Emantable

Before heading to the mortuary for my Dad’s wake, I stood in my parents’ bedroom to feel a little closer to my Dad by looking at his things. On his nightstand was Misal Romano Diario–a book containing the readings for Sundays and the other days of year. It seems similar to the books used for the Liturgy of the Hours or the Divine Office, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to read through it more closely. As I was quickly looking through it, I saw a prayer card and realized it was one of the remembance cards they hand out at funerals. It was from his mom’s funeral 31 years ago. It was very moving, and I realized that even after 31 years he still missed her and felt the need to have something to remind him of her on a daily basis. It reminded me of something a friend told me recently: “the pain never goes away, you just learn to live with it”.

I looked out from my parents window and stared at the setting sun.

I really dislike how my phone makes everything in my pictures look so far away. After weeks of rain, this is the first time I had a clear view of the mountains. To give you and idea how close the mountains are, when you look towards the mountains from the middle of a room in our home, you have to duck to be able to see the sky above the mountains. They look so beautiful right now with the snow. I’m hoping we get a storm or two that brings the snow level down even lower like it’s happened in previous years.

At work, the views were beautiful as well. The visibility was so good that you could even see Catalina Island in the distance. In the picture without the mountains, I promise there’s an ocean view but it’s hard to see even in person. However, when the sun starts to set a golden light from the sun lights up the ocean through a brilliant reflection.

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I thought about my dad a lot today. Especially less than an hour ago when I was driving back from the EV chargers. My favorite part from Wagner’s Ring Cycle was playing on the radio…Lieb Wohl. It is Wotan’s farewell to his favorite daughter, Brünhilde. It is the most heartfelt farewell ever. It was particularly poignant tonight because the funeral services for my dad begin tomorrow.

Went to the flower district today with one of my sisters to place an order for the flowers that would be at my father’s funeral. Sometimes I feel like he’s at home and I can imagine him sitting in the balcony, in his room, or at the dining table. Then it hits me that those times are now int he past. I like to think that if I go far enough out in space, I can use a really powerful telescope and be able to see my dad. Echoes of the past are the present elsewhere in the universe.

I’ve been doing my best to fight procrastination and I feel pretty good about today. I tackled a few things I needed to get out of the way and went to bed very satisfied with what I was about to accomplish, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had forgotten about something. I grab my book to continue reading and suddenly remembered that I forgot to write something today.

I could bore all of us going into detail on what I was working on today, so instead, I will share a picture from my little reward for being productive today. We went for a walk at a nearby outdoor mall (pictured below). It was a lovely walk in the rain. We were commenting on how it seems like it has been raining non-stop for weeks and sure enough, starting with the day after Christmas, we’ve had a steady stream of storms where one ends in the morning, and by the afternoon or evening, a new one moves in.

“It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. I came to call not the upright, but sinners.“

Mark 2:17

I came across the above today and it was very comforting. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been exploring religion and spirituality more recently for numerous reasons. I sometimes wonder if perhaps I’m not fit to do so because I don’t always behave the way you’d expect someone of faith to behave. But the above words are true. Why would I need guidance if I was already my best self. If I was already perfect. If I knew how to live life perfectly already, then scriptures would only be preaching to choir. It’s for imperfect people who make mistake after mistake and are a little lost in how to be our best selves. I dare say that we can all probably include ourselves in this category.

So let’s take the above words to heart and not turn people away from relgion, spirituality, and God because they’re “unworthy”.

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In other news, went back to Din Tai Fung again (this time with one of my sisters and her husband). We didn’t think there would be too many people becuase of the heavy rain, but it turns out a bunch of other people had the same idea. We had to wait two and a half hours to be seated. The food was definitely worth the wait and it gave us all a nice opportunity to have a nice conversation.

I’ve been humbled by the amount of love and appreciation my coworkers have shown me during the past several difficult weeks. I received flowers, words of comfort, offers to help, and letters. On my birthday this past Wednesday no one remembered my birthday and I thought I was in the clear. Apparently they forgot and felt terrible for having missed my birthday. So this morning when I was heading to my office I noticed the door was closed. This was strange…why would someone close my door? I try stepping in and I hit something blocking the door. I finally open it and a festive stringy curtain falls on the doorway and I walk through it into my office that had been decorated with balloons and other decorations. They had a cake and cupcakes ready and had be blow fan out the candles (because COVID).

This has all got me thinking on how much more appreciative I should be of people and how I need to make a better effort of reaching out to people in their time of need, of recognizing their efforts, and just celebrate them in general.

I collected all of my balloons and started heading out of the office. It must have been a funny sight seeing me and my balloons cram into the elevator and then trying to fit them into my trunk.

Now sitting here at home late into the night as I listen to the adagietto movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 on KUSC, I wonder…

Do I really deserve all of this?

