I’ve been thinking a lot about food. Though it’s better to say I’ve been contemplating new dishes the changing season vegetables vegetables tuna and softshell crab. Better techniques. How to better my offering… but I’ve been thinking about Art and I wonder what within me in a given moment is drawn to the pen or knife? There was a quiet group of guests and as I was plating in the hush a muted chuckle rang from the end of the counter. Not at me no but I allowed it to permeate my gestures… as I took great care in placing the chicken and crab and scallions onto the lemon verbena crab sauce just so… no they were not laughing at me (they’d come for this show) though I laughed at myself I was thinking I don’t do all of what I do for this careful moment no no this careful plating is not the culmination of my work this garnish this presentation I was overwhelmed with silliness. Vacuous. Fatuous. Meaningless. Inane… as I went plate to plate with my carefully cut garnishes…

     Simple plating is best. I want almost nothing on the plate. The beauty is inherent. I shouldn’t need to make it beautiful. Yes I was thinking that I’ve got the chicken and crab dish all wrong. I haven’t gotten to the heart of it. I haven’t peeled back the layers.

     And the next day there was a lovely group a lovely group and they were telling me about how passionate I was in my craft that cooking is my dream and such a dream led me to this place and I was able to fulfill this dream because I must have followed my passion etcetera… I smiled and nodded and allowed them their easy story no I didn’t correct them I didn’t tell them that I have no passion for this that I have no passion for anything. I have no passion. I am only devotion. And I wish the devotion was to a God that I believe in. But no there is no God quite like that some deity who will accept my surrender. No the true and unifying God accepts no surrender I cannot forfeit I cannot turn my back on Him because he is inside of me and I’m tired and there is no flame of passion no it is a churning churning churning devotion that I do not think I could begin to describe a devotion without speakable reasons a devotion that is tight within me like a secret yes like a secret it is locked within me beneath all the layers I wish the words of my kind and gentle admirers were true. But passionate I am not.

     Food. Writing. Art. Everything I do is devotion to God. Not the Christian God or Muslim God or Jewish God no I don’t believe in a God like that I only believe in the God that connects us all the one God that is inside of us and all around us. And once the dogma is stripped away from religion once the centuries of religious evolution are removed it becomes clear that all religions are the same… that we are individuals seeking to return to the whole.

     And anything that doesn’t serve this purpose the small bureaucracies the small questions they stand in the way of my devotion to God. And that knowledge took decades to rise into my consciousness. Amidst the people who have judged me or made claims against what is called my “personality”… calling me contrary or judgmental and perhaps in a linear way I am these things but why am I these things? My sole purpose is devotion to God and the forms and taxes and deadlines and permits… our capitalistic addiction to consumerism to conveniences they detract from the Christian Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment (KJV Matthew 22:37-38). And the Jewish Shema: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart (KJV Deuteronomy 6:4-6). And Muslim: Say, “Surely my prayer, my sacrifice, my life, and my death are all for Allah—Lord of all worlds. He has no partner. So I am commanded, and so I am the first to submit.” (Quran Al-An‘am 6:162-163)

     Yes when it is all stripped away there is one over-soul that unites us all man and nature alike and for it I brine my chickens for it I pick the crab for it I clean the fish for it I blanche the asparagus gently gently for it I submit these words. And I do not see devotion in them who surround me. As they do not see devotion within me. Devotion hidden inside the body like a secret. If I have a passion it is in my refusal to climb nor help build this modern tower of babel. No I will not reach for the false god tricky the serpent slithers. There is one God. And when babel falls you will not find him amongst the rubble.  

Post Script:

     Most days I do not choose between the pen or the knife I choose both. I’m always writing tap tapping my notes quickly into my phone between knife strokes… I return to the notebook all day and I do my best to finish with it at night. A guest once asked me when I write. I said I am always writing. She thought I meant metaphorically. But no, in between courses I may disappear to the back kitchen… I pull off onto the side of the road… I don’t know why the pen and the knife. But I’m no longer asking.

