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Diary or Memory: Which is the Reliable Narrative?
May 19, 2014 § 10 Comments
I've been reading through my diaries, and have found plenty of scandal that made me laugh so hard I cried*:
We all hate Crystal now. Guess what! We're having a prom! (April 15, 1986; 11 years old)
We don't hate Crystal. I'm glad because she's a lot nicer than Hilga [who determined who we hated and who we didn't]. We didn't win quizbowl. (May 10, 1986; 11 years old)
Today was my first day of middle school. We have 4, hundred pound books and we have to carry them home and to school and all that junk. (August 25, 1986; 11 years old)
I love Teddy so much! He's so cute. He's got blond hair, he's tan, he's got pretty straight teeth, he eats a lot. (October 12, 1986; 12 years old)
I was always into straight teeth.
But what is strange to me is that these things that I'm reading from my 11-year-old self are not the things I remember from being 11 years old. The people I mention are contemporaries of plenty of people I do remember, but until I read my diary, Crystal and Teddy had evaporated completely from my psyche.
It makes me wonder about the whole trustworthy narrator thing. Several times I have read my own words and thought, that's not how I remember it. In my little blue diary I wrote that I was excited when I started my period, but I don't remember being excited. I remember being mortified because I couldn't get to the bathroom and I was afraid I'd have a stain on my jeans and omg everyone is going to know I'm on my period. It seems strange that the memory that I've carried with me my whole life is so unlike what I recorded on the page.
Terry Tempest Williams wrote a beautiful book, When Women Were Birds, in which she inherits her mother's journals, a tradition within her Mormon clan. Her mother told her, "I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won't look at them until after I'm gone." And when Terry looked at them, after her mother was gone, she found that they were all empty. When Women Were Birds: Fifty-Four Variations On Voice is Williams's grappling with those blank pages – why are all the books empty? Where is her mother's voice? Why would her mother buy all these journals, not write in them, keep them, and then pass their silent pages down to her?
There are many entries like my first-period entry, entries that jar me in their discordance with my memory. The memories that stick with me are the ones I took for granted at the time, that weren't remarkable to an 11-year-old girl, that didn't merit recording in a diary. Like how pretty the marsh looks in summer, when a storm is coming, and the grass looks neon green against a blackening sky. Like the mud-romping shoes I made with my brother, and the heavy stillness of the marsh at low tide, when the sun beat down on us, and I could barely breathe through the thick humid air. Like laying on my clean, cool white comforter and reading books after I'd showered, when I was rewarded with coming inside into the air conditioning after Mom had turned us out of the house for a few hours.
None of those things – the marshes, the mud-romping shoes, the books I read – made it to the pages of my diaries. I know because as an adult I wanted to write about them. These scenes are vivid in my memory; if they are the things that stick with me from childhood now, they must have been important to me then. Surely I can mine my diaries for details.
Alas, no.
Perhaps Willams's mother recognized this, this limiting of narrative that a journal necessitates. Perhaps she knew that what she recorded on the page – the page that would eventually be passed down to her daughter – would be but a small part of her whole experience, and that words on a page would inevitably narrow her existence to anyone who was not her, who did not have her memories that filled the negative space between the lines, the everyday things that she took for granted, the things that didn't merit recording in a diary.
When I began scanning my teenage diaries, I could only read a few minutes before having to go outside and soak up some sunlight. They take me into that dark place of adolescence, of not being sure who I was, of being a follower, of wanting desperately to be liked, of trying not to stand out. It doesn't feel good to go back to that place. When I read the melodrama of my 16-year-old self I think, my God, I hope our kids never read this, they'll think I was a miserable soul.
In my memory of teenage life there is glee that balances the angst recorded in my diaries. I remember riding with the top down on my VW Super Beetle and singing at the top of my lungs. I remember slumber parties with pizza and cake and Pretty in Pink. I remember laughter with my best friends, and coffee at Daybreak Café, and reading our musings about the universe to each other at Waffle House, smoking cigarettes and eating grits.
In my diaries there is only venting. In my teens I wrote when I was upset, when I needed to process. Anyone who found these diaries would only get the darkness, and not the light, of my teenage life. A writing buddy inherited her mother's diaries and what she finds there distresses her. I told her about my teen diaries, and how filled with angst they are because I only wrote when I needed to vent, when I needed a place to sort my thoughts and vomit emotion. This was eye-opening to her, that perhaps that was her mother's method as well. That perhaps the pages did not tell her mother's whole story.
Maybe Terry Tempest Williams's mother knew this as well, that journaling to sort, to process, to vent, to vomit could leave a powerful and potentially inaccurate legacy.
Despite what I've learned about the (un)reliability of my childhood diaries, I don't care about incongruity when it comes to my journals as a new mother. What I remember about my colicky newborn son's first weeks is desperation. When I remember myself during that time I picture my eyes as a dying horse's – wide open and rolling in panic. What I remember is do-gooder's poo-pooing my anxiety, saying "Oh, colic usually goes away after three months," and my fright that I wouldn't make it that long. What I remember is standing in the street waiting for my husband to come home so that I could hand our screaming son to him. So that I could collapse into tears myself.
What I wrote about in my journals were our son's laughter, his coos, how fulfilled I felt holding him, gazing at him, feeding him. How he melted my heart.
He turns his head and looks straight into my eyes. And then he smiles. No matter how tired I am, when he does that it's all gone, and I'm head over heels in love. (December 28, 2003; Mom 29, Baby 4 weeks)
Those journals and the joy they contain show me that I wasn't the monster I remember myself being. The words that chronicle our son's first year do not reflect the angst I remember but instead record the glee.
I like the Mormon tradition of Terry Tempest Williams's family, of women's voices being passed down through the generations through their diaries. I am sad for Williams that her mothers journals are empty, and she does not know why. Perhaps her mother was wiser than I and knew that whatever she wrote would tell a slanted tale, and knowing her words would be passed down, she could not be free with them. By leaving the pages blank, she gave Williams a gift of exploration, a wide open story instead of a narrow narrative.
I was not that wise or creative. Instead, after toting my childhood diaries around for 28 years, never considering that my children might one day read them, I find myself wondering now – is this the narrative of my life I want my children to know? Is it true?
