Pushing through the transition
Volcanic cloud covering my next summit
I was nonplussed by the last day of my formal culinary school adventure. There was no ticker-tape parade in my honor. No fireworks. No three-tiered graduation cake. Heck, having to produce said cake as a practical application of my new skills would have rendered more excitement.
There was really only the matter of me passing my ServSafe Alcohol certification test: 80 multiple-choice questions – 18 of which I could get wrong and still pass. The main requirement for success was knowing how to count drinks and assess if the drinkers were drunk. I’d practiced those skills the night before, sitting at a Belgian beer bar in Shadyside with Andy, who’d flown into town to help me move home. Three minutes after I filled in the last bubble with my No. 2 pencil, Andy picked me up on the corner of Sixth and Liberty. Driving east on the expressway, I watched the Pittsburgh skyline disappear in the rear view mirror as I stripped off my chef’s jacket for a more comfortable ride back to my real life.
I’d originally thought that particular ride would serve as the setting for the final posting to this blog which had as its hook the ups and downs of being 42 and in culinary school. But when I mentioned that termination plan to one of my oldest friends, she indignantly said “You can’t stop blogging. You’re not remade yet. I want to read about you hitting your goal.”
“Which is what exactly?” I said partly to her, but mostly out loud to myself.
As my psychologist friend tells me every time I hit a life crisis, I really stink at transitions. But my mother describes me as a person always looking for the next mountain to climb. Reconciling those two people in my head as I wrap up my six-month stint in culinary Candy Land has got me in a bit of a she-said/she-said kind of a tailspin.
This transition is a total whopper. And I think the next mountain top seems to be clouded with volcanic ash.
Some days I want to crawl into the unfinished side of my basement and simplyorganize the boxes that have yet to be unpacked from last year’s trans-Atlantic move or finally clean out the washing machine detergent receptacles that have gotten crusty. “I don’t need an interesting career. I can clean my house and be perfectly happy.” Those are the thoughts running through my head on those days.
But on the other days — when I am sitting across the kitchen table from a local micro-farmer who is explaining with such gusto what goes into growing the perfect Central PA tomato, or when I am working with lady who raises and sells goat meat to develop a recipe with serious curb appeal — that I realize I am happier now with the subject matter about which I write, and need to pursue food writing with all I’ve got.
Then there are the in-between days. On these days, I’ll do crazy things like invite only slightly controlled chaos into my kitchen by hosting cooking enthusiasts I met on-line (and have subsequently come to bond with) into my kitchen for a communal canning — 28 quarts of sour cherries! a half bushel of apricots! — so I might possibly catch the eye of the editors of one of the hottest food-related sites out there in the social media market. Or as I bat story ideas around my head, deeming them either too stupid or too parochial to pitch, only to find them featured in the latest issue of the newspapers, magazines and web sites I dream about contributing to. On these days, I contemplate calling my old boss and begging for tech writing work that would be much easier to get because I am a known quantity in that realm.
Yes, I know that would be defeating the whole purpose of this “remaking Christine” exercise. Onward and upward is the only way I can travel now. I take heart in the fact that even as the Icelandic cloud cover cleared, so shall the path to my next summit.
We missed you! Glad to have you back writing!
Hello! God bless you. I was reading about my nephew Juan’s “bacalaitos”. I believe I wrote to you in the first article you wrote about his cooking. It is no coincidence that I read about your transition times. I know a little about it. After 23 years of work as a Test Engineer in the Manufacturing industry I worked as a Math teacher for a full year, and since then been unemployed, working only temporary part time jobs. The transition part is no easy but is a joy with the right frame of mind. This morning I read a devotional from Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Conection and this confirmed what I already know and I hope you find encouraging:
“…God wants you to serve him passionately, not dutifully. …How do you know when you’re serving God from your heart? …
The first telltale sign is enthusiasm. When you’re doing what you love to do, no one has to motivate you, or challenge you, or check up on you. You do it for the sheer enjoyment. You don’t need rewards, or applause, or to be paid, because you love serving in this way
…Don’t waste your life in a job that doesn’t express your heart.
Remember, the greatest things in life are not things. Meaning is far more important than money..” Devotional is called ‘Your job should express your heart’
I hope you are encouraged by these words and you follow what God has put in your heart.