new address

please go to www.leeallen.blogspot.com to find my new blog

long silence

I have been silent for the past month or so because I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with my blog. It started out as a private journal, then a letter of sorts to my closest friends. And then I realized there's nothing private about blogging. I know, I know... that's pretty self-explanatory. I just figured that my voice would be safely lost in the dark abyss of cyberspace for the most part, and then occasionally found by people I like.

Then recently, I realized that most people I interview for stories Google me before they meet me. So they get to click through my wedding pictures and read about my deepest thoughts and poignant moments of my childhood before I show up at their office to talk about their latest gadgets. Not good. Ever tried Googling your name? It's a scary thing to do when you have an odd name like mine. Before, it was mostly my bylines that would float to the top. Now, my blog has gotten enough hits to make it to the first page.

If I make this blog private, it would make it more inconvenient for you to check in. You'd have to sign in or register for a gmail account. Even if I buy my own domain name, the privacy settings will make it more of a hassle for you. But that's what privacy settings are supposed to do, my husband reminded me last night.

Any suggestions on how to address my conundrum?

something to brag about

My sister's luxury brand, Ekatrina New York is thriving in Asia but hasn't hit the United States... until last week when a paraparazzi caught Nicole Richie carrying her red Tessa clutch. She must have picked it up at a European or an LA boutique, one of a handful that carries Ekatrina New York.

We were delighted for the publicity, since companies are known to pay thousands of dollars for the Nicole/Paris couple to wear their stuff. It looks like she just bought Tessa herself at a specialty fashion boutique and probably has no idea who my sister is.

"Ekatrina" is my sister Cathy's name in Russian and "New York" is for the 10 years she served as a designer in that crazy city. Check it out: www.ekatrinany.com

news from a country not yet visited

Well, our hopes of gazing at beauty on a weekly basis didn't quite pan out since our visit to the Griffith Observatory. The following week, we found ourselves trapped between the burning mountains to the east and more flames to the west. With the beach and the mountains out of reach, there's not much else to see in California. We watched helplessly as the historic wild fire engulfed my old neighborhood in San Diego and beyond, a region I covered for the San Diego Union-Tribune for two years. As I listened to reports of the public hospital behind my old apartment being evacuated, patients filing into school buses, I wondered where I would have been had I stayed in San Diego. Probably living out of a sleeping bag in the newsroom.

Since then, Aric and I have been spinning our wheels, clocking in and out of work, exercising, cooking, seeing friends and hosting gatherings at our apartment. Here and there, I've caught moments of something beautiful -- a child's small hand slipping into mine, a hearty laughter with friends, the words of Emily Dickinson's poem "Proof" on my cubicle, a silent cup of coffee with my husband on our porch before a golden sunset. And I've begun to wonder why I have this obsession with finding beauty in my life. Then I came across this.

I am trying to rip open the unconsolable secret in each one of you -- the secret which hurts so much that you take revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism or Adolescence... the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter... The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was a longing... for they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not yet visited.
-- C.S. Lewis, "Weight of Glory"

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