My husband has always told me I'm a black and white person, that I see the world as This or That, rarely as a blending of both, as I'm currently doing, pitting diary against memory, as if one were truer than the other.
In the end, there wasn't one thing about him that was truer than the rest. It was all true. – Paula McLain, The Paris Wife
Memory and diary are not mutually exclusive. They both contain truth. As a woman with a fickle memory, I would have once said that the diary was the truer – it is a written record of the events of a life as they were happening, when they were fresh, when time and consequences hadn't yet shaped them into something more or less than they were at the time. Now, though, looking back on the bits I chose to record and holding them up against the memories that never made it onto journal pages – the blank bits behind the words – I realize that my memories are equally real, equally valid as records of my life. Diary, memory – it is all true.
I don't know what I'll do about my childhood diaries. I'll keep them through our kids' teen years to remind me what it was like to be that age, but after that I don't know that I'll pass them along. Those aren't the story I want to tell.
My motherhood journals though. Those I'm hanging onto. Unlike my childhood diaries which disappoint me that they don't contain the memories I cherish, my motherhood journals make me so grateful I want to cry. My motherhood journals do not tell the whole story, but they tell the story I had forgotten was there. My motherhood journals tell the story I want to remember, and am thankful the pages record: the joy, the wonder, the beginnings of brand new lives. They tell the story I want to share with my children – their story, our story – and we can fill in the blanks together with our memories.
* Names have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty).
Chaperoning the fourth grade field trip to Jamestown, Virginia
May 2, 2014 § 7 Comments
Wet socks
Wet toes
Tangled hair
Muddy shoes
Bad coffee
Gritty eyes
Happy son.
First of all, let me just say that teachers are saints. If you have a child, or even if you don't, I'd like you to please take a moment to silently applaud the teachers who are taking care of our nation's children: teaching them history, encouraging manners, spending entire days with rooms full of children who aren't their own, smiling, clapping, telling our kids they are awesome, dispensing hugs and band aids, and cleaning up barf on charter busses to Jamestown. Every time I am around our children's teachers, I am in awe of what they do, and I am deeply grateful for them.
This past Monday and Tuesday I chaperoned our son's fourth grade spring field trip to Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, and Yorktown, Virginia. Our son has been excited about this trip since the first week of school when they found out they'd be going. Fourth grade Virginia curriculum includes Virginia history, and in our school and many others, that means a field trip to the places where the United States as we know it began. Our son raised money selling Virginia Diner peanuts, and after many long months of preparing and waiting (and a five-hour bus ride in the rain) we donned ponchos and foul weather gear and stepped out into the drizzle.
The thing I love most about my job as Mom is doing things like this. Even though I bitch and complain about having to be around all these kids, and how loud it's going to be, how it's going to be like herding cats, how we have to be vigilant about keeping the kids away from the river, and constantly counting heads, and looking for the ever-shifting red hood, blue poncho (distinguishable from the other blue ponchos only by the pink soles of the shoes that peek out from the bottom), clear poncho with a blue hoodie underneath, and green raincoat – even though I complain about all of this, the thing is, the kids are actually awesome, and I secretly love every second of it.
I love volunteering in the classroom, I love chaperoning, I love watching our children in their non-home habitats because I learn so much about them when I'm present but not in charge, when I'm standing quietly on the sidelines. In sports I get to see how motivated our kids are, how they interact as a team player, whether they respect and respond to their coaches, how they react to winning or losing. In the classroom I get to observe while our children's attention is focused on something else; I get to observe the other kids in their class – who are the attentive kids, the class clowns, the sweet ones, the troublemakers?; I get to experience the teacher's style; I get to see when my son laughs, which lessons engage him, which kids he gravitates towards. I get to see what his days are like so that when I ask him at the end of a school day, "How was your day?" and he says, "Fine," I am able to accept his introversion with grace because I will have an idea of his experience, will be able to picture his classroom, will know something of his day beyond the one-word answer he gives me.
On field trips I get to experience what they experience, I get to learn what they learn, and most fun of all, I get to witness their unfettered joy at being out in the real world, learning real stuff – stuff that they learned from books and in the classroom but that is so much more exciting when you experience it in real life. In Jamestown I got to see our son's interest in the Powhatan canoe, the way he scanned it from stern to bow with his eyes, held his hand over the still-warm coals reenactors used to burn a hollow in the tree trunk. In Colonial Williamsburg I got to gently prod him because he was lagging behind, too busy taking pictures in his awe. I got to hear him giggle at the slapstick 18th-Century Grand Medley of Entertainment – the type of theater production Thomas Jefferson might have attended – at the Kimball Theatre. I got to watch him touch the plaque that marked General George Washington's church pew, I experienced the pride of hearing him explain the Virginia House of Burgesses – the first assembly of elected representatives in our country – to our tour guide, and to seeing him sit on a jury in the Capitol building's courtroom.
The following day, with aching muscles from the cabin's hard mattress, with no real coffee in my system, with puffy eyes and ratted hair, I got to experience with our son the feel of the Yorktown encampment on a cold, wet, muddy, raw day. I could not imagine being a soldier there, wet and dripping and sleeping on the mucky ground, and I think the day gave the kids a tiny feel of what it might have been like for our Revolutionary War ancestors. Despite the cold and wet, the kids loved the musket demonstration, where the reenactor explained the difference between the match-lit musket of Jamestown and the flintlock musket of Yorktown, and where she showed them how to load and fire the weapon. They gagged and squealed "GROSS!" when our guide demonstrated the surgeon's tools on volunteer musket-maimed kids, and they grinned as they squeezed into tiny solider tents.
The kids were pretty worn out by the time we stopped at the battlefield, the real Yorktown battlefield, and stood where George Washington stood, on the same ground that General Washington paced and strategized and gave orders from, but their exhaustion did not stop them from shouting out answers when their teacher stood atop a bench with a semi-circle of cannons around her and asked, "What happened here?!"
"The Siege at Yorktown!"
"Who won?"
"We did!"
"Who surrendered?"
"General Cornwallis!"
"Where is Surrender Hill?"
"Redoubts 9 and 10!"
"Well let's go look at them!"
And she jumped down from the bench and all the kids ran for the hills. We oohed and aahed and paused to take in the panorama, and then the kids were running again, towards the busses and their potato chips, their DSes and their pillows, as we, the parents, dragged our tired feet from the battlefield. We basked in memories from the trip on the long, dry drive home, where our work was done and where our little ones munched candy and worked quietly on their trip journals, watched videos and giggled, and slept the beautiful sleep of children.
