The Forest from the Trees

November 4, 2013 1 Comment

DSC01450

Sometimes I am so focused on the minutiae of my life that I don’t see the forest from the trees.  But now I am beginning to see where I had come and where I am going.  Perhaps driving this a-ha moment is a new month whose arrival assuredly signals the ending of another year, or gaining an extra hour in the day gives the impression of having more time.

Whatever the case may be, it has been a long, strange journey at times marked by more sleepless nights that I could remember.  During one of them, I was surfing on the net and came across Conan O’Brien’s commencement speech to Dartmouth University’s class of 2011.  In closing, he said, “Work hard, be kind and amazing things will happen.”

I’ve certainly put in lots of effort to return to some kind of equilibrium and distributed enough good will and faith to those I’ve met. I guess the amazing thing is surviving and the relief of getting through situations relatively unscathed.  As I get older, I appreciate these moments so much more–even more than words can say.

 

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Her Journey So Far

October 17, 2013 Leave a comment

Lea Salonga

 Tony Award-winner Lea Salonga delighted fans in a rare concert in San Francisco to kick off Filipino American Heritage Month.

It is apparently a rare occurrence to have the international Broadway and movie musical star Lea Salonga perform in the San Francisco Bay Area, since she’s a self-proclaimed New Yorker who divides her time between the Big Apple and the Philippines.  So it was a treat for the mostly Filipino American crowd that packed the Nourse Auditorium in the city a few weeks ago to welcome the singing sensation, in time for Filipino American Heritage Month.

PhilDev, a non-profit that develops programs to support initiatives cultivating economic growth in the Philippines through science and technology, brought Ms. Salonga to the City by the Bay  for a one night-only benefit gala.  It was a kind of a reintroduction since her whirlwind success in the 1990s.  She has certainly grown into her own, using the cabaret-style format to illustrate the trajectory of her career from the age of seven to a mellow 42-year-old.

“I’ve learned through characters,” Ms. Salonga explained in between songs.  “I am grateful for the work, even on a rickety stage and an iffy sound system somewhere in the Philippines.”  She said her perspective of the world has changed as a woman, a friend, mother and daughter, adding she is less judgmental.

Her song selection came from her 2011 CD “The Journey So Far,” a mix of musical numbers, American standards, pop and Filipino songs, that was spun from her 2010 limited-run singing engagement in New York City’s Cafe Carlyle.  She also dedicated a portion of her performance to the rich history of Filipino Americans here, referencing literary icon Carlos Bulosan in the song “Long Season.”  With age, her exquisite voice has found more range as she determinedly knocked out Stephen Sondheim’s vocally challenging “I Don’t Want to Get Married” from his musical “Company.”

The concert lasted roughly two hours, minus a half-hour or so intermission, and the sold-out audience was unquestionably sated by night’s end, with some of course wanting more.  Fans stood in a line that snaked out the venue’s doors into the courtyard, waiting for an autograph.

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Sense Memory

September 11, 2013 Leave a comment

My only photo of the World Trade Center in a cab; Lower Manhattan was not quite the night life my friends and I sought in the city, but the Twin Towers served as my landmark, when I would catch glimpses of their familiar, discernible shape while aimlessly roaming, especially on a day trip during college. I took it for granted they would always be there.

I remember where I was that awful day 12 years ago, temping at an academic doctor’s office and reading on the internet when the World Trade Center towers fell.  Even though I was told me I could leave early after the entire office learned of the news, I stayed a little while longer in denial of the horrific tragedy that transpired.  I also didn’t want to be alone.  Of course, the first thing I did was call my parents since they were still working in the federal building, no less, in Pittsburgh.  I couldn’t be too sure after hearing Flight 93 had gone down in Shanksville, which was a few hours away, but thankfully they were safe.

It wasn’t until I met up with my friend Salli that evening when I was able to find some kind of release and solace, not so much in tears but rather in song.  We went for karaoke to lighten our spirits, and it no doubt helped.

Last Sunday, “60 Minutes” reported on the 9/11 museum set to open next year, and I am struck by how that day still feels so raw with me.  Like this time of the year, I am often reminded of the transition from summer to fall  (I grew up in the East Coast after all; it’s in my DNA) and of such places as New York City and Washington, DC that I’ve visited so often and therefore have become part of my own personal travelogue.  I live in the West Coast, but 9/11 still hits close to my other home, where more than a corner of my heart continues to reside.

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Grace of My Heart

August 25, 2013 Leave a comment

Hanna?

Could this pup be my beloved Hanna?

