Community and Gratitude

This entity, this blog, would never have come into being without the original "AOL Journal" concept, launched onto the (then considerably smaller) Internet Sea back in 2003. I stowed away on that ship almost the minute it hit the water; eventually, I became brave enough to venture out of my hiding place on board and sidle up to the community that had established itself and grown there. Here on this ethereal page, I have repeatedly analyzed the schizophrenic attraction of internet relationships; and subsequently, lamented long and hard the demise of our original "AOL j-land" community.

Oh, blog "communities," continue to thrive. But they are based upon specific things, common interests such as religion, politics, careers, ethnicity, hobbies… whatever. "Journal Land" was singular in that it was a community tied together by nothing more than the place itself. And what a tremendous place it was to learn and to grow. I "met" great friends there, of diverse interests and far-flung geography. Friends with whom I continue to communicate, though not as intimately as during those extraordinary days of the infancy of internet society.

About the same time as I reached for my dream of owning my own business, two of my close j-land friends also grabbed hold of similar brass rings in their own lives—which events were all well-documented in our respective blogs. Three souls connected by those strong yet mysterious ethereal ties, set about to achieve the goals of a lifetime. Each believing, at the outset, that she was embarking upon the path of true fulfillment.

Five years down the road, we find ourselves…somewhere. A place that is not entirely where we believed we were headed when we started out. Observers not in the know might venture that we had failed; we did not achieve the desires of our hearts. We are not lying back upon our laurels, satisfied, fulfilled. But, oh…what we have learned. And are learning still. We are, in fact, accomplishing what life is all about: Growth.

In my own situation, I can only be humbly grateful for the perspective this loosely-yet-tightly-knit community has given me on the events of the last five years. Because I am certain that, absent the firsthand knowledge that things don't always work out for everybody (not just me)…I would, right now, be paralyzed with doubt and self-loathing. Time and time again, in my solitary and circumscribed little life, I have run head-on into barriers, or failed miserably at some undertaking, and come away with the myopic conclusion that, "I suck at everything." (If I had a dollar for every time I've wailed, "I can't do ANYTHING right!" I'd be a rich woman.) But this time, THIS time, I have been allowed to share similar learning experiences in lives of people I care about. So, the closing of my restaurant becomes, rather than a mortifying personal failure, simply another example of life happening to someone who stepped out and took a risk; who reached for a prize, and ended up with…a prize, perhaps—but not the one that was the original target.

So I thank these two friends; you may or may not know who you are. You are so special to me.

We have learned, in our parallel universes, that you can't not. Write. Live. Learn. Grow.

May we continue to inspire one another.

 

The Last Lap

The older I get, the more I am struck by the necessity to cherish each day as it comes, to live each to the fullest, to appreciate and savor NOW…and under no circumstances—fair wind or foul—to wish the days away.

And therein lies the battle being fought in my mind and heart right now: There are seventeen of those pesky little buggers (days) between me and a long rest on a warm sandy beach. The days promise to be full enough—I have two "events" this weekend, plus a Mothers' Day Brunch to plan, execute, and survive. I think I can make it. I think I can…

But if I listen to the little guy in the red suit with the forked tail and the horns, the one who is sitting on my left shoulder whispering in my ear, I can hear, "Why not just close it up now? Who will it hurt? Why should you toss away two more weeks of your life on top of the 220 you've already dumped into this venture which…has not been exactly a success?" Oh…that little demon is making a lot of sense right now.

But no…I won't do it. I'll see this thing through to the end. Hoping the Universe will grant me deafness to that pesky little voice, and little joys and victories to keep my head above water until I reach that beach. My feet are almost touching the bottom, now…

Spring is Here…?

The weather has been atrocious this spring in the Pacific Northwest. We had record rainfall in March…something like 27 days of rain out of the month's 31. And it was COLD rain…often not much warmer than the mid-forties in the valleys, and lots of snow in the higher elevations. I suppose there is the argument that 2/3 of the month of March is still officially winter; but even in winter we can generally expect a few sunny days here and there.