Tiny Buddha
February 25, 2014 § 30 Comments
Over the years, I have become a less patient housekeeper, easily annoyed by trinkets and knickknacks that add nothing to my life but more work: remove trinkets from shelf, dust shelf, wipe trinkets, notice chips in trinket bases and grime in trinket cracks, fetch toothpicks and toothbrushes, deep-clean trinkets, place trinkets back on shelf, arrange, rearrange, check watch and cluck tongue when I see I wasted more than an hour of my life removing dirt from inanimate objects.
When I became a more diligent housekeeper, when I began dusting on a weekly basis, our trinkets transformed from sentimental, significant mementos into useless, meaningless crap that got in my way when I tried to clean. In the past year, we have purged kitsch from our home, and I am proud to say that our shelves and tables are now trinket-free.
Well, almost.
What remains on our shelf-tops are sources of light (candles and lamps), pieces of earth (smooth gray cobbles from rocky beaches), and a small, jiggle-bellied laughing Buddha from our pre-children life. The little Buddha is fashioned from black resin; a chalky green, like oxidized copper, etches the lines of his happy grin, his belly button, and the laugh lines that crinkle the corners of his eyes. My little Buddha fits in the palm of my hand, and when I look at him, he giggles: of all the objects I pitched on my path to happy housekeeping, of all the things I was able to detach from, I could not part with him, The Buddha, whose philosophy advocates non-attachment as a path to contentment.
My little green Buddha sits among smooth stones on the low wood shelf near my writing desk. He reminds me of another life, when my husband and I were young and newly married, when we lived in College Park, Maryland as DINKs (double income, no kids). On weekends we explored the Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware that lay outside of the D.C. Metro area: Annapolis, Sugarloaf mountain, the western shore of the Chesapeake, the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. We sailed, we hiked, we ate seafood in Annapolis, drank beer in Baltimore. And one weekend – a rainy weekend in winter, maybe even Valentine's Day – we booked a room at a bed and breakfast in Rehoboth Beach. We traveled to a summer beach in winter.
I love summer beaches in winter.
At Rehoboth, we huddled against each other in a raw drizzle as we walked the empty boardwalk. The ice cream kiosk was shuttered, low clouds grayed the sky, and most of the shop windows were dark, even at midday on a Saturday. We paused to look out over the mist-shrouded beach. Wintry Atlantic waves crashed on tan sand, and wisps of my straight hair curled against my temples in the wet, salty air. I smiled against my husband's shoulder. We had this all to ourselves.
When the cold worked its way through our coats and into our bones, we found a side street parallel to the main drag, where in addition to the neon Bud Light signs, we saw a cozy coffee shop, a sidewalk sandwich board with a chalk drawing of a steaming bowl of soup, and a few pottery and gift shops whose windows glowed like hearths. I saw crystals and tiny Buddha statues through one shiny pane, and the bell jangled on the door when we whooshed into the warmth from out in the cold. I fingered geodes and handmade straw brooms, flipped through incense boxes and nodded at the proprietress with her long silver hair and reading glasses that hung from her neck on a beaded chain. When I came to the glass shelf of Buddhas, the laughing ones with the fat bellies made me happy, as they always do. I picked up the one who looked like he was holding an umbrella, smiled at my husband and said, "I'm getting this one." I held the little Buddha in my hand like a talisman.
Four years later, I think I suffered postpartum depression when we brought our infant home. Or perhaps it was post traumatic stress disorder. My life as a new mom, and our life as a new family, shocked me in its differentness from what had come before. Gone were our freedoms: freedom to travel unencumbered (diaper bags, toys, diapers, baby), freedom to sleep (10pm feeding, midnight feeding, 2am feeding), freedom to take romantic weekends away (single income, with kid). I felt trapped, without an outlet, stuck in this new life forever. I remember driving by a restaurant one night with our baby in the back seat. I looked into those warmly lit windows, saw couples smile at each other across a bottle of wine, heard cutlery clinking in my mind, and I burst into tears. "We're never going to be able to do that again!" I wailed.
And the laughing Buddha laughed.
Over time, my depression transformed into delight as I let go my clinging to our old way of life. It helped that our infants did not remain infants forever, and that in a few short years, our babies have become responsible little people who sometimes stay home alone, who cook their own eggs and grilled cheese, and who surprise me into belly laughs that crinkle the laugh lines at the corners of my eyes. They hike and camp; they write comics and crack jokes; they snuggle and say, "I love you, Mom."
My little Buddha has moved with us from state to state, home to home, shelf to shelf; he bore our children with us, watches as we raise them, hears us read books and tap keyboard keys and eat pizza while we watch TV. And no matter where he is, no matter what room or state or shelf, he sits relaxed and laughing. He reminds me of romantic rainy days both past and yet to come, and of the transformation of depression into delight, and of the deep, happy-soul laughter our children surprise out of me on a near daily basis.
Some things carry meaning that is worth dusting off every week. Some things are worth hanging on to.
This is my entry for the Weekly Writing Challenge: Object.
Walking on ice: a story in three pictures
February 21, 2014 § 21 Comments
On February 1, 2014, my husband had an itch to hike the woods around Pandapas Pond. It was a sunny, 50 degree Saturday after two weeks of sub-freezing temperatures, and we had seen pictures in the paper of folks skating and ice fishing on the pond. I asked if the kids and I could ride along. When we arrived, he waved and disappeared into the forest, and our children and I wound our way down to the iced over water. College students walked across the pond's hard shell – all the way across – and threw snowballs through sunlight. Our kids begged to go out on the ice, and all I could see was them crashing through. I was terrified. I told them to stay near the edges – the surface looked wide and treacherous, more of a lake than a pond, really, with all that shockingly cold, surely fathoms-deep water beneath a thinning sheet of cracking, melting ice. I white-knuckled my camera; I told myself, unclench your jaw. I reminded myself, Breathe, as they ran reckless, full speed, heads-back, mouths-open-in-laughter races on the sun-warmed ice; as I stepped onto pond's slushy skin. I probably lost five years of my life that day, but our kids remember it as one of the best days of theirs.
