I have the two most beautiful daughters and their beautiful Mama. I have the most beautiful home in a wonderful place. What is within me that creates discontent? I have the chance to spend the evening with them laughing at the beach lapping draping tides holding pink and orange sunset… or not. I have the choice not to enjoy the sunset with them. 

I don’t believe in right or wrong. We’re always trying to validate our choices… seeking moral validation. This is ideology. War correspondent. Missionary. Doctor. Lawyer. Politician. Whichever. I don’t believe in validating these choices. I only believe in telling the story of choices. What is the reason for these attempts to validate our choices? Our choices our choices our choices… American ideology these days drags on about “social responsibility”… what is the origination of our moral superiority? To be the most spiritually bankrupt people the world has ever known, but to be so morally confident…Paradox is too profound a description—it is just hypocrisy. 

The famous Indian guru Sadhguru was asked what is the meaning of life and he answered: Isn’t it fantastic that if there is no purpose you have nothing to fulfill you can just live? No, but you want a purpose! And not a simple purpose you want a God-given purpose! It’s very dangerous. People who think they have a God-given purpose are doing the cruelest things on the planet. They are doing the most horrible things, and they always have been doing the most horrible things. Because when you have a God-given purpose life becomes less important than your purpose.”

Yes and today our sense of morality is so serious. And to achieve depth there is the thought of necessary solemnity. And I am guilty of this. But Joy is good. Sensuality and humor and deliciousness and generosity and mischief and beauty are good. A perfect peach doesn’t become deeper because it is eaten in solemn reverence. Its sweetness is enough to form smiles on the faces of the most hardened men. 

My discontent is my choice but it is no simple choice it involves many small choices made over the course of many sunsets. Many sunsets that I passed by thinking of something else that I should be doing some great thought I should be thinking some purpose not being fulfilled some such nonsense. I moved here to this wonderful place with my wonderful family to celebrate life now and my small restaurant on the bluff looking over the bay is a continuation of this celebration and who said reverence cannot smile and discipleship cannot laugh… but there is a wholesomeness now that I cannot deny there are boundaries that I mustn’t defy. Have you ever gazed upon a Wyeth painting? Have you ever been spellbound by the poetry of Frost? Then you know the face of suffering wears a grin. 

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Frost)

I dislike the violence in food: the slitting of my duck’s throat and watching it try to gulp the air; its death throes… Yes I’d rather serve a carpaccio of heirloom tomato with a sprinkle of salt and fresh basil. But I don’t think the buddhists have hit the nail on the head. Or the Greeks with their divine proportions. Hiding reality doesn’t make it untrue. No vegetarian has removed the violence from nature. And so as a father and husband and artist and writer and chef… as a disciple… I raise my ducks and feed them and watch my baby boys grow and waddle until they gulp and throe. Feathers removed corpse turns to carcass. I grill the butchered breast and serve it. Not because I want to but because I face it I face it I face it until it makes me sick. In the steely winter air.

The temple food that I make is not just food to fill the stomach. It is food that supports us in our practice to find our inner peace. And thus help us attain our enlightenment. Using and eating seasonal ingredients and finding a way to harmonize with nature through food, eating just enough to fill our bodies, while reminding ourselves to let go of our greed is the purpose of temple food. We can enjoy abundance even without excess. Not adding too much or taking anything away, but doing everything in moderation is the way of spiritual practice. (Jeong Kwan)

I’m not thinking about summer. Though it’s been nice to visit the garden for my needs and when I need them. Everyday picking picking squash blossoms and tomatoes and cucumbers and herbs. To visit the farm stands and farmer’s market for honey and melons and pole beans. But I’m not thinking of summer the sweltering heat the meadow ticks the wild blackberry thorns the poison ivy… Summer protects her abundance. And so must I… protect my abundance and that is where my thoughts have been from my perch on the hill on quiet days… it is easy to see when abundance ends and excess begins. I see it in them yes I feel it in them when they walk through the door. I smell it on them. And I recognize it yes I recognize it. Everything that is in excess is opposed to nature*.  The stormy winds have brought difficult ideas from the North. I ponder them and slowly slowly slowly… slowly I act on this introspection. 

*Hippocrates

Smell of hanging country hams blend with steaming yellow tea. Joep Beving plays melancholic keys in the background but he isn’t putting on airs no his music is what life is. I’ve got a loaf of sourdough rising on the counter destined for home. It has been nice mixing it folding it kneading it. Just one loaf. Food for my family. It’s nice to smell the sour yeast. I’m fond of these textures… I’m always asked why 8 seats… because all of these textures: smells of baking and tacky touch of dough… slick leather country ham and clatter of china tea cup… scratching pen smoothness of the notebook page. The truth of it all disappears when craft turns to process. I have 8 seats so I don’t lose texture so craft never fades so feeling remains. And there is a way to record this for the Over-Soul to capture its essence to capture my essence… no camera stationed opposite the cutting board. I don’t believe in all of these little videos anymore. Scrolling scrolling scrolling pollution all of these little videos… And I’ve been wondering about the reading of the writing it’s not being done much anymore and I think about how someone like me ought to evolve because I think of WuWei the Daoist teaching to be like water the river never strains to reach the sea no it doesn’t debate the rocks or resent the bends in its course. It follows the force beyond itself. But over centuries it carves canyons through mountains. So I think of this when I think of writing the words and words are meant for eyes to read maybe not today’s eyes but words like water don’t flow back the ocean is water’s destiny and the eyes are destiny for the words. So the words must go to the eyes.