I chronicled being rehired by a past employer a year ago and since then, some interesting episodes have occurred that really do not need any in the way of explanation just acceptance.  As a friend said,  spiritual awakenings can only mean good things.

In Catholic school, I was taught grace as “God’s life in us,” but I was never consciously aware how it was playing a role in my life until now.  There is an invisible hand that is somehow encouraging and moving me through each day.  For instance, I wondered whether the dog outside Hillstone’s restaurant was the same canine playing on the lawn seven years ago.  It had the same color fur but looked leaner.   It was too much to ask for it to be the golden retriever that often lifted my workdays.   However, it is a comfort, knowing there is indeed grace to give proper perspective and a ray of hope in an often cold and heartless world.

The Road Less Traveled I returned to a book I had previously read called “The Road Less Traveled” by M. Scott Peck,  M.D., and it speaks to me even more profoundly today, as I absorbed whole passages while waiting for an oil change one weekend.   I followed it up with Phil Stutz and Barry Michel’s “The Tools,” which teaches how to get unstuck and be more of a creator rather than a reactor in life.  Their ideas actually support Dr. Peck’s more than 30 years ago, although they center more on practical methods over on-the-couch self-analysis.

Life is difficult, this much is true.  The whole point is to get through it with the proper tools and coping skills and grow from challenges and failures.  Oftentimes, we want a magic pill to make everything better when in fact there really is none.  We just have to get on with it and carry on because the joy on the other side is commensurate to or may even exceed how much we had to struggle.

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Wanderlust Back

August 4, 2013 1 Comment

Tea and Sympathy: A stop at Chantal Guillon for macaroons with my foodie younger cousins.Tea and Sympathy: A stop at Chantal Guillon for macarons with my foodie younger cousins.

My cousins from Sacramento came to visit recently for a weekend, and while snacking on the most delicate macarons in Chantal Guillon in Hayes Valley, our conversation turned toward our trips abroad and our divergent experiences.  I had a more romantic interpretation of being in Paris than my sister, and my cousin went to Europe with a study-abroad program.  Nonetheless, we agreed we would go again, and my other cousin has become more open to overseas travel.

It’s a test in patience to wait for one part of my life to catch up with another that is already established and for years dying to move forward.  I’ve wondered when I would ever give myself permission to want to travel again, since I still had to consider getting back on my feet work-wise.

Now I feel certain this is the moment to return to my natural inclination to see more of the world.  A job eventually becomes routine, and the past is forgiven.  Other aspects of my life need more attention, especially the things that are most important to me.  While perhaps more progress could still be made, the time for magical thinking and action can now take flight and soar.

Oltrarno squareMemorable Oltrarno square where I bumped into a Florentine Adonis during my last major trip in 2008.

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Birthday Hopes and Dreams

June 17, 2013 Leave a comment

After celebrating another birthday in May and experiencing a period of loss and change, I think of Thomas Pastorius, who passed away last year.  Considered the first microbrewer in Pennsylvania, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he also marked the coda of my high school journalism career when I interviewed him for one of my last articles in North Catholic’s Trojan News.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, he would open Penn Brewery at the bottom of Troy Hill Road by the Fall, while I was starting college.

Although my meeting with him was brief, he was a gracious and generous man who fed my fledgling ambition by basically giving me something grown-up to write about.  I am now in rather awe the prescience of standing and speaking with him in the dank and dark interior of the old Eberhardt and Ober brewery below my high school before its grand transformation.

But as life would have it, his dream of an on-site brewery and restaurant proved to be a high-maintenance job.  One’s passion could also produce much anxiety and frustrations–that much I too do understand.  Throughout my career, I’ve gone in and out of the thing I love to do most.

Another birthday does give me pause, and a refocusing of sorts is in order, for starters, infusing more positive energy and a healthier balance during work weeks.  And if I’m lucky, I may even capture a little of the thrill “Mr. Beer” once had of crafting brews–often times the hard but, in his mind, the right way.

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A Lifestyle to Which I’ve Grown Accustomed

May 5, 2013 Leave a comment

I once had a blog called “Citizen of the World” that I lost since my former (read: lousy) web host decided to no longer support WordPress.  With the exception of the Passion Cafe, which has since closed, and any deaths in my family, things really haven’t changed even after a month and two years.  

April 4, 2011

Comfort Food & Company

Filed under: Food,Lifestyle — Rachelle Ayuyang @ 7:48 pm

Golden Gate Park from the top floor of the DeYoung Museum on New Year's Day 2011.

Golden Gate Park from the top floor of the DeYoung Museum on New Year’s Day 2011.

