gazing at beauty

So a couple months ago, Aric and I decided that we should see something beautiful and breathtaking once a week. It's a way to find perspective by taking attention off ourselves and squarely on something truly praiseworthy. Next to the vastness of the ocean, the golden glow of the San Gabriel Valley from the Colorado Bridge, and the vista of Los Angeles seen from the roof of the 1935 Griffith Observatory, our day-to-day struggles seem small and our efforts to keep our days spinning with our own ambitions almost silly.

As a teen, when I'd get overwhelmed with the drama that is high school, I'd find the highest point to climb in our small city. This wasn't hard considering that I lived in a desert. It ended up being the top of South Mountain near Mesa, Ariz. or a huge boulder on top of a hill near Arizona State University. Gazing at the world quietly glimmering below me, I found myself getting pulled into the bigness of life and out of what C.S. Lewis called the tyranny of an "incessant autobiography." It seems it's only when I am reminded of how small, insignificant yet precious I am to the One who created the world that I find rest in my restless mind.

So from time to time, I'll post photos of the beautiful things Aric and I make a point of gazing at every week. This week, it was the view from Griffith Observatory.

ruminating on these words

"The first thing a Christian is emancipated from is the tyranny of moods and the tyranny of feeling he is not understood. These are the most fruitful sources of misery. Half the misery in the world comes because one person demands of another a complete understanding, which is absolutely impossible. The only Being Who understands us is the Being Who made us."
-- Anonymous

Conversation between child Lucy and Aslan the lion in Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis:

"Aslan, you're bigger," Lucy said.
"That is because you're older, little one," answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

belated photos from new york city & philly

to live more and relive less

My mind has a sound track for every city I've lived in.

They play in my head whenever I close my eyes and daydream about my years in Philadelphia, New York and Tokyo.

For New York, it's an obscure song called "Fallen For You" by Sheila Nicholls.

...Thought about you all the time,
Walking round, the Guggenheim.
Like a rhyme, in my mind...

It would take me to a side street near Lincoln Center off Amsterdam Avenue where I took flamenco lessons at a ballet studio. How I used to walk and walk from there to Central Park until dusk, my Spanish dancing shoes poking from my purse. Those first and last few days with Aric when we'd walk along Riverside Park on cold April afternoons. Walks on lunch breaks in mid September one year, when rows and rows of store windows on the opulent Fifth Avenue displayed nothing but black ribbons and American flags.

So when Aric and I decided to return to New York to relive our first days as a couple for our one year anniversary, the one thing I looked forward was... walking.

We walked alright. Miles. In my heels. So much so that I developed plantar fasciitis, a painful swelling of the flat band of tissue that connects your heel bone to your toes. Yes. I'm a hopeless romantic who didn't think to pack comfortable walking shoes to the very city I planned to walk from East Village to Soho and up Avenue of the Stars to Midtown. So I'm in gold ballerina slippers for the next few weeks, much to the delight of my girlfriends and the chagrin of my husband who likes it when I wear heels.

In all seriousness, it was a beautiful, tender vacation. One thing I realized, though, standing in front of a once French-Italian restaurant on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights that had since turned into a Sushi joint was -- moments are meant to be lived, not relived. I will never forget the way Aric looked at me that night when we sat over a candle light dinner at the quaint restaurant in April of 2002. And that's enough. To relive it would have cheapened the experience. So we turned around and headed toward Little Italy, where we sought out a new restaurant to celebrate our anniversary dinner. We indulged ourselves in gnocchi Bolognese, linguine with clams, veal Marsala and lemon wine shrimp, while pinot grigio mingled with the scent of cigars.

Mostly, the vacation was about being extravagantly loved by friends. Rochelle and Dave who put us up, fed us and to our delight, bristled at the injustice we had recently experienced in the past few months. Jason and Alvin who opened up their home to us. Kim and Chun who insisted on paying for our anniversary dinner. And Amy, who showed up on College Green at Penn (where we took a day trip) with champagne and champagne glasses in hand to celebrate our first year of marriage.

For Aric, the vacation served as a kind of closure. For me, it was a lesson on living in the moment.

one year anniversary

Aric and I will be celebrating our one year anniversary in New York City over Labor Day weekend, where we met and spent three unforgettable weeks together before launching into a five-year long distance relationship. We'll stroll through Central Park where we first held hands, sip coffee at a small French restaurant in midtown where we celebrated his birthday, and walk the boardwalk of Brooklyn Heights where we first kissed.

Aric, in our year of marriage, has taught me what it means to be lavishly loved by someone, what it means to have dreams come true and what it feels like to live with someone who can cause you to become so angry and so happy in a matter of hours. Aric wrote a beautiful reflection on our marriage on his blog. Take a look. http://aricallen.blogspot.com/

a story resurrected

Remember a while back I wrote about a horrible day in May -- "a story killed, a wet purse and an ugly dent in my car"?

Well, that story got resurrected this week and the response has been better than expected. LA Observed, a blog run by a group of renown journalists, picked up my story today about Koreatown banks here in LA. The excerpt is called, "Wall Street turns on Korean banks."

http://www.laobserved.com/biz/

The story can also be found on http://www.labusinessjournal.com/ It's the top story on the right -- "Korean Banks Taking a Hard Hit." If you're visiting this blog after Aug. 26, you have to pay to read it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a pain. But that's the only way I get paid. I'd be happy to zap you a copy so let me know.

So the story has been revived to a better state, the purse has survived with a little sag, the only thing left... a new car?

a house on ridgeview avenue

It was the day after I arrived from Tokyo three years ago. Aric and I were trying to take our first steps as a couple on the same soil, after having been apart for eight months. We were fiercely trying to get past my final days in Tokyo, which were hard on our relationship. So before I could get over jetlag, we went to a birthday party together.

The whole house was lit up with people laughing and eating. The backyard, with a lone wooden swing, was idyllic. I remember clutching onto a purple lily for the birthday girl I'd only met once. The house, with its dark wooden beams, Rockwell paintings and oversized black leather chairs seemed rustic and inviting. The girl, a newly wed, had just leisurely walked out of a shower and seemed at ease as she brushed her hair even as people bustled around her, cooking and prepping for dinner. "I like her," I thought. "She knows how to take things at her own pace."

I would sleep over in their guest room that night, and many more nights as I drove up from San Diego on weekends to spend time with Aric in Pasadena just across the bridge. The house on Ridgeview Avenue became sort of a home to us just as Kenny and Alicia became a resting place for our relationship. It was to that home we returned to after Aric proposed on a winter beach. It was in that home our small group became a family. It was to that home the Kaos brought home two beautiful, beautiful daughters.

This month, the Kaos sold their house and they're moving away. And while most of my life has consisted of goodbyes and long-distance relationships, I am finding myself mourning a loss. We know Kenny and Alicia, who stood in our wedding, are perennial friends. And their daughters Naomi and Olivia have a permanent place in our hearts. But it's the end of an era for the Kaos and the Allens.

I'll miss Alicia's note to her husband -- "You so hot in Eagle Rock" -- that always hung a little to its side on the refrigerator, their creaky door that I never managed to open on my own, and Kenny's "magnificent" tea.

Kenny and Alicia, here's to a new chapter. You'll be missed, sorely missed, here in Eagle Rock.