The last sunset of 2011

and before the sunrise of 2012

The last day of the year always means that the house is scrubbed, the “everything drawers” are organized and loose ends are tied. I think about where I was this time last year. It is a day of pause, review and re-access.

Where were you on this day last year? Where does not necessarily mean physically, in what location but moreover, “where”, as in, where in the timeline of our custom-made, self deciding lives.

Physically, I am in the same place. We live in our same house, all a year older, a year closer and a year more. I am
in the same place of design, finishing up collection for Autumn/Winter for the following year. The shop is providing for the winter upon us. My friends and family of last year who are constant will brave the new year with me.

These are the days of our lives.

I wrote quite a bit this year. I poured my heart and soul onto pages hoping to evacuate the turmoil of feelings one faces when confronted with change. There was much moving, shifting and changing in this year that is about to pass.

My heart is fuller. There is no more anger. There is no turning back of pages glued shut. I have spent the year studying why and who I am as a person. As the year closes I am proud of my growth.

I start with a clean canvas for 2012.

If you have given me happiness I thank
you with every breath of my being.
If you have helped me, I will stand by you for the test of our lives.

If you have hurt me- I forgive you.

I am here to create beauty.
THAT is my purpose in life.

It is in my hands and my heart.
It is in what I see and what I make.
It is in what I believe in and THAT has made all the difference.

Wishing you all a beautiful 2012.

Stella, our unexpected baby.

It was a crisp Autumn day and our little family was trekking from one errand to the next. We needed to squeeze in our 3 year old’s nap, our 8 year old’s playdate, lunch and many other odd end things that were equally important. Than evening we were hosting a party for our children’s school. It was a potluck and bottle event. My husband and I love welcoming people into our home. Our big old Victorian is conducive to large events such as these. I am usually a nervous wreck before these events but I was oddly calm.

There was a joke that my husband made about our house having 3 living rooms, 2 dining rooms, 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Something about the numbers of the rooms tickled my funny bone and I couldn’t stop laughing. I live for moments as such. Why do we need so much room? We don’t and are humbled and honored that we live in a piece of history and making our own history.

Our dining room downstairs has a large 12 foot antique wooden table that I bought on a while a week after we moved into the house. I couldn’t live without the table. It’s the kind of table you see in movies where friends and family sit around laughing and talking during dinner with glasses clanking and food that is fit for a king. I always imagined the table would be used in that way. The table, from the moment I saw it meant something grander than what it was. I saw memories, relationships, growth in my family, history but most of all, a firm rooting into the soul of what we are as a family and the core of who I am as a person. This was the table that would fit our family for Thanksgivings, Christmas’s, New Years, and parties we would hold for our children, our family, and our lives. I’m a hopeful romantic in so many ways. I believe in love, love at first sight, true friendships that last, I believe in the kindness of humans, I believe in all that happens and doesn’t happen. I also believe that we make decisions in our lives that will change the course of our life. I know, because I have seen the result in the decisions I have made in my life.

As we drove past Difara’s on Avenue J and saw that the gate were pulled down it meant we weren’t going to have Brooklyn’s best pizza for lunch. I remembered that there was a house in the neighborhood that was having a moving sale. 544 East 18th Street immediately came into my mind and before I knew it we were headed there. They had a baby grand piano that I knew we probably couldn’t afford but maybe some furniture for our big house would be nice.

The houses in my neighborhood are nothing less than amazing. The rooms have history imbedded into the floorboards and in every detail these Victorian era  houses were built in. I am always honored and humbled walking into these homes. Their beauty silences me. The houses stand taller and higher than modern skyscraper that can ever be built today. The Americana they exude was a side I was never aware of before I moved into my house. I live in my house and it is like we are in a foreign land that we respect and are learning about. Our husband I didn’t come from this. IS this what they call the American Dream? We have lived in our house for 3 years I still quietly ask her permission before I place any new furniture or paint her walls. She’s been around longer than any of us have.

I walked into the house with the moving sale and looked at the staircase, the wooded details and Victorian stained glass. The furniture they were selling matched the wood details that ran through the house. Although, beautiful, their furniture would not have worked in our house. Our house would not have accepted it. The house I stood in and the house we lived in had two different personalities and characters of their own. The owner of the house was in the kitchen. She was selling the house because her children were in college and they no longer needed all the space. She had completed this chapter of her life.