I brought Andrew Wyeth with me today but the paintings aren’t right here so I’ll take them back home. And I’m alone in this shadowed space this workshop restaurant atelier and I’m looking at the water through the windows and I look around me the ceiling and walls the lights the counter the bottles the books as the air conditioner in the kitchen window hums hums a part of me thinks there should be a feeling like wow this is all mine but I don’t feel that I don’t feel much of anything there is work to be done and I’m not doing the work and I’m growing angry I want the words to take me some place but I’m not separate from them we are one and we will go where we are destined and I’d like to write more poetry like I used to. I’ve been reading Robert Frost. But all I can seem to get out are these fragments and soon summer will end I wasn’t good enough for it this year I wasn’t prepared for it. I was happiest with my little girls running wet and sandy bottomed with Mama I’m at my happiest with them. But. But but but… Andrew Wyeth was no good here because I can’t fill my void with someone else’s fulfillment. But there are many ways to fill this space with myself and the self that has been filling the notebook is talking talking but where’s the work? Wheres the poem where’s the story where’s the photograph… The China bowls and plates are on the shelf behind me and the chairs in front of me are pushed in and empty and the oven door is closed the grill is cold and it’s resting resting resting there… a Shmita of sorts. A Sabbath: Yes a moment where Time becomes meaningful again—a palace in time (Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel). What becomes possible if I stop trying to possess the world but learn to dwell within its rhythms?

7/30

I should be in bed instead of scratching scratching with the pen parked on the side of the road next to a ditch but there’s something in this full buck moon that’s making me itch and the eyes of a white tail peek from low walnut branches and I wish we could walk together I can shut off this truck and we can disappear into the cornfield you and I but you don’t trust me. But I hold hope that one day I’ll walk with you some magic will descend over us and walls will fall and we’ll disappear together maybe that will happen at the end. But tonight I’m pulled over on the side of the road beneath the full buck moon and I’m gazing at it and you I’m gazing at the loveliness and on Thursdays I’m usually tired yes it’s a long day early to rise I open myself to the sun and let it go through me I prepare for the 4 services the pies don’t bake themselves the fish and chicken don’t arrive this way no the pole beans don’t dip themselves into holy water no no the heirloom tomatoes don’t turn themselves into jam it all must be done beneath the summer sun yes yes and I’m home now and I’m thinking about Anselm Kiefer I was reading his notebooks last night and his notebooks make less sense really than whatever it is that I scratch down… but of course his scratching made sense to him as my scratching makes sense to me. But Anselm Kiefer the Great German Artist yes and I think how do I make Sassafras into a painting like Anselm Kiefer’s? Because he has God in him what would Jesus do WWJD yes yes it is the same because Anselm Kiefer has God in him how do I make Sassafras into a great painting? How do I make my 8 seats into a great painting that spans 25 or 50 or 100 feet into the sky (Babble oh me oh my I pray it isn’t true…) and travels the globe I ask this every day. No I don’t want more than 8 seats. No I don’t want a James Beard award and if Michelin came to nod in my direction I would hang my little star on the door but it would be little match against the big stars in the big sky hovering impossible and infinitely above it. But you see there is God inside an artist like Anselm Kiefer… to be able to achieve this kind of art… this is the work of the invisible force this is the work of a higher realm…

“We should never touch artists or a poet in moral categories. It’s different… [Artists] have a responsibility to do their work as accurate, as concentrated as possible. But they have no social, historical, or whatever responsibility. You know the worst people did the most wonderful work. We have to separate the work from the man.”

-Anselm Kiefer

Yes this is a transcendence but you see it will never be True without humility and it is very difficult very difficult profoundly difficult to make an achievement in Art on an enormous scale without compromising humility no it can only be done by rejecting the awards by doing it only because it is true regardless of what comes whatever awards or blame or disdain or… yes so you see the work must remain pure so it can climb the steep mountain to God it must reject the awards it must reject the disdain it must reject the blame…

7/31

It’s kind of like a war—though what do I know of war…—I keep showing up every week and I keep pushing and pushing and pushing. Progress is difficult to see and I may never see it. It is the work that endures. Within the work progress can be seen. But it’s Friday morning 6:31AM and my thoughts upon waking are this. Is there an ending? Just keep working. Yes I’m reminded of the rose that grows because that’s what it does and it blooms and returns to dust until it blooms again and I think that I’ve bloomed many times and many times I’ve returned to dust and many times I begin again.