April has not started out to be much of an improvement. We've had rain, hail, thunderstorms and everything in between. (Though I can't quite figure out where the t-storms are coming from; those are supposed to result from the clash between cold air and warm air. What warm air, I beg to inquire…?) The days when it actually doesn't rain, the sun sort of peeks out for awhile, but as soon as it seems it might actually provide a few BTU's, the clouds roll in and the sun goes into hiding.

Forget working in the garden. The garden soil is the consistency of gumbo. Really c-o-l-d gumbo. Not good for sinking my poor arthritic fingers into, and not good for small plants to dip their tiny roots into. So the greenhouse is filling up with plants waiting for conditions to improve.

Yet, though it seems we're stuck in winter, Nature's cycle continues. The flowering trees bloomed late and sporadically, but bloom they did…wasting the display of their finery against a roiling grey sky. Daffodils bravely provided bright spots in the landscape when the sun would not. My hydrangeas, shrubs and Japanese maples are stubbornly leafing out in the cold and gloom. And, of course the grass is green and growing again, but it's too wet to mow it. Walking in my lawn is like treading on a gigantic sodden sponge, ankle deep in overgrown grass.

The parade of bird life goes on no matter what. The grosbeaks that have been with me all winter (and have managed to pack away about 160 lbs of sunflower seed) are still raiding the feeders by the dozens several times a day. The junco population is dwindling, as the hardier ones begin to make their way to their summering grounds in the hills and mountains. New faces (beaks?) have made their appearance in my backyard scene: We have a white-crowned sparrow, and the rufous hummingbirds are back, battling the over-wintering Anna's for domination of the feeders. (This year, however, the male Anna's is not giving up without a fight!)

This morning, as I roamed the yard filling the feeders, I heard the calls of a large flock of Sandhill cranes as they spiraled higher and higher, looking to catch the thermal airstream that will carry them back to their breeding grounds. As I waved goodbye to the cranes, a chipper little "orca-bird" dipped and spun over my head, and the wave became a salute to the return of the swallows.

And so it goes. And soon…SOON…I will have the luxury of more time than I have had in a really LONG time, to snuggle close to the breast of Mother Earth and lose myself in her heartbeat.

What Not to Say…

Over the past couple of decades, I've noticed the advent of two parallel yet warring tendencies when it comes to human interaction.

On the one hand, there's the "Say Anything" trend. This is in direct contrast to the (apparently) outdated maxim that "Silence is Golden." American society seems to detest silence, to the point where we now must fill every moment of our lives with some kind of noise. Most of which issues forth from someone's mouth; without even allowing for a second or two of pause to THINK about whether that utterance might be useful, welcome, or even appropriate. (In fact, in the case of most of our 21^st-century media noise, the rule would be "the less appropriate the better.")

Gaining popularity alongside this phenomenon has been what I'll call the "Thin-Skinned Movement." People take offense at anything and everything. First, we no longer ignore perceived slights. We don't waste time or moral fortitude focusing upon the intent of someone trying to console, encourage or commiserate with us. If they don't say exactly the right words at exactly the right time, we throw up our hands and fume, "What the *&#@ is the matter with them?!?" Secondly, the new rule is that there is no such thing as a verbal gaffe or an unintentionally inconsiderate misstatement. We scrutinize every word—especially of any public figure or entity—searching for things that insult or annoy us. (You'd think we could put our time to better use…?) Then we make a very public and very messy stink about it, loading up the courts with lawsuits and endlessly escalating the generally antagonistic atmosphere that exists everywhere you turn.