This is my entry for the weekly photo challenge: Threes
An unexpected lunch
January 22, 2014 § 5 Comments
Zippers and buttons clank against the metal drum of the dryer: snowpants tumbling after a morning romp in fresh snow. Our eight year old daughter, her hair a stringy mess of snow-wet tangles, blows on a pot of boiling water, trying to make the starchy foam go down after adding a cup of dry elbow noodles. Our ten year old son forks the scrambled egg she made him. "Since eggs are better when they're hot, will you watch the noodles while I eat this?" he asked her.
It is Tuesday. A school day. I look out the window and watch snow fall.
Now they both peer into the boiling pot. They wear pajamas at lunch time. He is teaching her how to cook pasta. After – after I empty the dishwasher then reload it – I will make hot cocoa while I grind nuts for almond butter, then scrape the food processor and grind nuts for nutella; I'll only have to wash the bowl and blades once if make the butters back to back.
I sit at the table eating a lettuce wrap with my left hand and writing with my right. A tomato slips out the end of my wrap and splats onto my plate. Our daughter groans when I ask if they've grated Parmesan for their noodles. "Well, you don't have to have Parmesan," I say. She slumps her shoulders and stomps to the cabinet where we keep the box graters. She sticks her lip out. "I want Parmesan," she says as she jangles metals together in the cabinet, "I just don't want to grate it."
Welcome to the world, kid.
Our son stands on a stool and stirs the pot with a wooden spoon. Steam rises in front of his red, snow-play cheeks. The window next to him fogs up in the corners; beyond the glass panes are white-covered cars, a line of white along the top rail of the park's split rail fence, sticky clumps of white on twiggy tree limbs.
Our son lifts a noodle from the steaming pot with his wooden spoon, steps down from the stool, and walks to the kitchen sink where he runs cold water over the macaroni spiral. He tastes it and says, "Mom, the noodles are ready. Will you come pour them out for us?" That's the one step I'm still uneasy about: our eight- or ten-year old carrying a pot of boiling water across the kitchen and pouring its heavy, hot load into a colander. I set down my pen and my lettuce wrap, remove the napkin from my lap, and drain the pasta for them.
He takes over then, spooning noodles into bowls, drizzling olive oil, bringing his sister's portion to her at the table. The kitchen counter is strewn with Parmesan cheese shreds, measuring cups, pots, pans, the tub of spreadable butter, a macaroni box. A dry elbow crunches under my slipper, then another. Parmesan curls litter the floor.
One thing at a time. I'll teach them how to cook, then I'll teach them how to clean.
Our children have finished their plates and await their hot cocoa. Soon, after the floor is swept, and the counters wiped, and the dishwasher is running (again), we will pull downy pants on, hot from the dryer, and we will traipse out the door to go sledding.
This is my entry for the WordPress Weekly Writing Challenge: Lunch Posts.
Got grit?
November 4, 2013 § 16 Comments
I apologize for writing about writing again, but I'm having a moment. A moment of feeling crushed by Friday folders filled with requests – money for the art fundraiser, canned goods for the food drive, volunteer hours for the PTO, donations for the fall festival – and workload stresses for my professor husband, and soccer and swim tournaments, and party planning and gift triage (wish-list management, shopping, ordering, returning) for both kids' upcoming birthdays smack in the middle of holiday season, and endless requests of "Mom, can I have a pear? Mom can I have a bandaid? Mom will you take me to Target? Mom, can you cut this tag? Mom, what's for snack? For lunch? For dinner? Mom, can I have a piece of Halloween candy?" all piled on top of all the normal everyday demands of laundry and groceries and cooking and cleaning and ironing and play-date scheduling and initialing homework and driving to sports, and everyone wanting and needing and requesting, including me wanting for myself – I want to write – and I've got nothing left to give. To anyone. Anymore.
In the face of this, I'm having a moment. A moment of I can't do it all. I can't write and do everything else. I can't fulfill my role of supporter with any kind of grace while also dedicating fully to my "writing career." As I develop my skill set and hone my craft, I want to go deeper, but as CEO of the household, I have to pull back. And if I can't go in all the way, I figure why go in at all.
I was thinking this way, thinking of giving up, thinking "I'm silly for even considering myself a writer, of saying I'm working towards a 'writing career' – it's not a career if nobody's paying me!" when I heard Angela Duckworth speak in a recent episode of the TED Radio Hour. The episode's title? Success.
In her talk, Duckworth, who is a recent MacArthur Genius grant recipient, explained that IQ wasn't a predictor for success in her seventh grade math students. This was curious to her. If IQ couldn't be used to predict academic success, what could? She began studying other groups – military cadets, rookie teachers, salespeople – asking in every instance, "who is successful here and why?" Over and over again, she discovered "one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success and it wasn't social intelligence, it wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't IQ."
What was it?
"It was grit."
Grit. A favorite word. It's in my lexicon.
As Duckworth explains:
Grit is the disposition to pursue very long-term goals with passion and perseverance. And I want to emphasize the stamina quality of grit. Grit is sticking with things over the long-term and then working very hard at it.
My husband and I have talked about this before, that it seems that talent and aptitude do not guarantee success. Though I feel he has both in spades, when everyone in our families made a big deal about his PhD, he downplayed his talents, claiming the degree was not an indicator of intellect. It merely indicated that he had endured. He had a career goal, and the PhD was required to achieve that goal, and so he just kept going until it was done. He didn't give up, even when it was really, really hard.
The same was true for me with distance bike rides and triathlons. I'm no athlete. Phys Ed class brought down my GPA in high school. But as a young adult, when I committed to the AIDS Ride, to raising $2000 and riding my bicycle from North Carolina to Washington DC, I didn't give up. I didn't complete the 330 miles at the front of the pack, but athlete or not, I started, and I didn't quit, and so I finished.
And when you start something, and you don't quit? You finish. You succeed.
I have the same passion for writing as I did for those athletic events, only I don't have as much time to dedicate as I'd like. I'm chomping at the bit. I want to take it to the next level. I want to write and write and write, I want to spend 3 or 4 hours a day writing, I want to pursue ideas that require concentration and focus, I want to run with it. But I also want to be Mom, and I can't do them both and do them both well, and that makes it really, really hard. It makes me want to say I can't run with this, what's the use, this isn't working, I am Mom, not writer, I quit.
Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint. – Angela Duckworth
I've completed an Olympic distance triathlon. I've birthed two babies without painkillers. I've been a stay at home mom for ten years and have not thrown a child or myself out a window. I can do slow and steady. I can endure.
When host Guy Raz asked about how we might build perseverance, Duckworth replied, "believing that change is possible inclined kids to be grittier." By knowing that change is possible we can believe that persistence will pay, we can acquire grit, we will recognize that even when failure seems eminent, we can succeed on the other side because failure is not a permanent condition.
I know change is possible. I know that every situation is temporary, including these Mom years, when our kids are young, and they need me. My perceived failure as a writer is not a permanent condition. The moment I'm having? The one I mentioned in the lead of this post? It will pass. In fact, in the time since I began drafting this piece on Saturday morning, and now, as I finish it up on Sunday evening, it already has. Change has already occurred. I no longer feel like quitting. And as for the sprinting? I don't need to race. I want out of the gate, but I can keep warming up for a while first.
I can do slow and steady. I can endure. One day, maybe ten years from now, maybe fifteen, I will get to the point where I no longer feel the need to put quotes around my "writing career." I'm gritty, damn it. I will succeed.
How gritty are you? Take Duckworth's test here to find your grit score.
From writing to parenting: the mundane matters
October 9, 2013 § 15 Comments
"The only time I have anything interesting to write is when I go on vacation." ("No way," "That's a bunch of crap," from around the room). John, in my critique group, was talking about how he has a hard time coming up with new material in his regular life. "You know, on vacation everything is new and exciting," he said. "It's the only time I see things with fresh eyes."
I knew what he was talking about. It's a lot easier to write about something new and exciting than to write about something old and ordinary. Or maybe easier isn't the right word. Obvious. The world is much more obvious when it's novel, which then makes it more accessible. We are more apt to note it when it smells different, when the scenery changes, or when the people are unlike the ones we interact with in our daily lives.
"What do you do in your regular life?" someone asked John.
"I'm a contractor. I remodel kitchens and stuff like that. Nothing exciting," he said.
"I think that sounds pretty cool," I said. "I don't know anything about remodelling. I'd love to read about the houses you renovate around here – what they looked like before, what they look like after, and how you transform them." I pictured a sledgehammer to cabinets.
"And the people you remodel them for," someone grinned. I saw a young, upper middle-class white couple, both Type A personalities, wearing pressed button-down shirts and polished pointy toed shoes, pointing and gesturing in the kitchen doorway as they give John his instructions.
John looked around the table at us. "Really? It seems boring to me. Like, who would care about this?" Then he chuckled and gave a different description of his customers than I had imagined. "Well, the clients are interesting," he said. "I'll give you that. Women have disrobed for me when I walk in the door."
"That really happens?" I said.
"I would read about that!" someone else said.
"See?" Les said. "You could write a blog: The Handyman of Love," and we all laughed. John looked thoughtful and scribbled a few notes on his notepad.
This is a constant struggle for bloggers and personal essayists, to consider their life experience interesting enough to write about. They live it every day. It is ordinary to them, and it is difficult to see what could be interesting about the minutia of their daily lives.
A few weeks after the Handyman of Love writer's group, I drove by the corn fields where I had been certain on a recent run that the Children of the Corn were going to jump out and get me, and a tractor pulling what looked like a tiny red barn was – reaping? I watched from a stoplight, and my mind filled with questions. What is the machine called that's cutting the corn? What is the action called that the tractor is doing? Reaping? Harvesting? Threshing? All of the above?
The traffic light turned green, and when I arrived at the school to pick up our kids for dental appointments, I said, "Hey guys, they're cutting down the corn."
We had watched the corn grow all summer, gauging its height with each passing week. "Do you think it's as tall as you?" I said to the kids in early July. "I think it's as tall as you, Mom," they said to me in early August. "Look how tall it is now!" I pointed in September. "It's even taller than Dad!"
Our son's face lit up as he bundled into the car, "I want to see them cutting the corn!"
I explained what I had witnessed on my way to the school. "There was a green tractor pulling this, this," I had no idea what the thing was called that the John Deere was pulling. "This red think that looked like a miniature barn."
We crested a rolling hill and I could see the corn fields. "The tractor drove along the edge of the corn," I said, "and it pushed the stalks forward, and cut them, then I saw stuff shooting backwards into the little barn." I gestured with my right thumb, pointing it backwards over my shoulder to show how the stuff shot. I wished I knew what the barn thing was called. "Leaves and ears of corn it looked like," I said, my thumb still pointing backwards. I wished I knew what the cutter thing was called. How to name the process I witnessed. "And after the tractor passed, the corn stalks were gone. Just broken stubs in the ground."
I put both hands back on the wheel and looked out the window. I didn't know the process well enough to describe it to our kids. I didn't have the right words. This everyday ordinary event to the farmer was a complete mystery to me. Every step I tried to explain to our kids it was in my face that I had no ideas what words to use – "red barn thing" – or how to explain the process. The farmer, if he were a writer, might think his work, driving a tractor around the edges of a cornfield, making the square smaller with each turn, was too common sense, too mundane to bore or insult his readers by describing it.
But something I learned from both John (the handyman of love) and the farmer (with the red barn thing), is that one person's plain old everyday life is new and unknown to another. As a writer, I must constantly remind myself of this. Every time I sit with words and think, this is obvious, everybody knows this, I remind myself that nobody else has lived my life, nobody else is inside my head (y'all should be thankful for that – it's crazy in there), and that if I am to write well, it is my job to see my ordinary everyday life with fresh eyes, and to not discount it.
Last weekend, after we cleaned the dinner dishes and were getting ready for our Friday night ritual of watching Merlin together as a family, I said, "Let me take my makeup off and then I'll be down." I started climbing the stairs.
"Can I come watch you?" our daughter asked. She's seven.
I stopped on the staircase and sighed a huge sigh. I just wanted to get this done and be downstairs on the couch with the kids and a blanket. "Really sweetie? It's not that exciting."
She hung her head. "Okay."
The mysteries of John's life as a handyman, and my ignorance of the process of harvesting corn popped into my head, along with my own constant reminders when I'm in writing mode to not dismiss everyday details. It occurred to me that this end-of-the-day routine is totally mundane to me, but our daughter never seen makeup removed before. It is new and interesting to her.