I walked past a baby grand piano and smiled.
I hesitated to asked for the price. 1K.
Within 15 minutes I paid for the baby grand.
Within 10 minutes I found a piano mover.
Within the hour the piano showed up at our front door and assembled in 10 minutes flat.

As the movers left I looked at the grand piano in our “music” room on the first floor (one of 3 living rooms in the house) and I was in disbelief.

It was the romantic inside of me that allowed this to happen. I believed that one day I would be able to grace our home with a baby grand. I never thought that day would come so soon. Our 8-year-old jumped up and down with joy. Suddenly, I felt as if our home, our house, as the character that I think she is became so happy and joyous. It was as if I had fulfilled the dream the house always had.

That was when I realized that I have not lost faith. I still jump and risk the fall and it has always been worth it. The faith that love happens, life happens, miracles happen and believing that there are amazing things in our world brings surprising, unsolicited  wonders to our days.

When I woke up that morning, I never would have thought  a baby grand would be delivered to the house that day. That is why a day, in one’s life, is so incredible.

Life, never ceases to surprise me and that is why living is so important and believing the beauty of it is so key to finding peace.

My search for beauty continues.

I love our unexpected baby, Stella.

creative process

.

Day #3 of a sequence in intense creativity has dawned on me. Cappuccino, sketch books, swatches, fabric, muslin, magazines, movies, books, images and PURE frustration are a few elements of the design process. I sat in a coffee shop today with laptop in hand, my enormous sketchbook, croissant and loud people speaking in the shop. I work best when I’m not working. While riding the train I thought of the muslins I had draped in the past few days, none of which satisfy the perfectionist designer I have become.

I hate being this way.I hate it but I love it all at once. I love hating it.

I actually hate the design process most of the time. When do I love it? When I complete a look that makes me smile and jump for joy. When does that happen? Rarely but often enough to satisfy me.

It’s that search that I’m on, to look for beauty. It is everywhere and can be made but the natural beauty that surrounds us in our world seems so effortless, unthought and instinctual.

My design is a combination of the subconscious fighting the conscious. Sometimes I wish I were just purely an artist. I am not, however, I am analytical, sensible and a hard-core business woman. I think as hard as I feel.

It’s coming up with that final look that hits a chord inside of me and nourishes the psychological and physical aesthetic. The many critics of my mind come out to judge the clothing with scissors in hand and abusive words to shoot down my work I have slaved over. They are always right.

Last monday, I worked all day only to be unimpressed by the part-dress I had designed, draped and made. I tried it on, forwards, backwards, on two different dress forms, walked away and came back to it all to conclude that I could not save the boring, unsatisfied piece of crap I had worked on ALL FREAKING DAY!!!!

What was wrong with it? Nothing- just that I couldn’t convince myself that it was good enough. It didn’t pass the panel of raised eyebrow Christine’s.

I had other plans for the day. I thought by end of day I would have made something I could smile at. I frowned and took the dress off and threw it in the corner of the room.

It still resides there to remind me that I’m only human. I am allowed to experiment, make mistakes and make ugly clothing.

It’s part of the process. The process that never is fast enough for me. I’m interested in the final product. I have to re-train myself to understand that it is not always the end product that is most important but also the steps that get me there.

My final thought last night before I went to bed was that I am torturing myself. I should be happy with all I have and accomplished. Maybe, just maybe, I was not made to be a designer. It was enough to make me cry but instead I went to sleep.
I woke up this morning and squashed that ridiculous voice that spoke to me last night in my delirious fatigue.
This is part of the process and only makes the final product even more rewarding.

I hope.
There is nothing else I want to do in my life than design clothing and dress women.

You’d think that would be simple and easy.

I squash that voice of defeat inside of me every day.

Bonjour, Comment ça va?

Bonjour, Comment ça va?
“Good Morning. How do you do?”

Ca va bien, et vous?
” Very well, and you?

I sat next to my grandfather at breakfast time, at lunch time and dinner time. He came from another time and another place. It was a place that I connected to so deeply in the gut of my heart. As he held his bowl of rice in one hand and the delicate chopsticks in the other, he ate and spoke. His descriptions of the world that he had left behind and the man that he used to be.

