I can’t identify the music coming from the interior of the burger truck behind my favorite local taproom, but it feels appropriate- an atmospheric endless riffing of electric guitar, like Kurt Cobain vamping on his guitar and deciding whether or not to sing. The sky is overcast, all but guaranteeing a cooler, rainier tomorrow than the last two days of pseudo-warmth. I’ll be back in the kitchen for those, hopefully getting through the day with a minimum of angst.

May is right around the corner, and it’s usually a rough month for my family. Memories of my grandmother and uncle flood through on the anniversary of their deaths, and being in a kitchen- where I tend to feel my grandmother’s presence the most- can make experiences that were already going to be fraught feel downright hostile and ironic. Is whatever I’d be doing just then what they’d want for me? Am I falling short somehow? Who can tell me what they might have wanted?

Nope, no good. I can do my best, but the dead don’t get a say anymore. Our ancestors march behind us, but any rivers we choose to cross, we make the decision alone. We can’t make a song just riffing forever, and the clouds need to empty themselves eventually. Shit or get off the pot.

My dream pie truck is on the metaphorical fire again. I’m piecing together a business plan- a real one, with gratitude and apologies to Chris Gillebeau– and Trying To Do It Right This Time. In a little more than two months, I turn 40. I have plenty of time to make it happen to my own schedule, and I’d promised myself that the winery would be the last time I worked for someone else. Recent events seem to have underlined it for me, and when such disparate minds as my wife, my mother-in-law, my therapist, and coworkers look at me and say “About friggin’ time, you won’t be happy any other way?” That’s a choir you’d better be sitting in the pews for. “You’ve got a song in you, we know it- quit riffing and sing.”

Inside the taproom, the big crowds have moved on and they’re playing folk Americana on the stereo. A lot of these artists try to sound like a mixture of Bob Dylan and the Marshal Tucker Band- I had to ask my phone to confirm it was neither. I figure I’ve got about twelve minutes of drinking and writing time left before I need to get home and start my laundry to make sure I have clean aprons in the morning.

I want to write. I want to sleep. I want company. I want to be alone. I want my grandmother to tell me everything will be okay. I want to know what song I’m supposed to sing. I want to get home before it rains so I can enjoy it better. I want to convince myself that there is an end to the feeling of eternal burnout and exhaustion with nearly everything in life. Clearly I can only have some of those things, and a few I can’t have at the same time for reasons of physics… so I turn back to writing.

When I got my first management job running the kitchen of the pie shop, I had this quote tacked up over my desk. I didn’t really care if anyone saw it or thought it was the weirdest motivational sticky-note in the world. It wasn’t meant to be a motivator or a warning. It was meant to be a reminder of what I wanted to be- and what I didn’t.

Caro knocked it out of the park with this one. I’d heard variations on the theme for years. “Before you choose a leader, see how he treats his neighbors children.” “If you would choose a chief, see how he treats those who can do him no harm.” The core of it all is when someone is given power over others, you see exactly who they always wanted to be when they were powerless. The vengeful creep wreaks their vengeance. The angry loner turns the tables on a world they felt rejected by. The egomaniac and absolutist asserts dominion over their sandcastle.

After three years, those vibes are sifting down into the kitchen. Corporate ownership is gonna corporate, and “the big boss wants this, do it or quit” has become the final argument on everything from pop-up private dinings to menu changes. It may be true in the strictest sense, but no one likes having it rubbed in their face. Personally, “because I said so” stopped working on me as an excuse for anything when I was about 16. By then I’d learned too much, done too much, and seen way too many Assholes With A Little Power to trust “authority” as the final arbiter of damn near anything- especially anything I felt as strongly about as my Craft and my time on this Earth.

Putting together my own business again will mean that, if everything manages to go well, I will be lucky enough to worry about what to do with power again. I do the best I can for my little team at the winery- I share out credit, claim responsibility, and do my best to mitigate or fight it when the shit flows downhill and lands in our laps. Running my own business will mean absolute power- absolute freedom- and the absolute responsibility to use that power and freedom the best I can for anyone I hire.

I’m putting Caro’s admonition back up on the near my desk, because I know I’ll never be fully content without that freedom, whatever the difficulties. It’s time to sing the best I can, and at least I have a tune I can rely on.

Stay Classy,