Come to think of it, who knows that the "Thin-Skinned Movement" wasn't indeed spawned by "Say Anything?" It's no longer de rigueur to think before we open our mouths, or even to just shut up. Skin endlessly pounded by verbal barrages might tend to become somewhat thin, I suppose…

My feeling about all this is that we should just chillax and figure out how to get along. If we don't, it's going to be a short and mine-filled road to hell for us and our society-at-large. We need to get over this "It's-all-about-ME" attitude that we have so lovingly embraced, and go back to basics like "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," "Love your neighbor as you love yourself," and "Before you criticize your brother, walk a mile in his moccasins."

Now, however, I find myself in a situation where, as the word gets out about the café closing, I'm going to be the target of all kinds of attempts at advice, consolation and commiseration. In my chronically exhausted and stressed-out state, it will be an interesting (to say the least) study to see how well I can walk the walk. For instance, when a little old customer reacts to the news by advising, "Hey, you should sell out to old Frank over there. He needs something for his wife to do," I should probably NOT respond with, "Oh…he wants to kill her?" (Yes, this actually happened yesterday… I really need to slap myself upside the head for that one.)

I think that I will probably be doing a lot of hiding out in the kitchen for the next three weeks… J

The Next Installment

Already almost two weeks into the month of April, and I haven't posted anything. My life right now is entirely centered on the café and getting out from under it. And probably no one is really interested in hearing much more about the ups and downs of this particular endeavor. But then, hey…I don't actually write for an audience any more, do I? So, to hell with it. Here's the next chapter in the continuing saga.

I could never have expected things to play out the way they have. Six months ago, I was exhausted, sad, beaten and humiliated. The decision not to renew our lease, not to continue on with the café, was an act of capitulation. Surrender. I had lost. "It" had won (whatever "It" was…Life? Old Age? My own inner demons?) The idea of slogging through another half a year of all the hard work it would take just to bring my responsibilities associated with the place to a clean and logical close, made me want to dissolve and disappear into a crack in the floor. I felt like I was in a pit at the foot of a mountain I had to climb, but I didn't even have enough energy left to tie my shoes.

Time is generally not kind to me, these days. It sometimes drags me along in its wake in a most undignified manner, sometimes leaves me completely in the dust. It has let me know in no uncertain terms that it is going fast and there is not much of it left to grab onto. And it is slippery, like a greased pig.

But in this instance, Time's tendency toward "fast-forward" has been a gift; an unexpected ally. Every hour, every day that I spent, either cowering under my fears or putting my head down and bulling my way through the daily grind of running the place, got me closer to…where I was going. Yes, I did have to steel myself to tie those damn shoes and start climbing out of the pit and up the mountain. But with every step I took, it seems like Time lowered the mountain by three feet.

So, here I am. Less than four weeks left. Not only am I still alive, but I feel like I'm walking briskly on level ground, the mountain reduced to no more than a speed bump about fifty yards down the road.

I thought I would be devastated, when the time came to actually lock the doors. I thought, "What a sad and dreary end to what I always believed was my life's fondest dream!"

But it's not turning out that way.

Though we haven't made an official announcement, we have more or less let the word leak out that we will be closing next month. When I told my hair stylist (her salon is right across the street) her reaction was, "Oh, that's terrible! I'm so sorry!" And the words, "I'm not!" jumped immediately, almost unbidden, from my lips. One of her girls was at the counter yesterday, and said to me, "I hear there's sad news…" To which I quickly replied, "Sad? I'm not sad! I can't tell you how sad I'm not!"

All I can think is, if I play my cards right, I will have the entire month of July off. OFF. All to myself. I'm already plotting (cheap) ways to thoroughly enjoy that time. Camping. Gardening. A retreat. Maybe a train trip somewhere, all by myself. (One of the slightly sad but ultimately liberating lessons I am taking away from this experience is that I AM myself, and not half of a couple—as I have seen myself for, oh, about 35 years now.) The prospect is more tantalizing than anything I've experienced in a Really. Long. Time.

Nope. I am not sad. I am stoked.

Next adventure, here I come!

