Going Away to Come Home

Leaving San Francisco on the red eye was rough. Probably more so for Dave than for myself. It was a beautiful day, one of those rare days in which the heat from the sun filters through the blinds of your bedroom window and wakes you up even though you're slightly hung over and you've slept in a sleeping bag on a wooden bed frame because your mattress is somewhere on I-80.

As soon as I opened my eyes, my first thought was "Are we making a mistake?" Dave, as you can imagine, was not thrilled about this.

It's not that I actually ENJOY wallowing in misery and depression, though it may seem like that to certain persons that shall remain unnamed. It's just that I need to FEEL the emotions. I need to live them, work them, grind them down, and turn them inside out before I can let go of them.

And so, the day turned into one, long, interminable --albeit delicious--countdown.

10 AM at the farmer's market, where we ate shrimp and snapper ceviche tacos from Primavera and bought Saucisson Sec salami from the Fatted Calf Charcuterie: "Boggie, only 12 hours left."

2PM at Rosamunde in the Lower Haight, where I had a veal and leek sausage and Dave had a beer sausage followed by beers at Toronado: "B! Can you believe today's our last day in San Francisco? How do you feel?"

4PM in Hayes Valley, where we bought a $4 dollar grilled almond and dark chocolate bar from the new Miette candy store: "Sigh. Bogga--only 6 hours left. Can we move back to SF if we hate New York?"

8PM in Hayes Valley, where we had a long leisurely dinner at Absinthe Brasserie, consisting of 4 glasses of wine, spicy fried chickpeas, a dozen oysters, half a Dungeness crab, ricotta dumplings with pesto, pine nuts, and shaved parmesan, and rabbit rillettes doused in duck fat. "Beagie. Just 2 1/2 hours left in the City by the Bay. What did you mean when you said we're East Coasters?"



10:15PM at the airport, waiting to board the plane: "Bigglesworth, this is it. Can you believe we're leaving SF? How do you feel? Are you sad?"

A word of advice to anyone considering moving back to the East Coast:
DON'T LEAVE ON THE RED EYE

When the lights....go down....in the cit-tay.

....and the sun shines on they ba-hay....

In just three days, we will be leaving San Francisco. Ending the longest relationship of our adult lives. How do you say goodbye after nine years?

I've never been good at leaving. In recent years, I've only gotten worse. Case in point: the morning we left Positano last fall, I burst into tears after saying goodbye to the barista at the local cafe, and that was after only a half dozen espressos and staying for just a week.



When I moved here in 1998, I was finished with New York. Done. I had no intention of ever returning. But I don't think I've ever considered myself a Californian either. I guess I thought of myself as a visitor; a New Yorker out of her element and loving it. Somewhere in those years, I built a life for myself out here. I made friends--good ones. And maybe I've even mellowed out a bit. Although I can still fly into a rage if provoked.

There's so much we'll miss about this beautiful city. Here's a short list:
The Palace of Dubious Fashion (as Antonia calls it) and all the awesome friends I've made there
Hun's Wun Tun House
Felix Fein
Walking to work on the embarcadero - which I rarely did
The view of the sunrise from our bedroom window
B-lla the dog and Cuddles Hom
Lucky Pierre's smoked salmon & fire pit
YCzle
Rosamunde sausages followed by beers at Toronado
Clement Street
Laidley Street
Sea Ranch

Good Luck!

Now that we're moving back to NY, I've been hearing a lot of this.

For a long time, I've fought the notion of luck. I like to think luck has nothing to do with it. Hard work, sure. Determination. Definitely. But luck? That's just wishful thinking.

Mama Hom is big on luck and it is in her honor that we have named this blog. It's traditional in Chinese culture to hand out "lysee," red envelopes filled with money and given out for special occasions (birthdays, New Years) and sometimes, just for the hell of it. For good luck.

Over the course of 34 years, I've received countless lucky envelopes, some filled with a dollar, some filled with hundreds of dollars. But it is only recently that I've been getting envelopes from my mom with auspicious phrases handwritten on them. The messages are written in Chinese characters, which, unfortunately I can't read. But my Mom goes through the trouble of translating them for me. It is in these heartfelt messages that the true luck resides.

Dear Lisa Daughter:
Good Luckly to you.
Peace to Everybody.
And Good Health always
Love You Whole Family

And so I've softened my view of luck a lot lately. It's not just wishful thinking. In fact, as the saying goes, luck is the residue of skill. So to be on the safe side, I've kept those lucky envelopes and I'll be taking them back with us to New York. Just in case.