"I'm sorry, baby," I said. "Of course you can watch."
We walked upstairs together and she leaned in the doorway to the vanity sink while I put my hair in a ponytail. I grabbed my blue Estée Lauder bottle and pumped cleanser into my left palm.
"What's that?" our daughter asked. Until this point in her life, she had only used a bar of soap to wash her face, even when she played "makeup" and had to remove it.
I turned the bottle so I could read the label. "Take it Away Makeup Remover Lotion," I said. "It's not as harsh as using soap."
I dabbed my right finger into the dollop of cleanser and explained, "You should always wash makeup off at the end of the day." I dabbed cleanser on my forehead. "It's not good for your skin or your eyes to leave it on."
"What makeup do you have on?" she asked.
"Powder, blush," I dabbed my nose, my cheeks. "Eye shadow, mascara," and I dabbed my right eyelid, then my left.
"What about eyeliner?"
"Nope, no eyeliner today," I said.
"What is eyeliner?" our daughter asked.
So many things I take for granted. "Eyeliner is the makeup you draw on at the base of your eyelashes," I told her, "to line the shape of your eye."
I rubbed the cleanser into my skin as she leaned in the doorway. Her hands were in her hoodie pockets and she rested her shoulder and head against the door frame. After I rinsed my face, I explained the cream for the puffy bags under my eyes. I read the labels from the tiny tubs of my Lancôme free samples – "Génifique youth activating concentrate," I said in a fake French accent. "That means it's supposed to make me not wrinkly," I said, and we giggled.
I screwed the lid on the final moisturizer and I kneeled down to our daughter's level. I felt closer to her after sharing this little everyday ritual that I take for granted, that before had seemed so ordinary it wasn't worth explaining. There's a certain intimacy in taking part in someone's daily routines that I didn't appreciate until that moment. "Why did you want to watch me take off my makeup?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I didn't know how you did it," she said. I hugged her, and as we walked downstairs together to watch Merlin, I realized that like contracting and farming are not obvious to me, my life is not obvious to our children. They do not already know all the things I know as a 39-year-old woman. As with writing, where I constantly remind myself to not dismiss everyday details, as a parent, if I am to parent well, it is my job to see my ordinary everyday life with fresh eyes, and to not discount it.


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No walk-ins accepted?
- g
- gardencook Feb 2, 2013 06:15 AM
We enjoy the food at a particular restaurant that, due to location, we are not able to frequent and predicting that we would be in the area is usually last minute. So, we were nearby around 5pm and were at the restaurant by half past. It's a little bit upscale, and their food is in good demand due to the quality and selection, but it's not an exclusive place by any means.
In a nutshell, this place was EMPTY, yet when we explained that we didn't have reservations, they refused to seat us. With 10 year-old in tow, the bar was not an option. The hostess said that they had a booked night of reservations to honor. I understand that, but it was quite early and my thinking was that we'd be long gone before the reservation crowd. I guess I was wrong. And they certainly had the right to refuse, so no hard feelings. I was surprised that A. Many people make reservations so early on a Friday night... we wouldn't usually make reservations before 7:30 unless we had an event before which we were dining... and B. that a restaurant would book 100% for reservations leaving nothing for walk-ins. This is not a place that is booked months in advance. In fact, I called them after we left and they had reservation openings for 7:00 ( which was a little later than we wanted to dine because our kiddo was "starving"). I was just surprised and wondering what other chowhounders thought. Is this common or a quirk of the place?
Well, if you called later and found they had availability at 7 p.m., then either the hostess lied to you earlier when she said they were booked or they had a last minute cancellation. It does seem odd. If it was upscale, do you think they just didn't want the kid there, but could not say that to you so used the excuse that they were booked instead? I only mention that because it happened to me once. But, it is not like a 10 y.o is a toddler, so I don't know.
re: wincountrygirl
I agree that being offered a reservation for 7pm over the phone after being refused at the door is a bit fishy.
It's not so off-the-wall to think the place would be booked up on a Friday, no matter the time, if it's popular. At one of my favorite local restaurants (where you absolutely need a reservation) I find myself having to accept reservations at 9:30 on a Tuesday or Saturday at 5:15. Neither is ideal, but it's a hard table to get. I love the food so I'm willing to do that for this place.
re: LeoLioness
Yes,but if they had an open table at seven and they were there at 5:15 and the place was empty they could have stayed until at least 8:30. Just saying! Sounds strange to me as no way would a nice restaurant be filled at 5:30 unless it has the FL early bird specials! LOL
re: Mother of four
Or, unless it's an incredibly popular restaurant and people are willing to dine at off-hours in order to go there. Not uncommon at all.
So if they give you a table that has been reserved for 7 and you aren't out of there by 7 then we will be hearing from the person who had to wait for their table, even though they had made a reservation. (Also, if the kitchen knows they won't be serving until 7 they might not be quite ready for diners yet.)
re: escondido123
If they're not ready for diners yet then why are they open??
re: PotatoHouse
happens all the time for a host of reasons.
after you start trying to manage a busy restaurant kitchen, you'll see that it makes perfect sense.
also, a restaurant kitchen will often schedule the specific tasks so that the peak production time will coincide with the peak reservation time--a completely rational thing to do.
re: PotatoHouse
Because many restaurants that are reservation driven would not staff a kitchen to accommodate a possible walkin for financial reasons.
re: holypeaches
as i said, completely rational thing to do.
shows good business sense.
not just would they <<not staff a kitchen to accommodate a possible walkin>>
they would also not have the waitstaff, the bar staff, and on and on and on. . . .
re: westsidegal
I just can't wrap my head around this logic. If the front door is unlocked and the sign in the window says "Open" then you need to be at least minimally prepared to serve a customer. What is the logic behind allowing customers into your place of business but refusing to serve them.
re: kmcarr
please refer all my earlier comments, to bulavinaka's much more detailed and beautifully written expansion on what i had covered, cheesemonger's post, and ipsedixit's explanation.
we were all trying to convey to you how actual full service, higher-end, restaurants actually operate--not how short order or fast food or chain restaurants or family oriented neighborhood burger / pizza / barbecue / sandwich joints operate.