To me there was no past, there was only the present. I think all children think of life in that one way. There is no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow but only today. That may be the difference between the young and old.

The really young live like there is no tomorrow.
The old live like there was only yesterday.

My grandfather spoke phrases in French. To my ears it was like music. What were those unfamiliar sounds of foreign influence that hit so close to home? He even carried himself a different way. He is tall, broad and proud.

There is no question why I’ve always connected to French culture, art and fashion. I have always been fascinated at how close but yet so far the french world was from me and my own Vietnamese culture.

When you have no knowledge of a subject, it is so easy to romanticize what it may mean.
I left one Summer day and lived in Paris.
I have yet to see Vietnam, again.

And so we sat,
and I listened.
I imagined the beauty he was speaking of.
They were words that described the gritty beauty of our homeland where his love lived.
His words rested in a hammock and swayed in the breeze.
In his voice were the notes of a homesick child.
In the evening he would bring out his guitar and vietnamese music sheets and pluck at the strings.
Each note came out desperately.
He begins to sing and the songs became inbedded in my heart.
The songs of out motherland.
The songs of where my grandfather came from.
The songs where he came from.
Songs of happiness and birds who have flown too far to return.
Only in memory can they be reached.
Songs of losing a home, a love and a life that will never return.

We sang together, my grandfather and I.
My heart hurts when I think of his voice.
I learned to harmonize.
I soon became the voice to his strings.

“I used to carry your grandmother to bed every night.”
In his eyes were the tears of a hundred years yearning to come out.

We are in a new life now.
Those were so many years ago.
I’ve thought of why I’ve become the person I am and love the things I love.
The person I think of is my grandfather.
The songs never fade.
They play in my mind and I will sing my grandfather songs,
Forever.

I cannot wait to see my homeland.

Everything is moving, shifting, changing…

My creative wheels have been turning for quite a while now. It never really stops but goes at different speeds in the terrain of my life. I haven’t put pen to paper yet but throughout the day I see images and ideas flutter, float, stomp and trickle into my mind for FW12 Collection. It is all a work in progress and I ‘m not speaking strictly about my collection or the creative process but also where I am and who I am as a human being. Unattached from being overachieving, a mom, a wife, a boss, a friend, a soul mate, a lover and negotiator of life in general, I’m trying to view myself, for myself, as myself- all for the very first time.

In times of searching for inspiration, I do a lot of soul searching. I turn things inside out and stare.

At some point or another I might lose you in the string of writing I am about to embark on. The beauty of writing is that it gives a voice to the subconscious. I Never knew the part of me that I could never hear had so much to say. I can’t escape the journey that I am on now. It is a journey that we all go through- where do you find happiness, peace and enjoy the brief moments of elation. That is a loaded topic. Happiness should be added to the few topics that one should never speak of at dinner parties. Let’s not talk about religion, politics and happiness. Hah! I have a few ideas when it comes to that topic but that’s another blog entry.

My life has been a series of events all thrown together with a learned perspective I am trying to unlearn. What happens when you know you have nothing to lose? What does it mean to know that you may have experienced the worst life has to offer? For me, it only means that the be(A)st is yet to come, doesn’t it?

Concentric circles are the way I’ve viewed the events of my life thus far. Carefully, I have drawn perfect circle after circle, very much like the rings inside a tree. Some are thick and some are thin but mostly all are drawn with a surgical intensity. Someone handed me the blueprint of my life in a series of concentric circles. Without the first circle there would be no other circles. The first circle determined the size of the other circles around them. Like russian dolls nestled inside each other. The dolls are made to fit, made to nest and made to accommodate each other.

Some things in life change the concentric circles. I’m not sure everyone experiences this- the changing of the core circle. I do believe that we all sooner or later feel the after effects of the life altering decisions we make. It’s a little like a gut renovation of life.

I’ve carried the blueprint of concentric circles of my life in the backpack of life. It has been tightly rolled and tied with remnants of clothes of my childhood and adulthood. I have been haunted by the blueprint and what it really said about me and the person I am. I did what was unimaginable. One day, I unrolled the blueprint, I undid all the russian dolls, I pulled out the slate of rings from the tree that had the history of my life.