Heart of Spring. I’ve gotten ahold of asparagus, strawberries, rhubarb, mulberries, morels, lambs quarters, cress, brassicas, bamboo shoots, soft shell crab…

     I’ve paused here. Closed my eyes. Slowly rub my palm and fingers down my forehead and face and beard. I’ve been yearning for gentleness and I think yes it is difficult to achieve in my regular hours going to and fro—I wish to achieve it there above all—but there is quiet and softness in the gestures behind the counter. And I’m always trying to achieve that more deeply. The growing season brings a gentleness… there is violence in our survival that I do not enjoy…

     What a pleasure it may have been sometime in 1846 sitting on a tree stump next to Thoreau as he baked bread in the coals of the campfire and said:

     “I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race in its gradual improvement, to leave off the eating of animals.”

     I feel the wonderful fruits of the earth talking with me. Though there is no need to reconcile this with my serving of meat… in any sort of ideological way… I think my cuisine is my pursuit of spiritual harmony. And Sassafras… a place of quiet and humble control… there are few surprises in my environment there. The world beyond it is filled with surprises. They test me. They judge me. They find me wanting. I am at my best in my little restaurant on the hill… with a cup of tea and pen… gentle knife strokes against stone.

Post Script:

Who Is Called...
I’m imploding suffering gasping clawing
Forced separation from the temple
What temple? O my soul!
That which preceded me.
I don’t believe in “God”
But I’ll say my Our Fathers
I’ll pray the Nicene Creed
I’ll Hail my Marys
I’ll enshroud myself with rosary beads
Surround myself in saints
I am also reaching
Reaching suffering gasping clawing
Grasping
So I give in: This then is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be your name
Your Kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
And forgive us our debts
As we also have forgiven our debtors
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from the evil one*

I’m not telling her what is beautiful.
I’m telling her what I think is beautiful.
She should know who her father is.

The idea of floating floating like prayer
Or poetry, abstraction never touching the ground
Why should life make sense,
When it doesn’t?
Through swaying loblolly pines: Scent of salt and
Honey Suckle

What does it mean to be avant garde?
Most people say it means to shock
But I don’t think so.
You just fill it with spirituality
That is the way…
It ends with them shocked more

That cruel, ancient serpent, who is called the
Devil or Satan who seduces the world
Was cast into the abyss with his angels**

*(Matthew 6:9-13 New International Version)

**(The Raccolta, Prayer to St. Michael)

Rising sun through bedroom window. The chickens out there cluck cluck clucking content pecking content in their yard and I like to watch them gold black red while they run from rainbow rooster. Sounds of readying within the house Mama’s feet steady with intention gathering all the many things for the children toothbrushes hairbrush shirt shoes toast baby dolls toys from different rooms she gathers back and forth and back and forth the children chomping chomping eyes glazed cartoon on television plays then all is quiet. Stillness broken gently gently gently squeaking desk chair and rooster crow. Joep Beving playing soft piano haunting haunting not haunting quite like a black hole no not sucking entirety of soul just haunting enough to dilate Time. Big Time. Just enough the Time slows for me to hold on to rooster crows the presence of children echoes in the silent house. Yes stillness is full with their life and I wrap it around me as I walk gently gently across sun-dappled wood floors. Smell of breakfast still hangs thick in air.  The cat has nestled into unmade bed for morning nap. The hound dog lays beside him greying muzzle white moons circle keen eyes… “GIGANTIC, RIPENING, FULL OF FEAR”* oh temporal life! The haunting comes from the peace. Yes the haunting is the peace. The cat’s nostrils wheeze. The hound dog snores a satisfying baritone. As the sun moves across the horizon. And leaves shadows where there was light.

*Evening, Rainer Maria Rilke

I’m undecided if my writing over these past years has gotten better or worse. I think both. But more I think that I haven’t been interested in whatever could be said about “better” or “worse”. I’ve spent little time on organized work and instead have devoted myself to my thoughts. So to a degree my work has suffered from a lack of focus. Though it is for myself that the work exists so in that I have succeeded.

