What I do All Day

Self-Reflection

These days I’m often asked what it is that I do all day. It seems to be the first thing on everyone’s mind as I meet with them, whether they’ve journeyed to my home, or I’ve come across them back in civilization. And for everyone it is always the same: a minute or so of evaluation, sizing up—oh, you’re so tan type of visual remarks, which aren’t bad, it’s nice to be in the sun and one appears healthier and more vibrant… And, quickly, when my visual appearance only serves to rouse their curiosity more with my long hair and other such marks of beach bum abandonment, they can’t help but ask: so, what is it that you actually do? And I never answer them, not really. Unintentionally I add to this mystery. I’m uncomfortable answering. I don’t DO anything, but, rather, I AM.

People want to know what time I rise, and what the drive is like to work, and if I go often. And if I answer that I rise at dawn to begin my work in this converted shed at the edge of my property beside the tall grass, nestled behind an overgrown eastern red cedar—when I open the door, the hot air and unfinished pine walls blend with the smell of the juniper and I am instantly a child again in summer on the shore with my family at the outdoor shower beneath the house on stilts and walking on the soft brown pine needles—they wonder what kind of work I could possible be doing here, when my restaurant is so far over there. Are you driving there all the time? No, I am not. I think can eliminate some questioning by simply stating I am no longer an active owner. Though, of course, this leads to more confusion, and consequently more questions regarding the operation of my restaurant that I no longer consider my restaurant, which is precisely a topic I don’t wish to discuss because it is precisely why I left it. It runs because people who are not me run it. There is a risk that it will die. There is a possibility that we—yes, my restaurant isn’t just mine—will one day pass it along… But within the risk of its death or possibility of its sale, in due time, is the notion in others that I, also, will die. It seems people do not see me independently from the restaurant I helped to create, which is the root of their perplexion after I hadn’t adequately answered how I could run my restaurant from here, even though I haven’t managed the day-to-day operations there since the beginning of 2020. I have simply moved on to other endeavors.

And what endeavors are those? This is where I often leave them to their curiosity by mumbling something or other about the children, taking a rest from my multiple failed businesses, figuring out what we (my wife and I) want to do next… I’m not taking a rest and I know what I’m doing next because it’s what I’m doing now. But, as the visit and conversation develop and the picture of my life is inevitably drawn more completely, I eventually admit that my rising at dawn is for the purpose of writing. And then, no one quite believes me—though they are good not to say this directly, but instead wear the obviousness of such doubt in their movements and expression. They believe that I do some blogging from time to time. But it’s not quite that they don’t believe me when I say I write—they don’t believe in the writing. It’s as if, to them, I’m rebounding from a broken relationship and pretending to do something while I’m scoping out my next restaurant venture. Alas, no. It was restaurants that became my mode of living while my first novel was being written in the early morning before bartending, and after it failed to support me. I didn’t go to hotel school. I didn’t walk into a white tablecloth restaurant when I was 9 years old and think, this is what I need to do. Instead, I was writing in a little black notebook.

I wrote An Ouroboros in two years, when I was 22 and 23 years old. After failed initial attempts at securing an agent I self-published it when I was 24, because doing whatever the internet says one must do to secure an agent requires every ounce of humility I had, and I quickly ran out. It is a horrible thing to do, sell your work after you’ve written it. It is grotesque, perverse, demeaning and demoralizing. They don’t even respond, and I know why—it’s impossible to keep up with the queries. But “these arseholes take something they couldn’t do in a lifetime and tear it down in a single day…” (thank you Sean Connery [Finding Forrester]). The man you may know works in restaurants, though that is not the man I am, and not the one whom I’ve returned to.

I feel the correctness and righteousness and divinity of this return so deeply within myself that the success of whatever is to come of it feels plainly inevitable. This is not bravado. This is not confidence. There is a force at work, and I have finally allowed myself to become its disciple. No one wants to hear this. He’s gone from cook to kook. He’s really taking the restaurant failure hard… Brothers and Sisters, that was a gift from whatever Almighty there is. I feel like Candide. I feel like Siddhartha. But prophesizing about myself makes me feel uncomfortable, so I must discontinue, though perhaps a few more words on what it is that I do…

I created my first restaurant to allow me to do exactly what I’m doing now. I did not create a cocktail bar because I’m passionate about cocktails. The passion in that work is in the ingredients I’ve felt compelled to use, because Mama Earth demanded it from me in order that I remain pure enough for the work that was to come. She is always with me, she compels my every move, and, when I act in defiance of her, as I eat the ice cream with soy lecithin or drink anything from a bottle or can, or fill my trash again, I feel, afterward, a sense of hopelessness. I annoy everyone around me, and certainly those closest to me, with my strict adherence to Mama Earth. And the righteousness of my cause is immediately diminished by my weaknesses. I do desire to live “normally”, for it is easier to procure one’s goods from the supermarket and rid one’s house of trash with bins of bags and purchase whatever thing I want and throw it away when I’m no longer interested… or however “normal” people live. I wish that “normal” was the good way, the right way. I do not desire friction, yet I feel as if I am the embodiment of sandpaper. Perhaps enigmatically, I do not feel the need to instill change. I am not a missionary. I simply wish that people would recognize the evil in their daily deeds, would reevaluate the good they see in themselves. I’ve said it before: there are very few good people. I wish people would see that their support for whatever populist morality does not make them good, that goodness isn’t defined by how one is perceived. Goodness is defined by the smallest of actions. There is a reason that gods and prophets and apostles and priests and disciples are all defined by their audacity to do without, because it is within things themselves that evil prevails. There is a reason that holiness is not defined by excess. There is a reason why the holy ones feel so far away—they are.

I do not have ethereal qualms to pick with pretend people. I live and my perceptions are taken from actual encounters with actual people. I cannot pretend these perceptions were not directly taken from the life I experience with those whom I encounter, though asking after my wellbeing certainly is not a qualm I have, but an opportunity for self-reflection. Until next time…