As I looked at the plan and history of my life there was space for more outer circles. I saw that there was room for a future and unforeseeable future only I can decide. When I looked at my most inner concentric circle I saw that it was rough and jagged. I pulled that inner circle or if you prefer, smallest doll out. I held her in my hands and studied the elements of it and why it was so different from the circles that surrounded it. As I studied it- it started to change. When I tried to put the smallest and core rugged circle back, she no longer fit. The smallest Russian doll didn’t fit into the other dolls surrounding her.

It is known that we cannot change our past. What is in the past is there for us to dip our fingers in once in a while but also makes our present what it is. Our present determines our future. Without seeing the past, living in the present, there is no future.

By looking deep into my past, my ideas changed and more color was added and elements I was too scared of started to surface.

I took the newer of smallest doll and hammered her in. The doll once holding the smaller doll so comfortable began to crack and break to accommodate. I then had to study the second doll, the second layer. I was forced to look at every layer for what it was and try to retrace the beauty and horror for what it was.

If the small concentric changes, it sends shocks waves into the outer layers- it is only the natural way things happen. Nothing stands singular and everything and everyone is connected in either a small, medium or large way. Very similar to an earthquake, after shocks are felts for a long time.

I have changed to core of who I am. Layer by layer I am repairing, renovating, restoring and relearning my present and of the elements of all I live and love.

Like a close friend reminded me last week- “Honey, in the journey called life, you’re allowed two carry-on bags. YOu can’t carry ALL that Sh*t around.”

NO- I can’t but I first had to go through it all to see what I needed for the remainder of this trip.

“I’m not carrying that sh*t no more”.

Have a great day y’all!

needing a little sumthin’ sumthin’

Usually in January of February I start to notice the fading of smiles to the dark gloom of the winter. With layers of coats, sweaters, tee shirts, scarves, hats and gloves we hide under the many layers of clothing protecting us from the unforgivable frost and whipping winds. Thinking about the freezing air gives me chills down the sides of my arms and even my eyelashes are petrified by the thought.

This year however, the gloom had started in July and I’m scared I won’t see smiles until Spring.
No one is smiling. I try to fond positivity in every direction I turn. I’ve turned inside and that where happiness lives.

I am not one who speaks or writes about the weather or even about the beauty of the changing seasons. I don’t find comfort in the freezing cold or the sweltering hot. The seasons of transition called Spring and Autumn have their own limbo of unease, enough for you to want to open the closets and drawers to take inventory of life and its whereabouts. How many pairs of brown boots, black boots, snow coats, rain coats, cozy sweaters, jeans and accessories. My pile of teeshirts are divided into three sections. There are summer tees, winter tees and home tees. This year’s re-organizing requires a few more piles. The categories are no longer about usage but more how the clothes make me feel.

1. happy tees
2. comfy tees
3. messy tees
4. layering tees
5. mommy tees
6. creative tees…

the list doesn’t stop their unfortunately and the division applies to all categories of wardrobe and, actually life.

Some clothes make me feel powerful, refined and exquisite. There are clothes that make me feel comfy, easy and relaxed and then there are the clothes I wear at home, in the comfort of my home where I can let everything literally hang out until someone rings the doorbell and I scurry to put on a sweater big enough to cover all of my old, beaten up but “oh so loved” flannel pj’s and thermal tee shirt with holes.

My closet is a great indicator of how I am. My “at home” drawer is always the most organized. This drawer houses all of the out of date, too stained, too faded, too big, too short, and too anything for the staging performance of life. I pull out a top and bottom and there is no requirement if they “go” because they just do. It is a little like everyone else’s everything drawer. You know you have one of those- we all do. It is for the things not important enough to belong, well, anywhere.

This morning I looked in my closet of disarray because it’s just been too warm, to rainy, to gloomy, to wear any of my old fall friends I see for a few months of the year. Somehow, this year my old friends in tweedy wool and comforting cashmere don’t seem so appealing. They have been lonely for a while hanging on the “we love our customer” hangers in muted shades of taupe, camel and sand. They look sad in my closet. They look all alike. They look like they might need a double macchiato or a slice of pumpkin pie. I’d rub their heads and tousle their hair if I could do such a thing to a sweater.

If my sand colored sweaters had a name it would be plain.

