{sometimes a story is a metaphor}

Last year this time I was working at a restaurant every day that was not yet open. I was hired in mid-August and we opened to the public on October 1st. While I wrote, here on eggbeater, about what all went into Opening A Restaurant, I was not at will to discuss any details about The Job. Fellow bloggers, close friends, colleagues and family asked questions I did not answer.

Sometimes people guessed and I was forced to lie. Because although all the people who asked felt that the real answer would satisfy them like nothing else, me speaking about the project before it was fully born would have hurt it. And done a professional disservice to all people involved.

Some secrets are meant to be held close.

There are personal stories that can only grow in a protected setting.

Some secrets can look personal, and individually owned, but the fact is that they are shared by many folks, and to unlatch the garden gate where secrets grow, with one's own hands, is to trespass on shared ground.

I used to be a person who rushed answers. I despised living in the unknown and would press and pry and poke "to get to the bottom" of whatever was frustrating me at the moment. I thought to know was to understand. And to understand is to keep in check. The logic being that understanding will calm the anxious mind.

And then I took care of someone until the end of her life.
And I figured it out really quickly:
     We have no control over the unknowing. Control evaporates in the face of death.

I don't like lying. I don't like holding secrets unless I can unwrap them soon and see the faces of those I love illuminated. Soon. And I don't like living in the unknown, but now I have a bit of practice with it, and so it's a little better.

When life feels up in the air right now, when all sorts of possibilities are different weights and being juggled, I try to remember what I've been through in the past and how I always make it through. Not around, but through. I try to remember I know what I'm doing, and when I don't, I know people to ask. I try to remember that when I don't know what I'm doing I sometimes do, I'm just a little too good at second guessing.

If I seem absent these days it's because I am. I promise {if I have anything to do with it} to land again soon. It is my hope to relinquish this secret by the year's end. I look forward to extending it out, away from my tucked wings, and looking at it fully, before releasing it to fly and go wherever it may.

p.s. An inspirational story of resilience is Carl Rosato, the man behind Woodleaf Farm. This past April Carl lost his entire crop of peaches in a two day frost that dipped into the low 20's. Realizing that in 48 hours he had lost his entire paycheck for the year, Carl planted vegetables. I am now working at the Tuesday and Saturday Berkeley farmers' market helping to sell his delicious tomatoes, melons, summer & winter squash, unbelievably delicious and amazing Japanese cucumbers, green beans, edamame, sunflowers, peppers and pickling cucumbers.

Comments

[Cindy]

You are a good person, Shuna. So glad I had the pleasure of meeting you this year.

[Zoomie]

That really is an inspirational story! When life hands you frosted peaches, plant veggies! Thank you for sharing that story!

[Tartelette]

You could say you have to keep in it and you would still say it with such poetry :)