dark, which is never a pleasant place to be.
May God shed some light on the whole thing, so that it may be easier for you to bear. These things don't happen without a reason.
I recall once as a teen I started hanging around with a guy at high school who was a bit of a loner, and after about a year, one of my other friends told me there was gossip going around that him and I must be gay!! Being a shy, introverted, heterosexual teen I was shocked that anyone could think such a thing (I had no contact with the guy outside of school), so I immediately became alot more aloof and stopped hanging out with him there (though upon reflection, given that I hadn't had a girlfriend up to that point, and had said no to someone I got along well with who asked me out on a date, I could see why folks would add 2 and 2 and get 10!!).
Anyway, after about a year, I decided, what the hay, it's not true, and who cares anyway, so I started talking with him again, but never told him why I'd stopped hanging out with him before.
There, you must think I'm a real coward now vis a vis communication lol!!