These thoughts confirm the reason why I love clothing and the women who wear them. We are complicated internal creatures with an insatiable appetite for more layers in the cold and peeling of layers in the heat.

Time for new layers. Time to go shopping. My closet needs a macchiato. My sand colored sweaters need some new company.
It is not because I need something different but because a year has passed and I am different.

This ain’t no joy ride

I guess you can figure out where I am if you have been reading my posts. I spend a lot of time at small coffee shops in the morning. There are many reasons why I spend some of my time in the morning when I can here. The reasons that stand out in my mind are simple. The coffee shop reminds me of my husband, it may be the only quiet time I have, I like looking at my double cappuccino on the little old tin table, I feel like I’ve been transported to another city but most of all because it is then only time I can sit alone with my thoughts.

I’m not really sure what to write about anymore. IT is not because I do not have anything to write about but more because I don’t know where to start. Some of what I’m experiencing is too personal to relay and say things are just indescribable. I do miss writing. Everyone’s writing style is different. The way I write usual takes me to uncomfortable yet familiar places. I describe feelings by using imagery and hoping by placing you into a desert, a dream or into the middle of the ocean you can feel my extreme experiences.

I haven’t been able to represent my emotions to a specific place quite yet.The closest I’ve come to is a roller coaster. My husband I and I love roller coasters. We enjoy the rise and the fall. I enjoy screaming without people looking at me like I’m crazy. I love knowing that it will only last a few minutes and that I can go again only if I choose to. What I am living however is not a roller coaster or joy ride. It has its rise and fall. It leaves me at the top to take in the view and creeps slowly down and leaves me in a pit only to race back up again. I’m a little tired of this ride. It hasn’t ended and it won’t let me off. It is relentless. IT is the same route over and over but the scenery changes and the speeds change. I have nothing to grab onto and am starting to feel like its normal. I’ve stopped screaming and that’s why I’ve stopped writing.

I’m a little numb right now. It’s partially because without my numbing survival skills this ride might just throw me over the top.

I am being patient. I am staying realistic and cautiously optimistic.
I’m waiting for the ride to stop so I can get the hell off and ask for my money back.

Carly Rose

September always rolls around about the same time every year. The scent of the air changes, the sunsets are more luminous and more colorful and the leaves are the deepest shades of green they can be until October comes. September is the month in which my older daughter was born. Fall represents shedding of the exterior layers of life revealing newness or trueness. It represents the beginning in the process of hibernation we all emotionally and some of us, physically go into once the frost comes.

September 23rd, however always stops me in my tracks. I always wake up in the morning and am reminded what is no longer here physically but is here ever so more prominently as the years have passed.

This post is written for my beautiful friend Sara, who is the mother of Carly Rose. It is written for my amazing friend Eric, Carly’s Father. It is written from Drew, Carly’s big brother Drew and for Ella, Carly’s little sister.

It is written for everyone who has ever loved, lost, lived and touched by the angels who come and leave to soon.
It is written to remind us of how beautiful life is.

My Dearest Sara,

After these years I still have not grasped. As our children grow and our families have grown, I still have not grasped. I look at your beautiful face and your vibrant smile every time I see you and am amazed. As women and mothers, we share a special bond, as friends we share a closer bond but it is in pain and healing that people become more and have more than just “relationships”. My beautiful soul sister, today I celebrate your life, Carly’s life and your lost.

As I write, incoherently, I can feel you although you are not next to me.

When a part of our heart is taken from us, we fear that people will not remember that part of our heart ever existed. That part of your heart existed and still exists. As each year pasts her memory grows stronger and in my mind I can see her in the age she is now. I wish I knew Carly Rose better. I wish I spent more time with her. I wish I didn’t let my own emotional pain at that time get in the way of knowing your angel.

Sara, I want you to know that no one has forgotten your beautiful little girl. That no one will ever forget she was here and continues to stay with us. I am speaking for all the people who do not know what to say to you, who are uncomfortable and awkward around you. I am speaking for everyone who has continued living their life seemingly like Carly was not here. No one has forgotten but sometimes, emotions make people strangely speechless.

Carly was here. She still is here pumping emotions in our hearts. No one has forgotten and although time has passed, nothing has changed.

