Restaurant, or retail?

This impending choice—along with which boy I’d ask to be my date for the Sadie Hawkins dance—would be one of the biggest decisions I’d make at age 16.

Babysitting the next door neighbor’s kid had its perks of course (short commute, free snacks, easy money), but with my shiny new driver’s license in hand, I was eager to get out in The Real World, earn a valid paycheck, and acquire legitimate experience I could put on a resume some day.1

Back in the early 2000’s, there were two main tracks in the Choose Your Own Adventure of high school employment: one could either get a job folding t-shirts as a retail clerk, or get a job seating tables as a hostess.

Both jobs had pros and cons, but I quickly realized the main pro of working retail was the store discount, which was also—ironically—its biggest con. I witnessed one too many friends turn around and spend half their paychecks on jeans and spaghetti strap tops, simply because the discount was too good to pass up. And while the allure of getting 40% off at Abercrombie was very appealing to my teenage self2, I knew I could make a lot more money in the restaurant world.

I got my start as a hostess at Tony Roma’s, which led to a waitressing gig at A Very Popular Chain Restaurant I Shall Not Name (the mere mention of it still turns my stomach over3), which eventually helped me land another waitressing gig at a quaint little Italian restaurant in my city’s downtown.

There are jobs you forget and there are jobs that mark you, and waitressing was the latter for me. I sincerely hope every one of my kids works in a restaurant at some point, if only for a while, because I believe getting an up-close glimpse into the service industry is fantastic experience for anyone. (It also guarantees you’ll be a good tipper for life.)

Waitressing taught me how to talk to people, how to remember details, how to open and pour a bottle of wine, how to multi-task in a high-pressure environment, and—perhaps most impressively—how to balance multiple plates up and down my arms (a party trick I still occasionally bust out during holiday gatherings). Every night I’d come home with pockets full of cash and the smell of fire in my hair.

To this day, I would tell you that waitressing was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had, which is probably why I immediately fell in love with The Bear, a TV show about a famous chef who returns home to run the family sandwich shop following the death of his brother.

Different city and completely different restaurant, but whenever I watch The Bear, I can’t help but think back on my own waitressing days. If you haven’t seen the show, quick disclaimer: many episodes involve a tremendous amount of yelling and screaming and cursing. Take good care of your nervous system. Even so, I wholeheartedly recommend it, and I’m not just saying that because emotional roller coasters are my TV genre of choice. The writing and acting are superb. Clearly.

The second season mellowed out a bit compared to the first, offering more glimpses into some of the supporting characters, like Marcus—an ex-football player turned bread baker turned pastry chef.

In the second season, while most of the main characters are rebuilding the restaurant, Marcus travels to Denmark to learn from Luca, an esteemed dessert chef. Over the course of the trip, Marcus spends his days shadowing Luca and walking all over Copenhagen, buying boxes of elaborate Danish pastries to dissect and study. In a nutshell: he spends the trip expanding his palate—as well as his mind.

In episode four, Marcus is finally brave enough to ask Luca, “How’d you get good at this?”

After joking that he got good by making tons of mistakes, Luca offers a more thoughtful answer:

Luca: I think at a certain stage, it becomes less about skill and it’s more about … being open.

Marcus: Open?

Lucas: Yeah … to the world, to yourself, to other people. You know, most of the incredible things I’ve eaten haven’t been because the skill level is exceptionally high or there’s loads of mad, fancy techniques … it’s because it’s been really inspired, you know.

Marcus: I like that.

Lucas: You can spend all the time in the world in here {the kitchen}, but if you don’t spend enough time out there {the world} …

Marcus: Right.

Lucas: It helps to have good people around you, too.

In other words: you can stay in the kitchen all day long and study until you’re blue in the face, trying and trying and trying again, making the recipes 100 times in pursuit of improving your skills, but if you’re not out there—in the world, living—you’re never going to be truly inspired.

///

My kids have exactly 3.5 days of school left, which means I am recalibrating and lowering my expectations for what the next few months might hold. For so many years, I fought against the reality of summer break, desperately seeking affordable babysitters and summer camps to no avail and then berating myself when I couldn’t maintain the same creative output I produced during the school year. I’d be frazzled and stressed, and downright bitter at times at how loud my house had suddenly become.

To be clear, that was a heart issue, and it was all mine. I did not know how to be less productive. I did not know how to give myself permission to lower the bar, to put less things on my daily to-do list, to pull back on the full throttle striving I (inaccurately) believed I was loved for. Instead, I resisted and balked and fought like hell to keep making things like the machine I had worked so hard to become.

And in all of that, I forgot this simple truth: living your actual life is part of making art.

We have to live our stories before we write them. We have to stay curious. We have to allow ourselves time to rest and play, not because we deserve a break after 40 hours on the hamster wheel, but because rest and play are gifts from God that are good and holy and can—against all intuition for someone like me—actually fuel our creativity.

I know not everyone has the luxury of working for themselves or working from home, but if you, too, are recalibrating expectations as you gear up for Mom, I’m Bored and Also Hungry Season™️—consider this your permission slip to swap time in here (glued to your desk/laptop) for time out there (in the real world). Read a book you can’t put down. See an Oscar-winning movie. Visit a botanical garden. Take a hike. Take some pictures. Attend a concert. Catch up with a friend. Try something new! Try something fun! You are allowed to take your foot off the gas pedal of productivity and do things that straight up delight you.

(Summer bucket lists aren’t just for kids, is what I’m trying to say.)

I believe this season, as Luca so poignantly said, is a beautiful time to focus less on skill and more on being open. And hey, it helps to have good people4 around you, too.

Q: How are you planning to be in the world this summer? What’s on your summer bucket list? Not your family’s summer bucket list, but your summer bucket list? Tell me everything!

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P.s. If you enjoyed this post, you might love my book, Create Anyway.

P.s.s. I wrote this last summer, but I stand by these recs!