I like to say my g_d has a sense of humor. A notoriously tricky one, I dare say. Not exactly sinister, but definingly dry and definitively abrupt, like the person who pulls a tablecloth out from under the table settings, practiced or not, at the art of subtlety, grace or confidence.
Some friends of mine and I like to say, "sometimes g_d is doing for me what I can not do for myself."
Sometimes you're the tablecloth and sometimes you're the hands and sometimes you're the grip and sometimes you're the smile about to break and sometimes you're the dishes that tremor but do not shatter and sometimes you're the surprise and sometimes you are the glass that cracks but does not fall and sometimes you're the idea to do such a thing at all
and sometimes you're taken by complete surprise.
Challenges will always arise. It's how we react, rise, reach to/with/into them that transforms us.
I'm not saying these tricks don't ambush. We navigate as best we can with tools we continue to sharpen or wish we did not own or wish we did.
Reacting and responding are not the same.
Sometimes we turn a corner we didn't know we were turning until we glance back and can no longer see from whence we came. We may try to reach back to say farewell to those we loved and appreciated and wanted to learn more from, but the door closes on the chapter and, to honor the memory they wish to become, we walk forward.
We put one foot in front of the other.
We have faith the ground beneath us will remain solid or we borrow faith from people we love and trust who have extra to lend.
Sometimes we can say goodbye with intention, sometimes we can not.
Strangely I feel grateful for having once experienced a grief so great, so large, so dark that I came to know its attributes, its tides, and can now, sometimes gracefully, sometimes awkwardly, stand in it's course and let it wash over/pass through me, understanding that hope, that light-a comprehension of the incomprehensible; an untangling of confusion and answerless questions, is possible and not out of reach.
One day at a time.
For all loss is loss, no matter it's timing, no matter its reasons, no matter its warnings.
If we are interested in re-defining success we must also define failure differently.
If we are interested in re-defining success, we must discontinue to draw ink lines where permeable ones would delineate more accurately.
The snake swallows its tail. There are no endings, only beginnings. Success is not virgin birth.
I know one certainty: the only thing you can rely on is change.
I proceed, as Peels recedes.
I am proud of all I conceived, built, produced, organized, systemized, learned, celebrated, conjured, inspired, taught, realized.
I built a bakery.
Whether the owners/investors re-shape or remove it, or do what they need to do to insure the space makes them the monies they need to reconcile their bottom line, I remain proud of that which I bore from nothing more than a hope, a wish, desire, a love of baking so strong I have no words to describe it.
On the day before the first day of Spring, the owners and I bid farewell, shook hands and thanked each other for the opportunities we gave and received. More than anything I'm happy for what they gave me. Wood and linen. Staples. A canvas to stretch on my own. Freedom & belief.
Au revoir, to see again; to leave without saying goodbye. For Good. No home is permanent, excepting the one residing inside.
Be not sad for me. The life-force of a restaurant is the same as a person-it adds, expands, subtracts, grows and shifts; feathers shed; wings are clipped and grow back again; going for as long as it goes, rarely staying the same, or wanting to! The bottom line of a spreadsheet is the outcome of a list of percentages that are ingredients: a recipe for a healthy enterprise-one which not only feeds, but nourishes.
Wondering what's next? I've had some ideas on the side, shelved, proofing in the oven, on hold, hibernating, waiting, restless. I've been placating them with excuses for a long time now. "Not now, I'm opening a restaurant." "Not yet, I'm hiring a team." "Soon, I promise."
Remember how I said my g_d has a dastardly sense of humor? G_d is nudging me to keep my promise...
Thank you a zillion times thank you to everyone who came in brought friends & family & introduced yourself & ate & tasted & worked & staged with me and for Peels pastry department & everyone who allowed me to make your birthday cake & wedding cakes/pies & photographed & wrote about what I was doing & interviewed & surprised me & gave me critical feedback & made suggestions & put me on the radio & tv & took notice of what my bakery was trying to achieve & came to the Ice Cream Social & ordered your Thanksgiving pies from us & I really do hope to see and feed you all again wherever I land with my whisk and Baby Offset Spatula next. I won't soon forget you, {as I hope you won't, me} Your support has meant so much to me and that which I am attempting to speak through my baking.
au revoir.





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