The year unfolded with a European flair. My friend Wendy and I went to the DeYoung Museum on the first day of 2011 for the last half of the Orsay Museum traveling exhibit of Impressionist art. And then we had lunch at Marnee Thai in the Inner Sunset.

In February, I met someone out of the blue, and it is a topic of discussion at lunch with my friend Rose at Rocco’s Cafe.  After saying good-bye to a close family relative in the hospital in March, supper at the cacophonous restaurant, So, was quite frankly the right antidote for the insular sadness of the ICU.  Her death was one of things Rose and I spoke about on our recent lunch this month on the rooftop of the Passion Cafe, a perfect choice for the welcome warm weather in San Francisco.  My curry chicken salad paired nicely with the organic Pinot Gris.   Later we stopped by Split Pea Seduction for its chocolate chip coconut oatmeal cookies.  I know life is often beyond my control.  But if I am open, there is a moment of clarity when I see a well of endless possibilities.  Life never stops.  Like the universe, it just keeps expanding.

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Springtime Trials and Renewal

April 29, 2013 Leave a comment

Rather bulbous tulips brightened up my month.

Often, I’ve gotten philosophical, sometimes spiritual.  Lately, I’ve become equally both, trying to wrap my mind around things going sideways and the homeland attack on Boston this month.  So much is being thrown at us collectively that sooner or later we are knocked out of kilter and forced to return to the things that make us who we really are.  For me, it was my penchant as a kid for daily prayer and later leaning on my strong support network of close family and friends and even the kindness of strangers.

I am rereading a book my friend Carmen once gave me called “Conversations with God.” It reminded me about life choices and decisions and that if they aren’t the right ones, there is always an opportunity to choose again.  Making that connection sharpened and clarified the path to take and mapped out the way to get through this month.  It has changed and even humbled me to some degree, and in my purposeful journey, I am more than happy to bookend this month as simply glad to have survived.

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The Passeggiata

March 24, 2013 Leave a comment

Wow Factor: The Colosseum notwithstanding, tour guide Francesca Caruso gives her passionate take of the Eternal City. (photo by Rhodora Ayuyang)

It wasn’t a coincidence that the local PBS station was showing a marathon of Rick Steves travelogues in Italy, with the election of a new pontiff in the Vatican.  So I was happy to see in his most recent program of Rome that he invited Francesca Caruso, a popular tour guide that I had the pleasure of meeting, to participate in its filming.  While on his tour in 2008, she made such a fantastic impression on me that I singled her out as one of my “wow” moments:  “She personalized so powerfully Roman history with her depth and knowledge of literature and architecture.  I can only hope I could enjoy la dolce vita the way Francesca clearly has doing a job she obviously loves.”

Via Margutta to Popolo

Getting Back on Track: The road to happiness is through Rome, among other places in the world.

Francesca accompanied Rick on the passeggiata in the Eternal City, which is described as an early evening stroll from Piazza del Popolo to the Spanish Steps.  While sounding rather innocent and leisurely, Rick’s book in 2008 says, “in Rome, it’s a cruder big-city version called the struscio (‘to rub’),” in which young Italians cruise the Via del Corso sometimes obnoxiously in motorscooters and dispense with rather bold remarks (“buono”/”buona” or “tasty”) to passersby.

Whatever the case may be, traveling, like writing, is one of my favorite outlets, not a surprise to those who really know me.  Maintaining a balance in life is such a challenge that to have any opportunity to  get back  into my comfort zone is most welcome and, I would venture to say, mandatory.

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Natural Woman

March 4, 2013 Leave a comment

DSC01799I was hoping to squeeze one more entry before February ended, but so many things happened, it’s hard to keep track, and lo and behold March is now upon us.

I’ve talked about retreating to my happy place when life gets topsy-turvy, but another one of my refuges is the ocean–lately Ocean Beach to be exact.

Having grown up rather land-locked, I now live close to water.  But I’ve often taken it for granted all these years living in San Francisco.  Unfairly, sometimes I’ve associated visits to the beach as how troubled I might be at that given moment to necessitate walking the length of its coastline, when in fact, recently, I’ve gone with family and friends there for birthdays and simple getaways from the city.

Leaves and my sneakerAs imbued as I am in urban life, it would behoove me to decompress from obligations and responsibilities in our natural surroundings, which often are more comforting and even more beautiful.  This brings me to a terrific documentary I recently saw about Sister Wendy Beckett (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01pqhfp), the globetrotting nun whose insights to art thrust her into the international limelight in the 1990s.  She now leads a hermetic life in Quindenham, England, which brings her close to nature and therefore closer to God and a sense of peace–something I must obviously learn to do.

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