Day 51: Where Do We Go from Here?

The Olive Garden year was supposed to provide a sense of stability and sameness for us. Instead it seems to have presided over a year of massive change.

So as we begin to say goodbye to this past year and this nearly-passed pass–I can’t help but wonder where we’ll go next.

The biggest changes this year seemed to surround my work–first my tumultuous old job and now my wild new one. But the real biggest changes in my world resides with James. He’s grown up the most through this year, despite having no pass of his own.

And so I look to this sign in the to-go/pick-up area of our restaurant and wonder at that: where are we to go? When this chapter closes, which story begins? How are we now to live?

The good news is that with change comes direction. One chapter of my life closed so firmly this past year and a new one opened so clearly that I don’t have to linger in the Olive Garden lobby for hours or weeks or years wondering what happens next.

It’s just that, after this year of change, I still can’t help but expect the same. Wherever we seem to be headed now, I have to wonder–is it real? Will it always be?

But like I said, there’s still James. He changed a lot this year, but it only made him more clearly himself. That’s what I’m hoping for: as I embark on this new teaching adventure, as I embrace new colleagues and friends, as I challenge myself in new ways, I have to believe that it will only make me more me. It won’t take me away from the things I love and believe and hope for, but it will bring me closer to them.

Where are we to go?

Gen. 12: 1: Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.“

I guess that’s always where you go.

Item 1: whole grain linguine, meat sauce, breaded chicken

Breadsticks: 2.5

Weight: 170

Destination: The Promised Land

Day 50: Secret Menu Item 5

If you want to accomplish a couple of tricky maneuvers in one go, here’s how you do it.

Say you find yourself wanting some shrimp. You order shrimp.

They bring you chicken.

That’s fine, because actually you wanted chicken–but you didn’t know it.

By now, the Olive Garden staffers are so familiar with our lives and needs and wants, that they can predict them. So, they know that if I order shrimp simply to keep up appearances, I really mean, “bring me chicken.”

And then they can bring the chicken, and I can make a big show of being quite all right with it, and this allows me to seem magnanimous to the rest of my party. So, I get the chicken I secretly wanted, and I also look like some kind of nice guy for not stirring the pot and insisting that they bring me the chicken of the sea.

So that is most likely you last Secret Menu item ever that I will be giving you, and that’s quite all right.

At this point the blog is about as interesting as watching the walls. They do change, if you stare at them, but so slowly you won’t notice at all.

Item 1: linguine, meat sauce, breaded chicken breast

Breadsticks: 4!

Weight: 169

Weeks to go: <4

Day 49: Signing Day

Big day today: signed a contract to return to my alma mater. Exciting and exhausting. I start tomorrow. Yikes. I think it will be good.

This year has been a blur: like the bicyclist in this photograph. And, like this bicyclist, I feel like we weren’t supposed to be at the center of it all. Like we accidentally happened across the place where others had plans, and instead of their own landscape of conversations and meetings and moments, we’re the tourist hurtling obliviously through the foreground, coming from who knows where and aiming for the same. All these plans are drawn up, and then this person shows up and changes everything.

But, like that rider, I’m trying to zone out the problems and hang on to the possibilities. Don’t go looking for trouble, simply ride on to the next place and see if things make a little more sense there. This is quite literally what I’ll be doing starting tomorrow. And though I won’t be commuting by bike initially, it might not be out of the question entirely, as my car finds new ways to limit its functionality. So far these are mostly aesthetic limitations, but you kind of have to wonder.

Also, they messed up Chrissi’s salad, and then tried to take it back, and I said, “No, no, I’ll certainly eat that one, too.” That is the secret trick to getting two different salads.

Item 1: whole grain linguine + mushroom Alfredo + grilled chicken

Breadsticks: 2

Weight 169

Jobs: 0-2

Day 48: Photographing Legacy

Good news about this year of pasta: James has learned how to eat at restaurants like a professional. He orders his own kids’ pizza with grapes on the side, he calmly asks for water instead of juice because he knows he doesn’t need the sugar hit–and because he’s concerned about the bottom line–and he has his camera with him at all times to capture the most important parts of the meal: the food. Although he seems to be picking up some of my storytelling legacy, he has yet to start his own blog or instagram, so I guess he’s still learning.

This is a photo of the fruity drink I purchased. I don’t remember what it was called but it was one of those made-up corporate labels for drinks that is just so much the hybrid of descriptive words that you can’t even tell if it’s a real name or not anymore. It took me forty-eight trips to my Italian kitchen to order a drink for myself. I’m definitely from the James school of water-preference. It’s not even about the cost, entirely, it’s just that I’d rather eat my calories than drink them. I want credit for chomping them down, rather than to see them mysteriously appear around my middle out of nowhere. This was all right, anyway: sparkling water and strawberry and other juice, I guess? I wasn’t too focused on taste, but mostly on having something to photograph. Part of my legacy is be refusing to order drinks when dining out, and I think that tells you a lot about who I am, what I believe in.

Our final piece of the visual tour is this salt shaker from the table. I’m of the opinion that, chemically-speaking, salt is salt. It’s just that simple. However, the salt shaker out our table proudly heralded its European origins. Presumably, like me, the salt did one of those Ancestry DNA tests, and found out that it’s ancestors were Europeans, maybe some of them from the coasts of the Mediterranean. That’s great, and all, but I don’t think Italian salt–if it’s even from Italy–taste any different than American salt. But then, I suppose that’s the point of those DNA tests, too. If you’re European, you’re not taking a test like that: you know exactly where you come from. We Americans are the ones desperate to figure out who exactly we are, where exactly we come from–especially if we didn’t immigrate very recently. Yet, no matter what the percentages come back as, no matter how “European” your salt is–you’re still just an American looking for a home.

Item 1: linguine with meat sauce and crispy shrimpy

Breadsticks: 3

Weight: 169

Life lessons: threeve