Thank you Carly Rose-you have made us all better people. I think of you everyday and am reminded of how lucky we all are that you were here. Your mom misses you and loves you. Your dad misses you and loves you. Your big brother has not and will never have another Carly Rose and your little sister knows she has a big sister.

I’m not going to cry today. I will send you smiles. I will send you love. I will float six balloons into the cloudy sky and torrential rains.

Please know that you are missed. Know that you have graced us with your beauty that was taken away too soon.

Happy Birthday Carly Rose.

I love you Sara, Eric, Drew, Ella and Family…

Director’s Cut

Christine Alcalay: Spring/Summer 2012 (Director’s Cut) from Jimi Sweet NYC on Vimeo.

Have we met before?

A few weeks ago, on a gorgeous summer day, I had a peculiar experience.

It was the middle of the afternoon in Bryant Park and I sat on an abnormally perfect patch of grass with my daughters. Bryant Park is one of the magical places in NYC where if you stay long enough, you feel as if the city is looking at you. The only other place that makes me feel this way is Wollman Rink in Central Park on a brisk winter’s day with hot chocolate in hand.

I ordered us a sandwich after about a dozen turns on the belle époque carousel residing in the park. It my personal favorite because in the summer, it plays Charles Aznavour and in the winter Edith Piaf sings her songs of love and heartbreak. As the carousel spins and the horses move in motions with the children giggling and laughing, these two french singers croon and declare their heart’s desires and mis-desires(is this even a word?). There is a public bookshelf waiting for a young curiosity and pebbles on the ground separating the 15′ by 30′ space from the concrete jungle.

We played with a ball by throwing it across the lawn in between people on their lunch break, the homeless man taking a nap, the lovebirds on a blanket and a hundred other people searching for a little bit of green calm in the hectic effort of a lazy summer day.

The call of nature disrupted my plans of picnicking. My younger daughter grabbed me by the hand and asked me to take her to the restroom.

We walked across the lawn and I couldn’t help but be proud to hold the hands of the two most beautiful girls I knew. I was even prouder that I was their mother. When we reached where the grass met the gravel, I saw a familiar face sitting on one of the folded chairs. His face brought me back 15 years. I stared in disbelief that I even recognized him because, although he looked similar he looked also, completely different.

I knew I had a time limit and so I greeted him, the way an old friend would. I greeted him like an old relic from the past I lost in the passing years.

With wide eyes: “John? Oh my god- how have you been. It’s so crazy to see you?”

Only a few words escaped my mouth but the memories of age 15 flooded in. I was speaking quickly, thinking quickly and remembering rapidly. I was happy to see that he looked well,I was happy to see a long-lost friend. I couldn’t wait to hear what he had been up to. I couldn’t wait to about what he had been up to. I couldn’t wait to introduce him to my two little girls.

As the few short words and sentences came out of my mouth a harsh realization also became quite apparent.

He had no idea who I was.

All of my fond memories, the questions I had, the joy that I felt, the surprise that had collected and the sense of finding someone I had lost was suspended in the air for just a few short moments and came crashing down into a million specks of sand.

We were suddenly worlds apart or even a few lifetimes apart.

He asked me how we knew each other.

I answered with “high school”. He asked if these were my children and I answered with their names. I tried to ignore the awkwardness by turning the attention to my children but I could see the confusion on his face.

In all honesty, I enjoyed the perturbed look on his face.

I looked once more into the eyes of the person I thought I knew so long ago. I searched for a common thread and something familiar that I could grab onto but it was no longer there.

I left with my girls and never even mentioned my name. I didn’t give him the opportunity to ask or to even remember. Before he could even voice his curiosity I had already washed away all the sand.

I took my girls to the restroom and as I returned to our patch on the grass, I could feel his gaze from across the lawn.

I wondered if he still hadn’t remembered.
My older daughter asked questions about the stranger and how it was even stranger he didn’t recognize me but I knew his name.

We sat and finished our sandwich and that was when I remembered that the last time I saw my long lost friend was in Bryant park.

It was a few days after a snowfall and that park was empty. We took all the folded chairs in the park and lined them up like soldiers. I had a camera. He sat amongst 200 empty chairs is an empty bryant park. I snapped the photo.

I developed the photo in my photography class.
We spent hours upon hours discussing the photo, our lives, our futures and then, I disappeared.