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

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/