 

 

 

 

Research

I've mentioned that I need to spend more time doing research on my chosen spiritual path. The very idea of that sort of research is somewhat of a conundrum, as I thoroughly believe that one's spiritual journey is unique to oneself, and needs to be honored as such. Still, human beings throughout history have steeped themselves in spirituality; embarked on the journeys; seen and experienced marvelous mystical things. (And some…not so much.) The challenge is to tap into those whose journeys and discoveries speak to my own spirit, without adopting someone else's experience in toto as THE One And Only Way. In my humble opinion, that is where the human race has consistently gotten itself into big trouble.

In response to my need, my dear friend Jackie offered to send me some reading material. She asked me what I was interested in researching, and I, having no idea where to start, said "Pick something!" A few days later, a copy of Tom Cowan's Yearning for the Wind arrived on my front doorstep. It describes itself as "Celtic reflections on nature and the soul." So that is where I have started.

Though the book is a bit simpler and…what's the word I'm looking for? Shallower? …than I would have hoped, it does contain one or two interesting concepts. The one I'm particularly attracted to is Cowan's (and, I assume, ancient Celts' before him) definition of "the soul." Or, perhaps not so much a definition (for who can define that?) as a description.

Cowan makes an assertion that is altogether new to me, and yet, when I think about it, it makes perfect sense. He claims that our bodies live inside our souls, rather than the other way around. That our souls are actually part of what I will call the Universal Soul. Part of The All. And we, for the time we exist as humans, live inside of that.

I describe it lamely. Here is what he has to say:

It seems we have a choice. To believe that our souls are hidden inside our bodies where, we hope, they will be protected until we die and they are whisked away to heavenly safety. Or to believe that our bodies, minds, egos, and personalities are temporarily living within the soul, and that this soul exists to fill the entire universe. The first alternative usually implies that God is transcendent, somewhere in the heavenly realms, and we are in exile here on Earth, waiting to be released from this valley of tears. The second implies that God is right here, in the wind, sea, stars, flowers, storms—and the arm of God is around us. God walks in our footprints even as we step into God's. We are already with God, and God is with us.

What a liberating concept this is, to someone who not only grew up with that first alternative an unquestioned "fact" of life, but who spends much of her time feeling trapped inside her own head! Imagine that your soul surrounds you. That it goes before and stretches behind you. That it is the first to arrive and the last to leave wherever you go. That it touches everything you touch before your hand or your foot or your head gets there.

I have tried—and I can only do it for short periods of time—to walk around feeling my soul surrounding me. Knowing that it touches people and things before I physically do. It's difficult to describe the expansiveness, the acute awareness that this brings about how we not only affect other people and things, we are part of them, and they are part of us. It's almost too much to comprehend; and certainly daunting for a person as introverted and solitary as myself. Even so, it feels right. And it calls me, on a visceral level, to understand it and live it.

Another really fascinating aspect of this theory is the answer to the question of where does your soul go when you die? The answer to that being, "Nowhere…because it never left."

"As for death, I can't wait to be the hummingbird, can you?" *

 

 

*Mary Oliver: "Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond." See my sidebar.

Resolution

As “The End” (of the Café) draws near, I have to admit, it’s getting easier to deal with. The Universe seems to be guiding me, dropping blessings, small and large, when my resolve falters. I don’t think I’m meant to slink away from the place and go hide under a rock, as I first thought. In the past few weeks, the victories and failures of the venture have been highlighted for me in such a way that I’ve been able to digest the information, identify some lessons learned, and begin to plot a path beyond the experience. I’m not feeling nearly as wounded and defeated as I did when I decided to walk away from what I thought was the fulfillment of my fondest dream. And for that, I am grateful.