Whatever the answer, I’ll strive to spread the same gift of joy that has been shared with me.

The picture doesn’t really do it justice, but it was quite the beautiful drive this afternoon. A few clouds were tinted pink, and the mountains a slight bluish-purple with beautiful white peaks.

This was the most uneventful birthday I’ve ever had, but it’s not that bad since I tend I treasure the quiet moments. My mother told me how excited my dad was 37 years ago when I was born, and it reminded me of how he was always very proud of the fact that he was the first to hold me after I was delivered via C-section. This was the first year without a birthday hug from him.

During my lunch break at work I went to the nearby golf course. He used to love golf and I remember playing on this particular course when he was a little younger. I’ve been thinking about taking up the sport again.

Later that evening, I had a little birthday dinner at Din Tai Fung with my Mom and Chase.

I wanted to keep today’s post short and light, but as an afterthought I also wanted to mention that something else I’ve been meaning to start doing again is photography. It may seem as if I’m trying to take on too much, but the thing is that you have so much more time when you’re not wasting it on too much TV or social media.

8 years ago, on the eve of my birthday, I somehow managed to get a large group of friends together and arranged for us to have a private tour of the museum gardens at the Getty Center. It was a beautiful day–lightly raining and a little chilly. We were all attentively listening to the docent give the tour of the gardens all the while the raindrops were pattering on all of our umbrellas. The garden plants and features were muted in a beautiful gray, but my favorite view was of the dark naked trees towering over passersby reflected on the wet floors as they held their umbrellas. In the background were the light-colored stone walls and floors of the museum against a stormy sky.

Understandably, when the tour was over everyone ended up leaving having had enough of the rain. I stayed for several hours after taking in as much art as I could and loving every time I walked past a window where the wooden floors basked in warm incandescent light contrasted with the bluish-grey cool scene outside. Eventually it came time for me to leave as well since the museum would be closing soon.

As I made my way down the hillside aboard the museum train that would take me back to the parking structure, I felt a little lonely and didn’t want to end my day back at my apartment alone. As I was driving back home the radio started playing When You Wish Upon a Star performed by Steve Tyrell with Chris Botti. At the time, there was one person I wanted to show up to the museum but ended up not going and this song made me think of that person. I wanted to go home even less and this being a Disney song got me thinking about heading to Disneyland, but they I had a better idea. How about Walt Disney Concert Hall? My favorite place in the whole world!

I made it to the concert hall and down and down I went until I parked on the seventh level beneath the hall. I went to the ticket counter looking for the cheapest seat I could find and as I was about to hand over my credit card for some seats way in the back, a woman interrupted me and offered me a spare ticket she had. I asked her if she was sure and I eventually took the ticket. It was at the very front of the orchestra section. I had no plans to be at Disney Hall about an hour ago, and here I was now on the eve of my birthday with a front row seat to see Michael Tilson Thomas conduct the LA Phil in a performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.

I find it impossible to concentrate with Classical Music. More specifically, I am unable to use Classical Music to concentrate on any task because I become hyper-focused on the music itself and lose track of everything else.

I tried putting on some music on YouTube while I wrote something, but I lost track of time listening to Yuja Wang play Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major. While I found it challenging to write with the music on, it brought me some nostalgia and inspiration.

The nostalgia, of course, took me to memories of my dad. Particularly when I had the piano at my parents’ house tuned in October. When the tuner left, I asked my dad if he wanted to come with me to the living room to give the piano a try. I meant for him to sit on the couch, but instead, he grabbed a wooden chair and sat right next to me and the piano. Having someone sit this close to me while playing usually makes me uncomfortable. However, I felt completely fine with it and played several pieces for him. I would have never imagined it would be the last time he would watch me play. After the hospital and he was back home, I had the piano tuned again, and I would open up the piano completely and play with abandon, hoping it would lift his spirits hearing me play even though he could no longer make the trek from his bed to the living room. On Christmas Eve–less than twenty-four hours after he passed away–I played again at my parents’ house. This time…for myself. I needed an escape from the conversations, from my thoughts…from Christmas itself. I played to lose myself in the music.

The inspiration is to practice, play, explore, and discover more of this music world. I’ve told many people that the more you’ve lived, the more you’ll appreciate Classical Music. It’s hard to appreciate and identify the emotions behind the music if you haven’t experienced them yourself.

I’ve always enjoyed playing Chopin’s Prelude in E minor. It’s always struck me as beautiful and sad. I’ve been doing some more research on this piece and discovered that when Chopin composed it, he already knew that he was dying. I watched Seymour Bernstein’s lecture on how the piece is meant to be played. In particular, there’s a repeating C-B set of notes that I can now only hear as weeping. When I played it with this in mind, it was quite heavy for me emotionally. Prelude in E minor has forever changed for me. It will always remind me of my Dad, and will always be my lament of not being able to do more.