in a high-end restaurant that takes reservations, all the planning is focused on meeting the needs of the people who have reservations. sometimes you may be able to work in a few walk ins. certainly you will try your best to work in any regulars that walk in. but, the walk ins who are not regulars are low on the list of priorities and they absolutely should not be accommodated if such accommodation could, in any way negatively impact the experience of those with reservations.
in a busy high-end restaurant, the logistics of meeting the needs of those with reservations, by itself, is a daunting undertaking.
if you can't get it, then you can't get it.
maybe in another life.
re: westsidegal
Thanks for the massive dose of condescension. I fully understand how full service, high-end restaurants work and I hear the argument you are making. I simply don't agree with it.
re: kmcarr
re: kmcarr
then stick to the type of restaurants that cater to you.
as a number of us have explained, there is a raft of rational reasons why high-end restaurants operate the way they do.
so we now know that ignorance is not the foundation of your position.
maybe, you will open a high-end restaurant that will do it differently. let us know it's name and be sure to tell us how that works out.
i would love it to be in my city so that i could drop in at any and every moment that it is open and get perfect, full, service as a walkin.
re: westsidegal
We should probably just let this one go, westsidegal.
Sometimes trite expressions like "agree to disagree" hold more truths than one can imagine.
re: ipsedixit
i do so respect you ipse, that i will do as you say.
re: kmcarr
exactly. this reminds of the reverse situation: restaurant is open until 10 pm. but i am refused service or seating when i enter at 9:30 pm.
re: escondido123
this ^. It's 5:30, and they are empty- so what? You would require a 4 top. It's not inconceivable that they have 6:00 and 6:30 and 7 pm reservations for all the 4 tops. This means what escondido said- people with reservations, that may not be there at that very moment, will likely be inconvenienced because you dropped in, and the staff has no idea if you are quick eaters or lingerers.
I also doubt it has anything to do with the child, and everything to do with pre-existing commitments.
re: cheesemonger
With children you really can't linger too long. An hour is about all they can handle! The child is ten,not exactly the age when they are going to be running around a restaurant or throwing fits. Can't believe it was the child. I'd just chalk it up to experience ,and if I really wanted to eat there I would make a reservation the next time.
In the past, we've dined with her there, but you all may be quite right that it's related to the kiddo.
They are open from 11:00am, so the kitchen better be prepared at all times once their doors are open! It's slightly upscale with entrees $20 or greater but not "fine" dining. If they had a table open that would be occupied at 7, then why not give us the option of having the table for a hour? That's what they do in many places in Europe. A little placard says, "this table free until X hour". Until then they allow walk-ins.
It sounds to me that this is a peculiar situation and not a norm. We don't eat out as often as some of you do, so I was curious that there was a trend I was not aware of.
re: gardencook
The only "trend" I can think of is the trend for some entitled parents to bring their ill-behaved offspring to places where they ruin everyone's evening, and the hostess just assumed your child would be like this. It's sad, but you were stereotyped.
re: Isolda
You may be right, but I'm leaning toward there being another reason.
I wonder if it was because there was a game (the city has professional sports of various types) and they were booked for the pre- game crowd. We're not sports fans, so didn't realize there was a game until a friend told us this afternoon.
We've eaten there many times with our (sometimes painfully quiet and shy) kiddo, and it's not child -unfriendly. They are upfront about offering half portions of certain foods to accommodate kids. Still, there may have been a reason related to having the young gardencook in tow.
re: gardencook
This -- they may have had reservations for the whole restaurant for the hour and a half before or after the game (like a lot of restaurants in theater districts that are full at 7:30 but you could shoot a cannon down the middle at 8:00). They may also have had a special group function that was tying up all their resources.
re: gardencook
Maybe they remembered you from (one of those rare occasions) when you ordered takeout.
re: gardencook
<<kitchen better be prepared at all times once their doors are open!>>
there are several restaurants in my city that are continuously open between breakfast, lunch and dinner and some that are continuously open between lunch and dinner.
very few of them are really 100% prepared to serve their complete menu at non-peak hours.
most will have developed an abbreviated "bar menu" from which people can order after 2:30 pm and before 6pm,
but many just explain to unexpected walk-ins what their limitations are.
if i had made a 6pm reservation, and arrived to see that i couldn't have my table because it had been given to a 5:30pm walk in and the 5:30pm walk in was not done eating yet, that would demonstrate to me that the restaurant didn't have a clue about how to run their system.
re: gardencook
I think there was probably a good reason for it (full house expected at 6 for the game? she knew that the kitchen just would not get your order out in a timely manner, given everyone was on break?), but she didn't do a very good job of explaining it in a way you could relate to. Of course she's not "obligated" to do so, but it would have been friendlier. It's definitely confusing for a place that is open from 11am with no afternoon closure, but maybe they are used to that time being a slow period and they truly aren't prepared to get your meal in a timely manner before "real" dinner guests arrive.
Actually, my friend and I went to a restaurant with similar hours recently, around 5:30. They were open and food was available but we got weird hyper-casual service from someone we figured was a manager, later replaced by a server, and we were told quite fliply that there no specials, well there would be LATER, but not yet. Basically we were too early for "dinner" service. But at least we got fed :)
re: julesrules
the service you and your friend received at 5:30 is pretty normal.
re: westsidegal
wow thanks westsidegirl, that hadn't occured to me!
re: westsidegal
If you're open, you're open. Do you give a discount on the menu to take into account not getting the same food and service you would an hour later?
All these excuses about "oh, you don't understand how restaurants are run" are just that: excuses from people who don't know how to run a restaurant and then blame it on their customers.
If you can't provide food and service to your customers at 5:00, then don't open your doors at 5:00! If you don't take walk-ins at all, then don't open your doors at all -- just give your customers with reservations a secret code to key into the lock. Think how cool and exclusive you'll be then!
re: Ruth Lafler
Finally a voice of reason!
re: baseballfan
A snarky voice of reason, perhaps. Seriously, I don't understand people who vehemently defend the right of restaurants to treat their paying customers badly. I think part of the problem is that a lot of restaurants don't do any formal training in "customer service" (as opposed to serving customers). Twenty years ago when I was given customer service training for a customer service job they emphasized that when a customer had a bad experience they would tell an average of 20 people. Now, with the internet it's many multiples of that. Restaurants spend a lot of money trying to bring in customers and then nothing on training their staff on how to keep them once they come in the door. It's really stupid from a business perspective.