Oddly enough, the internet—this forum with which I have conducted an intense love/hate relationship since the early days of AOL—had a hand in despoiling the thing for which I had yearned for so many years. The freedom and anonymity of the internet have presented 21st-century business owners with an entirely new challenge. What could, in a society that maintained any understanding or respect for the concepts of courtesy or fairness, be a valuable tool for service businesses, has turned into a vile cesspool of “you don’t want to go there if you value your sanity.”

The presence of an anonymous forum for public criticism has completely poisoned the customer service dynamic. Disgruntled patrons no longer need to express their dissatisfaction in person to a server or to management. They don’t write letters of concern to business owners. They instead have embraced the internet with a vengeance, and use it to trash any business that has not met their every expectation. The goal here is not to resolve a problem…not to give a business an opportunity to make amends to an offended client. It’s all about revenge; all about punishing a business that is perceived to have fallen short. Today’s businesses must learn to Be Very Afraid of the guest who has had a bad day and walks through the front door itching for a fight.

Bad internet reviews are routinely snarky, rude and laden with just plain meanness. And often personal. After stumbling upon a couple of reviews that attacked me personally, I was beyond ready to lock the doors and swallow the key. I was mortified by that level of very public humiliation, against which I had no opportunity to defend myself.

It translated to double failure for me: Apparently, I did not possess the skills (personality?) needed for success in customer service; AND I was not tough enough to deal with negative feedback. This was a major factor in my decision not to sign up for another five years of fun and games.

It bothered me most, I think, that I was not tough enough. I thought that I was probably over-reacting to something that was not as big a deal as my stressed-out, chronically exhausted psyche was making it out to be. I had, after all, not heard other business owners complain about how the Bad Internet Review situation was causing them to lose sleep.

Recently, though, it has come to my attention that it IS a problem, for all businesses, large and small. In fact, I discovered there is a service called “Reputation.com” that (for a fee, of course) assists businesses in removing poisonous reviews from the internet.

I picked up a thread in an “Ask Amy” column in last Friday’s Oregonian that actually made me feel better. Justified. Relieved that the issue is not all in my head. Apparently, an earlier letter to Amy had dealt with an instance where a company had terminated an employee based on a negative “Tweet” posted by a disgruntled customer. The letter I read was written by a customer service manager of another company in response to that situation ; and it expresses all the horror and frustration I have been feeling. (And made me understand that perhaps I don’t have it as bad as I thought….) You can find the entire letter here: Ask Amy March 25, 2011. But here are a few of my favorite highlights:

I am a customer service manager, and I have noticed in recent years that angry customers have become increasingly more confrontational, militant and aggressive…
Bad customer service certainly exists and shouldn't be tolerated, but more and more I am seeing customers who come in looking for a fight, wanting to post that scathing review, wanting retribution for an unknown or yet-to-occur transgression…
My co-workers and I have had angry customers take our pictures with their camera phones, threatening to have us fired, and some people will post those photos with hateful commentary — and even our names — on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Thank god no one has pulled the picture-posting thing on us. Yet.

But it’s probably just a matter of time.

However, I now understand that this situation, this development, this new obstacle in the service business landscape is not necessarily proof that I suck at what I do. It’s not going to chase me away, convinced I’ve failed at something I believed was my fondest dream. It’s simply a part of doing business that, being the mid-century relic I am, I had not foreseen when I finally got the chance to live my dream.

And, here’s the thing: This is a battleground of 21st century culture upon which I choose not to engage. It is not a positive or life-affirming place for me (or anyone, for that matter), and I need to walk away from it, shaking the dust from my hands and feet as I go.

And I won’t feel the least bit ashamed or defeated in the doing.

Landing

There is one thing that worries me about the conclusion of the "Café" Chapter in my life... One thing among many, really; but this one thing hangs a little more heavily than some of the others. It's the unsettling prospect of falling back into my own head.

