Last Saturday, I woke up around 3 a.m. to city sounds – a homeless person jangling his shopping cart down the sidewalk searching through garbage, spray cans hissing along a building, a vibrating bass in some distant car, a guitar being strummed around the corner. I rolled over.

Mark was lying next to me. Sleep wrinkles lined his cheeks and forehead. He was softly mumbling to himself and I wondered what he was dreaming about.

He’d come to Brooklyn the day before to help acclimate me to my new home. He would be staying with me in Gala’s apartment – while she and her boyfriend were on holiday in Japan – until Thursday morning.

It felt like we had our own apartment in the city we’d always talked about moving to since our first time visiting in 2004.

I closed my eyes, wrapped my arm around him and tried to induce my own dreams.

But conversations from months previous left me sleepless. “If I get into NYU, will you come with me to New York baby,” I had asked Mark before my trip overseas.

The conversation became awkward fast. “You know I can’t,” he replied.

He didn’t need to say anymore. I knew what he meant: “The band is recording an album/for this reason, the band has to come first/I am following my dreams.” Since the band is stationed in Syracuse, he and his dreams are as well.

My friends were no help on the issue: “Don’t pressure him. You’ll push him into a corner and then he’ll never come;” “Do you want to marry him? Moving in together is usually a step before marriage;” If he loved you, he’d move;” “If he moves because you ‘guilt trip’ him, he’s going to resent you.”

The subject hadn’t been brought up since until earlier that Saturday evening.

Mark and I were eating dinner at Roberta’s – a “hole in the wall” Italian restaurant around the corner from Gala’s. As we sat munching our pizzas in the (paper-bag covered) candlelit outdoor beer garden, ska, jazz and oldies music alternated in the background. I listened to him excitedly talk about the perks of living in the city.

“Everything’s here,” his eyes lit up. He stuffed a slice into his smiling mouth.

I knew he was commenting on the immense and diverse music scene (Mark is a sound recording technician (SRT) – he interns at a recording studio mixing albums (a.k.a. making bands’ music sound professional on CDs) and does live sound at various Syracuse venues (he manages the sound board, which makes musicians sound good during their performance).

But I couldn’t help but hope he was adding me to this mix.

The words came without thinking: “Then why don’t you move here?”

He took a swig of his Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR – possibly the only beer in the city under $5).

“Sweetie,” he started. Paused and thought of the best way to answer. “You know I can’t.”

The subject was dropped and we finished our meal.

We worked most of the week – he mixing the band’s album and me writing. On our down time, we walked around Central Park and ate at a variety of restaurants, saw live jazz on Bleeker St. and explored Queens (with the goal of locating the laser hair removal school where I will start classes next Monday), made home-cooked meals and watched lightning storms over the city.

On Wednesday night, we decided to visit our friend Luke (an SRT major who graduated with Mark) in Queens – he was throwing a party in honor of his roommate’s friend who was visiting from India.

After much to many “welcome to NYC!” cocktails and attempts to learn a classical Indian dance called “Bharatanatyam,” Mark and I hopped on the subway back to Brooklyn.

We sat on the steps and waited for the F train. His head leaned on my shoulder.

“You know, I do think about us,” he said. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I do … about going [food] shopping with you for us and then cooking us dinner. Waking up every morning next to you and having ‘our place.’”

I looked at him mystified (he is not one to emotionally gush).

“But right now we’re following our own dreams because we can. We have nothing holding us back,” he mumbled something like that. He went on, implying that we had our whole lives to live with one another; that we should take this time apart to fulfill our dreams.

“I know we’ll end up together,” he said.

Mark passed out the minute we arrived home. I listened to the deep exhales of his dreams entwine with the city’s lullaby.

Some indefinable ache tightened in my chest at the thought of him leaving for Syracuse in the morning. I closed my eyes and put my arm around him. At least for a few more hours our dreams would be in the same city.

Originally published Sunday, August 16, 2009