Day two

I felt strangely exhilarated the next morning. When S, who was shuffling our Netflix queue, told me he had added "Salma's sexy belly-dance video" to our queue, along with some Rajnikant movie from the 1980s that I am sure he can recite from memory, I opened my mouth to protest, but checked myself. I smiled instead, and said "Okay!". He blinked at me uncomprehendingly. This was obviously not the response he had been expecting, and the one thing you can always count on me to do is take the bait. I did a little jig. This acting out-of-character is more fun than I thought!

The same strange energy lasted till the office. I breezed into the elevator, and surprised the woman in the elevator by chirping "Excellent!" in response to the Hi, How are you?. She stared at me a moment, and then asked, half-frowning, “Did I hear you say…excellent?”. Oh no, I thought. She’s found me out. It sounded completely fake. For many years after I moved to this country, I did not realize that the “How are you” question was rhetorical, and have never mastered the “Fine, thanks. And you?” that seems to slip out so smoothly from most people, almost as if it were a single word. I would actually think, and respond by describing my present state of mind as accurately as possible in one phrase. “Not bad”, “Tired”, “Waiting for the summer”. When I was slinking about as a senior-year PhD student and was accosted by the question from professors who I was trapped with in the elevator, I defaulted to the weather, falling back on “cold”, “wet”, “hot” since that was the only truthful thing I could say other than “Want to rip up my dissertation and jump out of my cubicle window, only I cant because my cubicle doesn’t have a window”. As a result, I have always dreaded the question, felt it to be a constant assault on my thoughts, an annoying convention that forces me to interrupt my current reverie and describe my progress in this world, in twenty seconds, to a virtual stranger. So my “Excellent!” was unique, not only because it was pat but also because it was upbeat, something I rarely am.

I confirmed to the lady in the elevator that I had indeed said “excellent”, and she settled back into her corner and watched me suspiciously for the rest of the ride. A few minutes later, I walked into Caroline sorting mail in the mailroom and surprised myself by chirping “Excellent!” again in my most exuberant voice (much easier, the second time). I realized almost as soon as I said it that the lady from the elevator had been standing behind Caroline and chatting with her. She stared at me again, and as I beat a hasty retreat down the stairs from the mailroom I heard her say to Caroline – “Well, its good to have cheerful people around, I guess!” I laughed at the irony all the way from the 11th floor down to the 5th.

The strange buzz of energy continued. I dashed madly about my office, spring-cleaned every single cabinet, cleared out every item in my multiple inboxes, swept up food crumbs from the carpet, and updated the quote on my door, all in about half-hour before collapsing on my chair. Not good, Divya. This is looking suspiciously like over-the-top enthusiasm at the beginning, which will no doubt fizzle out before long and leave me all jaded and turned off in no time.

As expected, by the time four o’ clock came around, I was feeling the resistance. I did not want to leave my office right now and walk across Washington Park to YouthBuild, my One Thing for the day. I had some momentum with the manuscript I was editing, I was almost done with it, I didn’t want to break it. If I kept going now, I could finish it before taking the 5:58 train out. If I left now and came back half an hour later, there would not be enough time for me to come back and get anything done with that block of time. Besides, this whole idea was idiotic anyway.

I went. A few days ago, while walking back alone after buying a sandwich from one of the shops on Halsey Street, I walked past a set of glass doors. Two black kids – high school kids, possibly, were standing inside, talking loudly and laughing. I stopped and stared for a couple of seconds before one of them saw me. The sign on top said “YouthBuild”, and I was instantly interested. An afterschool tutoring place, maybe? So close to work. I wouldn’t have to commute extra, it would be a way to get involved with something in Newark other than coming into work everyday and taking the 5:58 train back out to New York Penn. But something made me keep walking, even though I wanted to go in and find out what they did and if I could get involved in any way. What if they laughed at me? Told me no help was required? That it wasn’t even what I thought or hoped it might be? Sounds ridiculous to me as I write it, but that is exactly what made me keep walking on at that moment.

I left my office reluctantly and started walking. I gathered momentum somewhere along the way, and was soon crossing the park in great enthusiasm, enchanted by my own sense of initiative. Once on Halsey Street I stopped at the sight of many closed shutters, and had to backtrack a few steps to find the “YouthBuild” sign on top of one of them. Closed. Served me right. Lesson for today: Don’t hesitate. Don’t let thinking get in the way of doing. Most of your thoughts are half-assed, anyway. Doing something stupid is better than thinking something brilliant.

I wandered back through Washington Park, deflated, irritated, shaking my head. My grand project was going to go into default on Day 2. I dallied outside the Business school building, not wanting to go in. On a whim, I walked into the building right next door: the Newark Public Library. Now, I have always known about its existence and “made a mental note” to go in there and get a card, oh, about a thousand times. Today, I finally did, out of desperation because I wanted to do something. I was pleasantly surprised. No, actually, make that pleasantly shocked. The library was beautiful inside – soaring ceilings, marble columns, long glass windows, murals on the walls, and quiet. The books were actually shelved in some sensible order and the first two books I thought of I was able to find in five minutes.

Libraries and bookstores are my refuge. I walk into one, inhale the musty smell of old paper (in a library) or the clean, sharp smell of new books (in a store) and instantly take deeper breaths and am happy to just sit still and enjoy the feeling of all these books around me. I had been working in Newark for a year, hating every minute. And here it was, a library, in the next building. I felt ridiculous for not coming in here sooner. Of course, the reason being I had not expected the city of Newark- shabby, shady, left behind, the “armpit of America”, to have any room inside it for something so fanciful as a gorgeous building devoted entirely to books. Reinforcement of the day’s lesson: most of my thoughts are half-assed.