光腳博士 的天地
光著腳在天地之間留著足跡，直到一個輪回為止。。。
剛到美國的時候，也有過去餐館打工的體驗。華宴(Chinese Gourmet restranrant)是我做過 weitress 的中國餐館之一。我曾深深的被餐館的室內裝飾, 設計而吸引。餐館的女主人是當地大學教授的夫人。他們一家人的品味比起我去過的任何餐館都高大上。後來才知道老板和她的兒子都喜歡藝術。當時餐館牆上掛的多是出於他們自己之手，以及他們的收藏。老板娘是個精明能幹的商人。她老公在八十年代就過世了。她一個人經營著餐廳，陶瓷玉器製作工藝室，養育了一對成功的兒女。給自己的父母送終。參加瑜伽訓練幾十年。如今七十多歲的女人看上去還和三十年前我認識的她沒什麽區別。
最近，再一次去她家做客的時候，看到了更精彩的她。也了解到她活到老學到老的人生軌跡。她不僅親手製作出一件件別具獨特風格的陶瓷作品，又開始了畫家的創作。她天南海北的飛奔在全國各地，走親戚，看畫展，學書畫，活的精彩而有意義。真的是我認識的個性十足的女強人。
丁太太的名字叫 Susan, 她是那種小巧玲瓏的南方姑娘，雖然個子不高，但全身都煥發出勃勃生機的燃燒力，似乎在她身上有使不完的勁，這麽多年下來，她一直走著她喜歡的藝術人生道路。 她祖籍是中國大陸人，後來他們定居去了香港，五十年代從香港來到美國。誰也不會想得到剛來美國時，一個連飯都煮不熟的小女孩，後來居然成就了中國餐館。她不是那種由於生活所迫而開餐館的。剛到美國的時候，她也和無數移民一樣學語言，進學堂，她甚至在八十年代就在大學數學專業拿到了文憑。但是，她卻喜歡上了烹調，喜歡上了有食品的場合。她曾多次開課傳授中國飯菜的製作，也曾從香港，大陸，馬來西亞額請專業廚師經營她的餐館。
通常，中國媽媽都會告誡兒女，好好學習學校的功課，將來考個好大學，然而，她幸運的孩子們卻有著跟別人不一樣的媽媽，丁太太一直支持孩子們愛好，兒子喜歡藝術，畫畫，拍照，音樂和影視。媽媽就和兒子一起玩音樂學藝術。女兒喜歡遊泳，媽媽不管多忙都接送女兒參加各種訓練和比賽。最終，兒子成為了紐約大劇院歌劇的大導演，女兒在成為當地，當時的遊泳健將之後，成為了一名了不起的醫生。現如今，她的孩子們都長大了，結婚生子，她當了grandma，她也給自己的父母養老送終了。她還是一個人風風火火的做著自己喜歡的事，她還是快快樂樂健健康康的做著讓人羨慕的她自己。我欣賞她，我喜歡她。她是我身邊最賦正能量的朋友。是讓我覺得跟她相處很容易，很受益的好知己，我自豪有這樣的好朋友。她是我最佩服的不老女神。
尾聲出自她的孩子們：
As a thick snow fell on an unusually bright night, Susan Tong Ting passed peacefully from this world, wrapped in the love of her family.
She was born in Leshan, Sichuan, China, on January 3, 1944, delivered into this world by her father, her mother telling him what to do every step of the way.
In 1950, her family made their way to Hong Kong. She never quite escaped the long shadows of her two brothers’ brilliance in school, but she worked hard, she cared for the family, she loved to dance. Some years later her mother had a brief encounter with the Mormon church, and that’s how a mink farmer sponsored the family’s travel to America. She was 15.
At Penn State, she studied to be a math teacher and met her future husband who (on their first date—a walk through the woods) dazzled her with his botanical knowledge, introducing her to some berries that she promptly had an allergic reaction to. He rushed her to the hospital, and watched over her the rest of the day as she slept.
