the messiness of life in a restaurant kitchen

 
The Buddha said that we are never separated from enlightenment. Even at the times we feel most stuck, we are never alienated from the awakened state. This is a revolutionary assertion. Even ordinary people like us with hang-ups and confusion have this mind of enlightenment called bodhichitta. The openness and warmth of bodhichitta is in fact our true nature and condition. Even when our neurosis feels far more basic than our wisdom, even when we're feeling most confused and hopeless, bodhichitta—like the open sky—is always here, undiminished by the clouds that temporarily cover it.
                                                     Bodhichitta: The Excellence of Awakened Heart, by Pema Chödrön

 Let me just say there has been a lot of cloud cover for me lately. I try to remember that period of my life when I used to meditate (who has time for that anymore?) and work on myself. Now, I'm lucky if I get to take a shower most days. But despite my current very much non-enlightened state in which I feel like I'm barely making it through most days, I still seem to get hit over the head on a daily basis with opportunities to practice compassion for people.

I know I have a strong and opinionated personality and I'm not afraid to communicate directly, which throws a lot of people off guard. I've noticed in my 7 + years of living in the South that direct communication is not always appreciated. It's better to smile and act pleasant and then talk behind someone's back than it is to say what you really feel. But I guess I haven't gotten very good at that.  

And going back to work has provided me with ample opportunity to be in the world which necessarily means dealing with the messiness of different personalities, culture clashes, pettiness and generally just people being people. My dad always says that it doesn't matter what the job or the environment, anytime you put more than two people together in a room, the b.s. will happen. I guess that's true. I've certainly dealt with my fair share of politics in the workplace, having spent years in the academic world where the more obscure (and inconsequential) the field, the more back-stabbing and cutthroat people will be to each other. 

photo courtesy http://israelity.com/tag/photo-archive/

But restaurants are a special blend of workplace chaos, combining as they do the eccentric personality types that are attracted to working in restaurants with the long hours and back-breaking work, and a kind of built-in and time-honored noble suffering, or as Anthony Bourdain puts it, "the stupidity and occasional squalor of a long career in the food-service industry."

I've always thought that a restaurant would be a good place for writing material, mainly because you just couldn't make this stuff up.  This is perhaps my 12th job in a restaurant over my lifetime, not counting the summer months I used to work as a hostess at my dad's Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas. I've worked in a bagel bakery, a Nepalese joint, too many Italian places to count including a wine bar in Rome and a shiny new place in Seattle where the Italian owners kept our tips, and the list goes on. I've worked as a hostess, counter girl, waitress, bartender, baker and cocktail server. But this time it's different. This time I feel as if I am both inside and outside of the industry. I'm inside it because I have a job to do and I go there and do it as best as I can. And I'm outside it because, well maybe only because I've lived a lot and I have a well-trained eye for observation now. It's something that has taken me a long time to cultivate. And it gives me an extra perspective on the world and on the tiny microcosm of it that is a restaurant.

Maybe that's why I'm noticing my reactions when people or events at work upset me. I'm not just reacting (though I'm doing a fair amount of that too), but I'm also looking at how I can be there and be outside myself at the same time, and maybe even make better choices this time around (though I still make mistakes). I'm analyzing my own reactions more and those of others, even to the point of not being able to let things go at night when I'm trying to go to bed. I have to actually read trashy novels in order to relax so I can sleep. Even Daniel said to me the other day: "your mind is a terrible place to be." I hope he was exaggerating. 

Anyway, it remains to be seen whether my tendency to over-analyze will be helpful or harmful to me. It really doesn't matter because I will still do it. Why? Well, because maybe it's true that the unexamined life is not worth living (I've read my Plato). It's just sometimes really exhausting. 

Combine the workplace drama with the messy ups and downs of everyday life with a toddler and some days I'm not sure which end is up. I'm either cleaning up pee and struggling with a two-year-old exploring her independence, or negotiating my way around a slew of male egos all trying to compete for the same 23-year-old server.

I'm not sure how this will all play out. But one thing I know for sure is I'll have a whole lot of new material if I ever decide to write that book.