Writing

A Quick Thank You Note

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As I type this, Emily is clattering around in the kitchen getting the last few things ready before we run out the door for a belated Thanksgiving dinner with my friend Gwen and her partner, so I am on something of a time constraint. I wanted to write something for this week, but given that I’d been working my whole ass off this week at the pie shop, I just never had the energy to think longer than 20 minutes about it.

In place of a proper entry then, please accept this simple post of “thank you.”

This last year was wild and hard, but I’m thankful for so many things.
First and foremost, the love and presence of Emily, my family, and friends in my life who cheered me on and kept me on the level when things got weird.

I’m grateful that I have a new job in the industry that I love, and one that values my skills and abilities. I feel more excited to work now than I have in the last several years, and Em smiles seeing me come up with new menu ideas. This past week was the hardest have ever worked in my life, but thanks to my amazing team we landed the metaphorical plane. Over 1500 pies in 4 days… I earned a day of doing nothing yesterday.

I’m also beyond thankful to all of you. The readers who enjoy and share my blog, who support me on Patreon, buy my books, and remind me that I have good stories to tell and people that want to hear them.

I’ll be back with more thoughts next week, but Em is in the shower now and that means I ned to back everything up. According to Gwen, dinner’s ready.

Stay Classy, and THANK YOU-

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Winding Down

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The rain is dripping off my coat as I fumble finding the right key in the dim early-morning light outside the bakery. House key, house key, bike lock key, multi-tool, office key… got it. A little finagling and I’m in out of the rain. At least there’s that. Autumn in Portland heralds the rainy season.
“Isn’t every month in Portland the ‘rainy season’ though?”
Yes. Haha, you’re very funny.

Quickly locking the door behind me and switching off the alarm, I put the water kettle on to boil then turn on the lights in the kitchen. There’s some slight detritus from the last shift, but overall my team keeps things clean and tidy. I see the small pile of recipes at my station that apparently don’t scale correctly or need to be re-written, along with the daily production checklist I made for my team. I’ll deal with those later- there’s a bigger fish to dry waiting in the office.

Opening the office door, I drop my bag on the desk and switch on the light. Sitting in front of me in my boss’s spreadsheet outlining our Thanksgiving orders and their due dates. We have over 2000 pies due between now and Christmas, and private orders are still coming in. This was always going to be the biggest challenge of the year, and of this job. I knew it. I figured I’d be prepared. I’d done some banquet organizing and logistics work before, after all. How much more different could this be?

Staring down at the spreadsheet, I can already feel the television static fuzzing my vision. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and not a lot of time to do it.

Tea first, though.

Close-up picture of blooming tea in a glass mug on a wooden table. Chinese tea paraphernalia is in the background.
Photo by NIKOLAY OSMACHKO on Pexels.com
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Snapshots of the Bakeshop VI- “Heavy is the Head…”

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It’s rare to work in a bakery where you are the first person in at 6:30 AM. I’ve spent a while waking up to start work at 2 am, and there’s other bakers who start work even earlier.

That’s not where I am now though. What I’m doing now is unlocking the door, shutting off the alarm, turning on the lights and starting the ovens leisurely late in the morning before I drop my bag at my desk. I have one of those now too- a desk, half an office, and “my station” in the corner of the kitchen where I can see, supervise, and be found when needed. I’m the pastry chef, after all.

Here I thought the Kwisatz Haderach could be in many places at once.

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Seeking Quiet- Mental Health, Meditation, and How Phillip Marlowe Saved My Life

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CW: Talk about suicide, suicidal ideation, and depression.

Eight months ago, alone at work with a heavy to-do list and late in the afternoon, I wanted to end my life.

I was beyond exhausted and frustrated. It was shortly after Passover and I felt lonely, lost, and hopeless. I felt like my career was at a dead end, and I was burning myself out in an increasingly thankless, stressful, and miserable job for no gain. I was drinking too much. I was taking too much caffeine. My relationships with my family were suffering. I felt resentful of everything and everyone.

All my coping mechanisms that had carried me through so much- meditation, exercise, reading, even writing- were failing me. I was sore and exhausted and bored with exercise. My meditation was rote routine and fruitless. Reading was still good, but I had lost the ability to calm down enough to read a paperback. Audiobooks were just entertaining noise in my ears. I was always stressed about the next shift, the next week, the next month, and what new nightmares would be coming down the chute that I would- inevitably- have to handle.

I never had a plan for how I would off myself, but I did debate how to take care of Emily beforehand. How could I quietly empty my bank account into hers to cover as many expenses as possible? How could I redirect bills? Farther and farther, deeper and deeper as I stared into an abyss of tart shells and almond paste.

Then I thought “What the actual fuck am I doing? This is fucked up. I need to pull out of this fast. I need to put something else in my brain.” Fortunately, I had just finished downloading a new Raymond Chandler mystery novel on Libby. I plugged in headphones and finished my shift to the sound of Phillip Marlowe getting his ass kicked by Los Angeles mobsters.

The nadir of my mental health at that point took about ten minutes. I have been an EMT. I have been in car accidents, lost patients, been actively threatened and assaulted by patients, tended to grotesquely injured people, some of whom didn’t survive.

This was the most scared I have ever been in my professional life… and it was because my mind, body, and heart just couldn’t take it anymore.

A pair of bare feet on a narrow plank. Either side indicates the person is standing at a great height.
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