Though I have been in the midst of what would seem a necessarily social occupation, I have, nevertheless, been isolated. Neither fish nor fowl in my own pond…not on a level with anyone with whom I rub elbows every day. A servant to the customers; and somewhere hopelessly outside the scope of the girls who work for me. (And yoked to a partner more prone to leave me to my own devices than to steady me when I stumbled…) Nevertheless, I have had to socialize; had to truck with a myriad of people and things out in the wide world. It was at once frightening, frustrating, and very good for me.

Because I know what it is to disappear inside my own head. To have no one to share, not only my deepest thoughts and desires, but any thoughts, no matter how mundane or frustratingly shallow. Better, I think, to feel maddened by a moderately unsatisfactory level of interaction than to be relegated to no interaction at all. I have been there, splashing silently in those dark waters.

Ten years ago, I began the long, slow journey out of that place. Starting and stopping, casting about for hand- and footholds that disappeared or didn't exist at all, climbing up three feet to fall back ten. And then I stumbled, quite by accident, upon a community I hadn't dreamed existed; experienced an acceptance and a level of sharing for which I would never have ventured to yearn. It was late 2003, and on a clueless whim, I floated my first email to the general ether. Two hundred twenty-three words posted at a new site created by America Online: the infant AOL "Journal Land."

There followed five years full of experiences that, at my advanced age (I was 48 years old when I penned my first journal entry) I would have thought were well behind me. I made "friends" all over the country. I discovered that I still could—and did—grow as a writer. I took the chance, crawled outside my own head, and was richly rewarded with friendship, interaction, growth—community.

Unfortunately, that community suffered the faddish fate of most landmarks in our ever-shifting, schizophrenic pop culture landscape: It burned brightly for a short time, then fizzled and disappeared when the "members" of the community abandoned it for the Next Big Thing. That "thing" being social networks like MySpace and Facebook, then Twitter and beyond. It seems that the public opted for quantity of social interaction over depth. So much better to have three hundred "friends" with which to share what you ate for breakfast, rather than a dozen or two with whom you could bare the secrets of your soul.

I was left behind by the mass exodus. And here I am, still, because there are yet some good things about writing in this place, and I am not inclined to quit. Occasionally, I will be rewarded by a thread of interaction reminiscent of the halcyon j-land days. I look upon those as a side benefit, now, to my residence here in the Land of Blog. They would be meager rewards, indeed, if they were the only reason I wrote here.

Facebook? Oh, yes…I have a page. I opened one, closed it, and then opened another. I planned it as a way to keep tabs on the "j-land" friends about whom I still care, but who no longer blog. And also as a tie to far-flung family members. In the end, I have concluded that Facebook has not adequately fulfilled either of those needs. Because, I suppose, that is not its function. I admit, I'm a bit mystified as to what its primary function truly is. But I understand that I am hopelessly on the outside of…whatever that is.

In a way, my absorption into the world of running a business helped me to weather the demise of my other world, the other place that provided all the connection, interaction, frustration and reward that my quirky, introspective soul could handle. Now, with the café going away as well, I know for a certainty that the platform from which I launched myself into that venture longer exists. Where am I going to land?

 

 

Savages

I was a Catholic school brat. We learned "Church" right alongside reading, writing and 'rithmetic. As tiny first-graders, with the barest grasp of those secular subjects, we sat on hard pews, knelt on lumpy kneelers, steeping in the various rituals and dogma attached to our parents' religion.

Lent was a particularly long and somber season. We were subjected to story after story about Our Lord's suffering and death. (Stations of the Cross, anyone?) A few months earlier, Christ had been a sweet baby wrapped in white cloth snuggled into a box of hay; armies of angels had crowded the skies to sing about him; important Kings had traveled far to visit and lavish him with gifts. Now he was a grown man trudging morosely toward his grisly death. Whipped and stripped and crowned with thorns; beaten and derided, skewered and stabbed. It was a lot for a little tyke to absorb. But absorb it we did, dutiful little sponges that we were.


