October 2004

There was a popular poster once that said, “Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life.” The first time I saw this poster, the thought that everyday would be a new beginning made such an impression on me that I vowed to live it as such for the rest of my life. That lasted about . . . a week.

Today, I no longer think that every day is the first day of the rest of my life – not in the ways that count anyway. These days, I rather think that there are different types of days. I revel in having lived all these types of days because without even one, the others make no sense.

Some days are meant for saying goodbye.

In 2001, I lived a string of goodbye days. I sold my businesses and said good bye to Shanghai. They were the sad days because it meant the end of something treasured and something shared – our restaurants, our magazines, and our years together.

Where do you store the memories of the early days when bank accounts were low and excitement ran high? How do you explain to an office of 40 what it was like to do the same with a staff of four? How do you tell what it was like not to eat for 12 hours because you were so full of the vision of your creation that food seemed the lesser nourishment?

In the last story I wrote for this column (One Door Opens, Feburary 2001 of that's Shanghai) I talked about closing one door while deciding on which new door to walk through. There were many choices.

In the process of deciding, I first lived days of nothingness – days where what the future holds cannot be guessed, what you will do is not clear, and what challenges lie ahead cannot be seen.

Those are the days of mysteries.

For two years after leaving Shanghai, I have lived in such a space. I wandered the earth multiple times, calling Paris my home and then America, and then I didn’t know where. The world was my meditation space, each country and each city calling me to a different life. I stayed for no more than three weeks in any city, no more than three months in any country. I reconnected with childhood friends and renewed bonds with family members. I read, I wrote, I passed my days sitting in cafes and visiting museums.

I said goodbye to my experience of China up until then, to the restaurants I opened and the magazines that took my life’s focus for most of those years. I had gone to China to find my roots. I had lived there for seven years and built a life. I had found my origins and the culture of my birthright. But I was not done with China. For in China I experienced another part of me – the part that yearns to create and to manifest the vision of my life. In that empty space of the fog, shapes began to come into focus in the road ahead.

The vision found its form in what I had the most experience – in writing and opening restaurants. And so a book was finished and another restaurant was built. I came back to China to begin again.

These are the days of new beginnings.

I love beginnings for they define the test that are to come. Today, I am being tested in ways I had not imagined. To write a book when all I knew about was magazines, to create a landmark restaurant when all I knew about were small eateries pushed me beyond my capability. The boundaries of my “personal best” can no longer be set by me. It is the challenge of the times that will define my limits.

I used to live in Brooklyn, around the 5-mile mark of the New York Marathon. Once a year I would go to the end of the street and watch the 10,000 or so runners who have signed on for this 27-mile race. I loved being at the 5-mile mark because that was the place fairly close to the start. The runners were the most cheerful. They were not yet tired and only feeling the glow of blood being pumped through their bodies. They were full of hope of what they could achieve that day, of crossing the finish line and not yet being confronted by thirst or tired muscles.

In order to have a beginning, there must be an ending. In order to create, you must have the space to reflect. In order to accept what life has to offer, you must be prepared to live in mystery.

Join me in my beginnings.