In Memoriam

December 15, 2013 Leave a comment

Chicago1My 92-year-old paternal grandmother and my dad’s closest friend passed away last month before Thanksgiving, and I’m reminded of one of my favorite Robert Frost poems, “My November Guest,” which starts:

“MY Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.”

It was a disorienting feeling–sad but not entirely surprising since they were both in failing health.  Nonetheless, their passing compelled me to take stock in my own life and to reflect how best I am making the most of my time in the here and now.  This is the mindset I am bringing to the holidays, particularly with my family, and I’ve noticed our relationship has deepened, and my attention is focused on the things that are really important.   As the year winds down, I feel more relaxed, celebratory even.

These realizations are pretty standard following the death of a loved one, but I supposed what really surprised me was the outpouring of sympathies from those outside my family, whom I would imagined wouldn’t even care, let alone showed the kind of compassion reserved for a close friend or relative.  I guess I have to recalibrate my expectations of people.  Death is universal–it catches up with everyone one way or another; and the element of surprise is a gift.

“Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.”

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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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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.

Filed under Brass Ring 2.0, Da Burgh, In My Life, Philosophical, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

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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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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A Beeline for My Happy Place

January 15, 2013 1 Comment

Way to Work

A Little Solace in the FiDi.

Mama said there would be days like these, so what’s a girl to do?  Apparently, she goes to buy make-up.  In a million years, I would never have thought to communicate in psycho-babble with regularity, but, well, I went to my “happy place.”  That would be the CVS store on California and Sansome, across from the Union Bank building where I previously worked last year.  It was rather convenient, being placed at that particular job because a few of my friends, even my sister-in-law, worked in the same building.  There were some fun times since retrieving booze and beverages from the store for company functions was a task that invited a little envy when bumping into friends, visitors and other occupants alike.

This time I was looking for mineral foundation, and I went to the cosmetics section to try and figure out a new product that would match my skin tone.  I fumbled for a time, tipping and inverting round containers to get a sense of how it might look on my face.  Then, “Ann” came to my rescue.  The CVS sales clerk saw I was having trouble and gave me the kind of customer service I would expect from any retailer worth its weight in gold.  She even removed the packaging and applied some of the make-up on my face to make sure it was the closest match.  Apparently, CVS has a “beauty guarantee” that if the product doesn’t work out, it could be returned regardless of the condition.  I left more than satisfied with my purchase, and I personally gave Ann a ringing endorsement for her helpfulness.

As the week would compel me, I made the same route, turning on California toward Sansome, eyeing the top of the Union Bank building on my left, back to the store.  The following day, I returned with my $4.50 rewards dollars on my CVS card for a pressed powder foundation and Ann’s sage advice.  I asked her what made her so good at her job, and she said passion for products manufactured with a genuine regard for improving lives, not just for expediency and cost-effectiveness.  It’s also her positive attitude that I gravitate toward, and as I manage the challenges of each day, I make no apologies for retreating to my happy place.

Filed under In My Life, Philosophical, The Bay Area

Coping Skills Required

December 24, 2012 Leave a comment

A kind of spiritual totem that I discovered during my lunch hour in the FiDi this year.

Throughout the year, I’ve blogged about dealing with my life, its constant changes, ups and downs.  In the shadows of the heart-breaking school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut and the economic anxiety over the fiscal cliff, it’s so easy to lose it nowadays, and it is all I have to do to make sure my coping skills are enough to withstand the pressure.  Simply walking out the door and crossing streets are exercises in avoiding life-and-death situations.

I’m never going to pretend to know all the answers because really most decisions we make in life are on the gray middle part of the spectrum.  They’re not always black and white.  Every move I make seem to be judgment calls, and it’s their outcomes that determine whether they were good or bad decisions.

I’ve said as much, my life is a work in progress.  Even though I know coping requires being mindful of my thoughts and stepping back and taking a deep breath before I dive in, I’m not always faithful to them, and I inevitably end up making mistakes.  Failing is unavoidable, though, and it’s the lessons we learn, how we pick ourselves up, resolve problems and move on that are the most important things to focus on going forward.

As 2012 comes to a close, I realize how far I’ve come since the end of 2011, when I was devising my plan to get back on my feet.  Like most Americans, I still have my work cut out for myself in 2013.  But at least we outlasted the typically brilliant Mayans’ false prediction of Armageddon on December 21, which brings me to the first coping skill one should always remember: maintain a sense of humor.

Filed under In My Life, Philosophical

A Long Time Coming

November 19, 2012 Leave a comment

Corni & Me on Thanksgiving Day 2006.

 

The term closure has lately become persona non grata, especially when dealing with traumatic experiences and loss.  But when something like it occurs, a kind of catharsis does set in that may even  be required in order to move on.

In my “Lake House” blog entry, I mentioned in passing a late co-worker and friend, with whom I never got a chance to say the things I needed to say or even to bid goodbye.   Her name was Cornelia Rawls, and when I finally got a phone call from her brother, James, today, it was more than a message in a bottle, more like lightning–or should I say a lightening of the soul.

Lean On Me: Corni’s brother James.

 

 

We were definitely close personally and professionally, and James reminded me what it was that made our relationship, especially at work, meaningful.  Since I am back at our old workplace, I don’t feel quite as lost, understanding it is about doing the job well, respecting others and hanging in there when challenges arise.  Corni wasn’t one to suffer fools gladly either, and she certainly spoke her mind when she was wronged.  As I blaze a trail going forward,  as much as I miss her friendship, it’s some of her presence and guidance I am in need of the most.  But comforting is the fact her brother James is still around, and there is still more life to be lived.

Filed under In My Life, Philosophical, The Bay Area

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