There was one aspect of the Passion Story that, even as I grew from that overwhelmed six-year-old to a much more worldly-wise adolescent, never quite resonated with me. How could it be that Jesus had ridden triumphantly into Jerusalem to cries of "Hosanna!" and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" and a week later, stood before the Roman governor while the crowds in the streets roared "Crucify him!"

It made no sense. People do not act like that. But, hey…it was a long time ago. The people were ancients. Savages. Nearly Neanderthals. They didn't know how to act in a civilized manner. Not like we do now. This was the only possible explanation. So the story got filed into my mind somewhere between "ancient history" and "fairy tale."

I'm fifty-five years old, now. Much as I often cannot believe it myself, I've lived a lot of years. Seen a lot of things, in comparison to people twenty or thirty years my junior (yet, on a scale of all there is to see…hardly a glimpse of anything.) Some of the things I have seen I would rather not have seen. They have caused me to understand things I would rather not know. But they are what they are.

Just being a witness to the level to which human interaction has sunk over the past decade…seeing what we can, will, and do say and do to one another, I can say without reservation that human beings are still every bit the "savages" we might have been two thousand years ago. Perhaps more so, because we have had two millennia to observe and learn from our abhorrent behavior; yet we deliberately choose hysteria and mindless violence time after time.

I can almost hear those words resounding from every television, radio, computer, i-phone…name your media device. And in every hall of every local, state and national house of government. As loud and as chilling as in the dusty streets of an ancient city.

Crucify him!

Respite

After a couple of weeks where the best things got was "bearable," and the worst was nearly …not, I seem to have arrived in a better place. Actually, it's more like the better place arrived on ME. I certainly haven't done anything special. I just feel like the Universe has dumped a ladle of grace over my head.

Sunday, we catered a 60^th-anniversary party at the restaurant. I had taken the reservation back in January, SO against my will. The holidays were over, Valentine's Day was soon to be a memory, and I had my mind on grabbing a scalpel and beginning to cut, carefully, one by one, the physical and emotional ties binding me to the café. Trying to get as much of that separation accomplished and possibly even on the way to healing before the actual event. I did not want that process interrupted by the care and attention it takes to pull off one of these big parties.

But as much as I wanted to, I could not manufacture a good reason to turn it down. It was nothing we couldn't DO, and why not bank a few more dollars before the end? So we took the gig, and I filed it into the back of my mind, determined not to worry about it. Fat chance. Though Valentine's Day took Stress Out Priority over it, I know the anxiety of this event has been simmering on the front burner ever since the morning of February 15^th.

Well, it's over now. And it was a great success. Mostly because the people were probably the nicest group of folks I have ever met in my life. That in itself was a bucketful of grace. I have so given up on the public. Daily, I am smacked in the face with how selfish, demanding, high maintenance and just plain rude the American consumer has become. To have the restaurant full to bursting with people who were just NICE, was a blessing, almost a cleansing. It literally drove away the dark cloud that has hung over me and my restaurant for so long. I could not be more grateful for that.

Monday afternoon, I stopped at the café (it was supposed to be my R & R day after the big party) and ended up having to work an hour to help them out of a jam. I took a lady's food out to her and she said to me, "I have to tell you, you do such a good job decorating this place. It just looks great…" What? Someone was actually saying something nice to me? I couldn't really believe my ears. "Well, thank you!" I managed to sputter through my shock. But she went on:

"I'm so glad you guys are doing well. We really need a place like this around here…"

I thanked her again, a thank-you tinged with the slightest mixture of guilt and "too late!" The thought occurred to me that it would be very nice indeed if I could feel like I was leaving the café somewhere near the top of my game, rather than slinking away in disgrace with my tail between my legs.

And then, yesterday, I had two squirrels in my back yard. And I went shopping and found some cute clothes for the body I have now (losing those lately-attained stress pounds can wait a few more months—until I'm safely on the other side of this transition.)

All in all, a more than satisfactory first couple of days…of the rest of my life.