I worked through August, and grew attached to the flow and energy of cooking and serving.
I'd done catering and cocktailing and occasional bartending in college, and I was always good at it, but I never took it on full-time, because I know it's hard to transition to real work, from that work.
Having walked away from real work in June, I thought, what do I have to lose, and went ahead.
In September, I opened a teeny, tiny, little school close to home, but I have continued to work on Saturdays at the cart, and by golly, I may never stop.
Sitting in the bathtub yesterday morning, I was thinking of the notion of contentment.
I was actually thinking of my grandmother, and how she had always wanted to be an undertaker, which as a child, I found appalling, but as an adult, I can sort of see the attraction.
My grandmother was a caretaker, of people, but she was not a sweet, or even gentle person, she was complicated and could have used a bit of peace and quiet, and possibly a bit of tenderness, so I can see how the idea of caring for the dead would have had it's appeal.
In her life, she mostly never got to have a single thing she desired.
It was a life of sacrifice.
A life of struggle and giving.
I sometimes find myself in a similar mindset, and I try to dial back the martyrdom, because it doesn't really lead any place good.
When I was a small child, I often went to funerals with my grandmother.
She was fond of the open casket variety, which I found (and still find) barbaric.
I would fuss, and cry, because I was, and I remain a crybaby.
My grandmother would shhhhhh me and say,
It's just the body, it's just the b o d y
Which is something religious people say, to indicate that the spirit, the essence, the person, of the person is gone, is in heaven, but even as a three year old, I was terrible at religion, and terribly concrete, and in a fit of pique said
but where is the HEAD!?
which prompted my mother to forbid her from taking me to funerals.
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