Unjerking the Knee

.... a renegotiation about what survival means.

At some point, my default became about hustle, that mirage of “strong character” and independence, that old friend who never shuts up about all the things you could doing to better your life, to move the needle toward your goals, or in most cases, to simple pay rent and feed the kids. This notion of doing whatever, in the moment, seems right to survive, to keep your world from falling entirely apart felt like such an important skill in my early adult life. And it was. I never “hustled” because I wanted extravagance or status - I hustled because our immediate security and future mostly/entirely depended on it. My twenties and thirties are a blur because I worked too hard just to have the basics, just to provide for our daily lives, but always with my own goals in check and preserved. I was adamant about doing what we needed to do to be a healthy family while also being artists with integrity. So, I hustled. I took every opportunity to make things happen. And, if none existed, I made them. Creating work out of thin air is something I’m good at. I’ve seen so many good folks jump into the fire this year to build dreams in this moment, or to preserve the ones they’ve already built. When times are hard, the human spirit is an incredible force - we pivot, restructure, create lives out of nothing for fear that we won’t survive or thrive. Twelve years ago, I would randomly sell pies out the trunk of my car. I would start cookie subscriptions. I would host pop-up dinners. I would jump on any feasible idea that might keep me working, keep me earning, keep me engaged. My “hustle” was a loyal dog, always ready for attention, always ready to fetch. Any idea I had, I would just, well: DO. And it worked. We survived. We thrived. My goals and dreams stayed intact.

And then, one day, it just didn’t work at all. I didn’t want to live my life in that same blur of my twenties and thirties. I didn’t want to have the same panic anymore and throw myself into the first available option to keep me working, to ease my perpetual fear of the money running out. Hustle morphed into something. Something I did not want to abide. Something that felt more like insecurity than brash or brawn. Hustle, sometime last year, began to only feel like fear, very all of a sudden.

I won’t beleaguer the point of how the year 2020 changed us - we all have so much tied up in the changes of that year, of how we navigated it, how we struggled and/or are still struggling. We all know. But I will admit to you, dear reader, part of my changes have lead me to this post. Creating this newsletter was my last knee-jerk hustle - the last time I will panic and try to materialize something out of nothing for fear that I won’t have options. After my book was published in August last year, I struggled to understand where I was supposed to be in my career, my life. No author who published a book last year, much less a debut book wants to complain about it. Last year (and likely this year) was about so much more than book tours and book sales. Most authors see and accept that and have just taken it on the chin and moved forward. But I will tell you, it was hard. Devastating, to be sure. For so many of us. Even the successes - which were many and I am grateful - felt like lonely, fleeting moments in an otherwise soul crushing moment. Ultimately, we all just lost the chance to really, truly support our work out in the world. I will stop there with the self-pity because at the end of the day, my family stayed healthy and we kept a roof over our heads and, jesus, if you made it out with those two boxes checked it was, to be sure, a reason to simply be glad.

Yet, as I winded down from all that the end of the year brought to me and all of the intensity of the end of the year online book tour and discourse created, and my brain and heart were collectively the equivalent of a out of control talking computer from a 1960’s sci-fi moving with smoke billowing out of it, shouting “danger! danger!” to the spaceship it used to control as it spins out of orbit right into a collision course with the moon, I went back into my old habit. I thought, well, I just have to keep going! I have to double down on my efforts. I thought: people seem to want food content from me. People seem disappointed that I am only writing and not doing demos, talking and writing about food anymore. Am I supposed to be trying for Ina Garten here? I can do both! Social media will let you believe that you have to be a constant content generator or you don’t matter. Social media will have you believing that it isn’t enough that you wrote a book and want to do right by it, but that you have to have the approval of both industries in which you now supposedly belong and get sanctioned by a very specific High Court of Cool Kids, in both the food and media space, to be of value. So, all of a sudden you find yourself tap-dancing. For who? I dunno. There are no individuals demanding anything of me.

The reality is, I will never not be a cook. I will never not be excited about food. I will never not want to talk about it. But look. I’m not a video host. That’s on me. I ventured into something here that I have no capacity to maintain. I am sorry for those of you who were really excited about the possibility of videos and tutorials. I can’t WAIT to do that in person again one day.

When I stepped back from this newsletter to figure out what it was about in December, I realized something. Out of all of the terrible shit we have endured this past year, and continue to endure: I want to seize this moment to be fully IN the work I want to do, I’m supposed to do. Not the work I feel I have to do to “make it” or to “survive”. I am surviving. I have survived.

I gave myself time to rest. It was magical. I gave myself time to read. Also magical. I gave myself time to walk miles and only listen to the sound of my own breath. It’s quite a thing to remember you are alive. It’s quite a thing. And not surprisingly, I emerged out of that weird place of expectation. And I took a seat at my desk and remarkably started working on the things that were trying to get my attention while I was busy “hustling” with ring lights and video editing apps and youtube and all the other noise. I admire those who can do that work. I love watching and being connected and understand the value of it. It was fun to do and I loved connecting with everyone over pie, but, ultimately, it is simply not for me - not as a regularly scheduled gig, anyway.

I am taking this moment to build one boat, for the first time in my life. I don’t want to string fifty tiny boats together to get across anymore. I want one goddamned boat, finally and forever. We all have only so much energy. I’m going to start using mine more wisely.

I will keep this newsletter open and keep writing. Sometimes it will be about food, probably frequently. But it will be random, there will be no videos and no regularly scheduled interviews. This newsletter will be a place for me to come write. Nothing more, nothing less. And since those were not the goods promised, the goods you paid for, I will be revoking paid subscriptions by this Sunday. You will still be on the mailing list unless you unsubscribe. All content will be available to all. However! It was said to me by a smart friend that I should allow the option to continue having a paid subscription so, IF you want to continue donating to my writing habit in a kind of “patreon” style way, you only need to send me a note/reply and tell me not to revoke your subscription. And thank you.

My final thoughts for this week:

If we can squeeze anything good out of this moment, let it be connecting with who we really are, with what we really want, with what we really feel. I don’t know any other time in my life when I was afforded the opportunity to have a good reason to put myself first. This is the first time. I want to make it count.

Happy Inauguration week ahead. Stay safe.

Lisa