They married in Philadelphia, honeymooned in the Poconos, and moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he taught geology at the local university. For much of her youth, her hair was long, luxurious, and black. Then she had her first child—a son—who tugged relentlessly at it. She cut it short and never went back.
North Dakota was cold. So they eventually settled in Morgantown, West Virginia, first in faculty housing where lasting friendships were made; and—with a daughter on the way—they built a house on a hill with two orange doors and a porch with a view of the sunset. By any account, it was a home (and a life) to be envied.
But she was restless just raising kids at home. So in 1981, they bought the old East Garden Restaurant on University Avenue and renamed it the Chinese Gourmet. Through the restaurant, they were able to sponsor family from Taiwan and China to come to the States, many of whom stayed and made families of their own. After a lifetime as a daughter, a wife, a mother, it was something just for her; and she poured everything she was into it. In a way, she was like the food she served—dependable, light, a bit salty, a bit sweet, with no MSG. Open, funny, opinionated, she was what you saw, with arms as wide as the extraordinary table she set for you.
She was 45 when her husband passed.
In this moment, if not before, she came into her true power. She held her children close, refusing to let them give in to the Great Unmooring. Guiding them along the sudden pivot from childhood to adulthood, she taught them resilience and grace and perseverance and the deep sort of love that they would carry with them always. She held them close, but not so close that she couldn’t let them go when their own stories called—one to art, the other to healing.
Something was liberated in her as well. And the call of the potter’s wheel felt finally in reach. Still, for all the doors she opened throughout her life, she never forgot to hold them open for friends and strangers too. One wheel became eight. Her community joined her to build tables and shelves which filled the room that was once a laundromat—a brick kiln rose in the parking lot. She wanted the name to be something of the earth, but also of the heart: ZENCLAY was born. And through it, her passion for the ceramic arts inspired countless others old and young to fill that room and those shelves with things of their own making. In that way, the things she made were lasting, like the porcelain ginkgo leaves she carved, the family she made, and the family she chose.
It was in the fashion of children becoming parents that—when her parents could no longer care for themselves—she took them in, cared for them as she did when she was a girl, much as her mother cared for her grandmother. Her children eventually married and had children of their own, and she wore the garment of grandmother with joy and a wry sense of service. When her parents passed, she began to travel. Oh did she travel! All across Europe to all corners of China. Morocco to Abu Dhabi, Cuba to the Caribbean, Sri Lanka to Singapore to Alaska, and across the seas. She rarely traveled alone, accompanied by her brother, her daughter, her son, or her friends; and no matter where she went, she always sought out the comfort of a Chinese restaurant. All those years inviting strangers to her table made her a beacon for good company, striking up conversations with complete strangers, once starting a sing-along of Take Me Home, Country Roads in an airport on the way home from Iceland.
As she got older, nothing fazed her. She practiced yoga, line-danced, and focused on her grandchildren, charting enough miles between Morgantown, her daughter’s home in Cincinnati, and her son’s home in Berkeley to circle the earth. When her eyes and hands began to fail her, undaunted, she started painting, and telling her daughters how to cook. Her last trip was to visit her 103-year-old uncle in Wuhan, China, Christmas of last year.
She was humble. But she had an opinion about everything.
She’d ask you what you thought. And then make the opposite choice.
She liked to micromanage her staff and sometimes her family.
She never met a spice she didn’t like, and nothing was too hot.
She survived three serious car accidents, each one in a Subaru.
She never learned to swim and maybe the water scared her a bit, which perhaps explains the almost militant commitment to making her children attend practices and swim meets.
She cut our hair.
The final chapter of a life spent caring for others was not uneventful. Pandemic, social revolution, and a valiant battle with cancer meant it was her turn to be cared for. The circumstances of the day afforded her family and friends the opportunity to rally around her, lifting her up as she’d lifted them, through the radiation and the chemo and the physical therapy. And amidst all the turmoil, her house was filled with birthdays and cardboard forts, with the laughter of children and delicious food, and quiet moments of respite on her porch listening to cicadas and the sway of trees.