     In Thoreau’s eulogy Emerson lamented:

     “I cannot help counting it a fault in him that he had no ambition. Wanting that, instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a huckle-berry party.”

     Another of Thoreau’s close companions, William Channing, held a similar view:

     “His journals should not be permitted to be read by any, as I think they were not meant to be read… I have never been able to understand what he meant by his life. Why did he care so much about being a writer? Why did he pay so much attention to his own thoughts? Why was he so dissatisfied with everyone else, etc? Why was he so much interested in the river and the woods and the sky, etc? Something peculiar, I judge.”

     How curious! I am not surprised that Time has looked more friendly upon Thoreau than on his companions.

     I walked through the dry dead poisoned cornfield until I reached the other end and the path there immediately became grassy. And my little A. ran up ahead chasing butterflies and I said: See A. do you see the difference? Do you see how the path is alive again?

     And she said: Yeah, Papa. It’s too bad they do that to the cornfield. Why does the farmer do that?

     And she skipped after another butterfly while I muttered that I didn’t know.  Because I don’t know I really don’t know. I know the reasons yes but I don’t know how we arrived here and I don’t think there’s any getting rid of it. Like the Blue catfish in the bay. It’s all here to stay yes and I watched the breeze caress the dry meadow grasses the new growth coming in and my eyes went to the tree line and I thought:

    “…Held for him by a rim of ancient trees;

     You gaze and the landscape divides and leaves you

     One sinking and one rising toward the sky…”

     And as my little A. skipped into the shadows of the forest I turned back to watch the landscape divide and leave me and I thought:

     “And you are left, to none belonging wholly,

     Not so dark as a silent house, nor quite

     So surely pledged unto eternity

     As that which grows to star and climbs the night…”

     And I said to my little A.: Do you see these greens here, with the little white flowers? And she nodded and I said: You can eat them. They’re kind of spicy.

     So we took a bite together and chewed and agreed on the flavor and moved along toward the ruins of the old brick house through the rose thorns. And my little A. was fascinated yes she was fascinated by the ruins… that someone had lived here long ago she climbed up onto a rock and through to a crumbling old window to snap a photograph with her little camera.

     And we moved on and came to an opening the meadow there was starting to bloom crimson clover and we made a note to pick them when we returned from the secret beach.

     Well this story goes on and on and I may continue to tell it at a different time yes there were flowering mustards and the red clover and the knotweed all along the banks of the Sassafras. And the rose bushes were budding and some had blossomed and there were many wild raspberries it may be a good year for them and down on the beach the water was warmer than I expected and we had our lunch and little A. took off her dress to swim and we were all alone exploring this big wide open river with no one in sight and I thought:

     “To you is left (unspeakably confused)

     Your life, gigantic, ripening, full of fears,

     So that it, now hemmed in, now grasping all

     Is changed in you by turns to stone and stars.”*

     Yes unspeakably confused… life gigantic and ripening and full of fears. I don’t know why we poison cornfields. I don’t know why there are bits of plastic trash scattered among the driftwood on the shore no it isn’t going anywhere and I don’t think I very much care.

     And I know the reasons but what do I actually know what do any of us actually know about anything? I don’t know anything and I’m not pretending that I do anymore I know that this place this secret place with my little A. my little girl doing handstands in the sand her hair falling down getting wet in the river I know this is magic I know I will miss this moment when it’s gone I will sob. I will sob one day at these memories an old man with a grown up little girl but I’m still young and she’s still my little girl and this shore is still beautiful and the water is still nice on my bare feet and I don’t care how horrible they say this world is I don’t care that they refuse to be happy that when one holocaust is over all they do is go looking for another… No I don’t care. And my little A. and I walked hand-in-hand down the sandy beach barefoot and she returned to check on the caterpillar she’d placed on the knotweed leaf and he was still there. And she picked him up again gently, gently now, I said, and she placed him up onto a tree branch high above the incoming tide.

    

*Evening, Reiner Maria Rilke