Something Worth Saving

November 17, 2024November 18, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / 1 Comment

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you can guess what my state of mind has been like this last week and why I wound up skipping a blog post.

I’m not going to go over the recent election here except to say that while I’m frustrated and disappointed, I’m not wholly surprised. That can also be said for the anti-Jewish pogroms that seem to be all the rage in Europe again. Clearly going “vintage” doesn’t just mean aesthetics anymore- it also covers racial violence, and several groups appear to be giving 1939.

The Outrage and Angst Machines are running full tilt and their product remains what it always has been- Fear and Exhaustion, getting dumped into our lives faster than ever.

The idea is not to drown us, but to make it so we drown ourselves. To make us isolate ourselves in fear of everyone and everything and burn out all our energy over The Next Big Bummer so we’ll throw up our hands, sit down, shut up, and get on with dying quietly.

“Engage with the world around you at your own risk,” it all yells at us from the TV, from our phones, from stickers and posters and placards and screaming strangers. “Better and safer to Trust Us, give us your money and voices, and let us tell you who to hate today while we swaddle you in little luxuries. You can even choose which ones.”

hands reaching up in a darkened room to touch a ray of light — Photo by Luis Dalvan on Pexels.com

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It’s Okay To Not Know

October 28, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

The rain is coming down in fits and starts outside. I’ve had to break out my Irish sweater and cloak for the first time this year, but the sky pivots between sunshine and downpour. As it is, I’ve settled for the moment with shedding my cloak, rolling up the sleeves of the sweater, and watching the weather through the window of Holmans. The young bartender calls me “hun” as she fixes up a martini (dirty, extra dry, Beefeater Gin because I’m not trying to be spendy. She tips some extra “Dirty Sue” in there, but I’m alright with it.)

Back to settling in. Back to winding down. Back to being inside, taking stock, and taking a breath.

How’d we manage the summer? How’d we manage the year? How’s it all going? What’s different? What needs to be different?

Sitting where I am, when I am, the confluence of an election in the US, the change of the seasons, the change of weather, and the (Jewish) first anniversary of October 7th isn’t lost on me.

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Seeking Stillness for the End of the World

June 16, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

“The creation of the world did not occur at the beginning of time, it occurs every day.”
– Marcel Proust

All you can do some days is keep going.

I come into the kitchen and assess the production list for the day, keenly aware of my struggles to lose weight again.

Next comes reviewing the banquets for the day and make sure I block out time to individually decorate and tray the desserts people paid for, knowing that people I called friends are agitating for my death (intentionally or not) because I’m a Jew.

I build out the list, grab ingredients, and start mixing the day’s breads, fully conscious that my government is a joke and that folks like me are continually convinced to focus their ire on each other than the higher-ups with every reason to keeps us all angry and hateful all the time.

I make my silly little pastries, bake my silly little breads, and carry on like none of it is disappointing and hurtful and frustrating and sad. I do it because I know someone out there IS disappointed, hurt, frustrated, and sad, and what I make can be the One Good Thing that they get to enjoy today.

I can grieve. I can rage and piss and moan and cry… but not when I’m baking. There’s someone else’s day at stake then, and it’s not mine to ruin.

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Let The Rain Fall

May 6, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Someone told me long ago
There’s a calm before the storm
I know, it’s been comin’ for some time
When it’s over, so they say
It’ll rain a sunny day
I know, shinin’ down like water
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain?
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain?
Comin’ down on a sunny day

– Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Have You Ever Seen The Rain”

The back deck of Belmont Station on Stark is almost uncomfortably warm. They have the heaters on, and it’s nearly empty except for a young man flipping through his phone, an older man talking to the Lord, and me. I’d probably be more comfortable without my sweater on, but I don’t want to look after something else or give my neuroses one more thing to check the seat for when I eventually leave.

It’s the light, on-and-off rain that Portland knows so well tapping on the windows and skylights, and I wonder if their sealing heat was part of the calculus that called for the (not cheap to run) electric heaters. Any notion of “spring” out here is only confirmed or denied by plant life and we all know that they just go on instinct. A sweater and a denim cloak in May? That’s about right. “Putting away heavy clothes” is something other places do.

The beers are dark and good, short 4-ounce pours so I can try a few without breaking the bank. Belmont always has an interesting selection, and it’s rare I do the same beer over and over again in a sitting.

Let it pour. The beer, the rain, the words, the times- let it all pour.

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Checking In- Don’t Let Monstrous Times Make You A Monster

March 4, 2024 / The Black Hat Baker / Leave a comment

Where are you Matt?
What are you feeling?
Check in- what’s happening now?

This is the litany of questions that has gone through my head on repeat for the last few weeks. It’s one of the tools I use to ground and re-center myself when I catch my thoughts ruminating or spiraling.

You don’t “hate everything,” Matt. You are tired and sad. Hate and anger are easier to feel and parse than pain.

This is the other mantra I’ve found myself repeating over and over when I find myself slipping into depression. That’s been increasing over the last few months. The usual anxieties and tribulations of life seem to magnify themselves when you constantly poach yourself in a broth of bad news. It feels like everything hurts, and the world is too hard and painful to keep being kind in.

I insist on continuing to be kind, though.
My core values remain Patience and Compassion.
My “Way of the Floured Hand” dictates that “I choose love, I chose love, and I will always choose love.”
“It’s Chaos; Be Kind.”

I know that ideals like this will always be worth it in the end, always me– but that doesn’t mean it’ll always feel good.