In the case above, as I posted earlier in the thread, I understand they may have had a good reason for turning away this walk-in -- but would it have killed them to take 15 seconds to explain it with a smile, i.e. "Oh, I'm sorry, but we're fully booked with a party arriving in 15 minutes" (even if it's not strictly true -- you don't have to detail every item in your reservation book!). Is that so hard? If it's too hard to deal with basic customer service situations like turning away a customer, then you shouldn't be in the restaurant business!
re: Ruth Lafler
While I agree that customer service in general has declined, and snark really doesn't help the stuation, I don't see it in what the OP decribed. the hostess could have tried to see things through the OP's eyes and give a better explanation. After all, personal qualities like that are of great benefit to someone in that position. However, it's not a perfect world.
re: baseballfan
Everyone has their opinions. I prefer to take the position that the restaurant had their reasons and that these were not issues r.e. the kid. But none of us were there so it's all speculation. The time that the OP showed up at the restaurant points to the possibilities already listed ad nauseum. However, conspiracy theorists tend to get their gears all wound up whenever there's even the smallest window of chance.
re: baseballfan
+1 !!!
re: Ruth Lafler
Thank you VERY much, Ruth!
re: westsidegal
Normal? No. Not in my neck of the woods. I eat out often at 5 or 5:30, and usually receive the same level of service I would at a later hour. Actually, usually better.
If you think this is normal, I might suggest you need to frequent different establishments, and raise the bar as far as what you consider good or even acceptable service.
re: westsidegal
Well, I don't live in a retirement community, or even in an area with an older than average population. I am talking about nice, mid- to high-end restaurants in an urban area. It is not uncommon for me to have an early dinner with friends after work, or an early dinner on a weekend when I've been on the go all day and not had lunch. It's been very rare to have any issue with service at this time, or with menu items not being available. And if it were an issue, I would be unlikely to return. Part of a restaurant being "good" is their ability to give you good service during their advertised hours.
re: MelMM
Agree with westsidegal. The transition from lunch to dinner at many Chow-approved restaurants with a strong focus on sourcing and technique either shut down or offer abbreviated menus during the slack time (between lunch and dinner service). Much of the staff rotates out. Lunch staff in the back house starts rolling in at 0700 (prob 0500 for bake staff).
Dinner service staff starts rolling in at 1400-1600 to review and prep dinner menu. Lunch staff starts transitioning out after lunch is over. It's common knowledge for those who frequent these types of restaurants, at least around LA. It's typically much easier to get a seat during slack time, but with the understanding that service and menu are often abbreviated.
re: bulavinaka
I am understanding of such a transition at say 3 pm or 4pm, but 5:30? Not so much. A restaurant that has its act together will have it together by then.
re: MelMM
Exactly. At 5:30 p.m, that is *not* a shift change. That usually happens between 2:30 and 4:00 p.m. Anyone who is working the evening shift is usually there by 4:00 p.m. (before dinner service begins) to help with any set-up needed. So if they're "open for business" at 5:30 p.m., that should mean they are ready for customers, ready to take orders, and ready to fulfill those orders.
re: MelMM
It ain't no BS - mostly has to do with the back house preparing for dinner service, which usually involves a broader and more complex menu. Of course not all places do this, but many in LA do. 1500-1800 is deadsville for many of these types of eateries anyway. Why one can't accept this reality is laughable.
re: bulavinaka
Except as Ruth said - if a restaurant say they open for dinner service at 5:00 or 5:30 (or that the dinner menu starts at that time), why shouldn't one expect that the full menu be available?
re: LindaWhit
>>Except as Ruth said -<<
>>If you're open, you're open. Do you give a discount on the menu to take into account not getting the same food and service you would an hour later?<<
In fact some do - it's called happy hour. And that's a resto's prerogative to do so. Some choose to do happy hour to help cover overhead, some choose not to reduce prices probably because their profit margin is already slim, some reduce their front and back house operations to be commensurate with the demand and back house logistics, and some choose to close. They are all legitimate business models.
>>...why shouldn't one expect that the full menu be available?<<
Why SHOULD a restaurant be expected to offer its full menu - lunch, dinner or otherwise - during a transition period? One's business model is their business model unto themselves. The market will decide whether or not it works, and obviously many of these more upmarket restos that have this profile are successful and are counter to your buddy MelMM"s thoughts:
>>That some people can't conceive that a restaurant could make this transition competently is sad, and frankly, insulting to all the restaurateurs out there who are on their game.<<
Sounds like baseless soapbox rhetoric. This probably comes from someone who's never spent much if any time understanding or dealing with the logistics of these types of restaurants. I don't claim to be an expert but I do know that many factors potentially play into the viability of a restaurant's operations. And let me point out these factors again - ad nauseum. Every restaurant is different. Their layout, work and storage space, type of cuisine, prep lead time, work force, sourcing, etc. So many factors play into whether or not transitioning from one service to another can be smooth.
Gjelina in Venice does an abbreviated menu during slack hours (approx. happy hours) and is one of the most favored destination restaurants in the L.A. area. They've been extremely successful as the lines during lunch and dinner service prove it.
Gjelina has a very talented head chef who happens to be very cordial and approachable as well. He and his crews pull off great meals time after time, all in a small kitchen that's shoehorned into the corner of a small 80+ year-old building. Their strong reputation is built upon focusing on sourcing and technique, creativity, being resolute in consistency, and knowing their limits.
Given their constraints of working and storage space relative to man/woman power, they can only do so much. Their daily shipments of ingredients - mostly locally sourced agricultural items - are necessary not only to insure optimal flavors, but to continually replenish their limited stock on hand due to storage space constraints. Prepping is a constant struggle because of space and perishability issues. So gearing up and running the kitchen for separate menus is a big deal. There's no conspiracy here. The chef is too nice of a guy. There's no inept management making the calls here. The owners are far too business savvy and have opened up other very successful restaurants (Wabi Sabi, Tasting Kitchen), so there's no ineptitude here. And both are unwavering in their commitment to putting out the best dishes possible, no matter what service.
Do eaters openly protest Gjelina's slack time menu and service? Some might, but the dishes from the abbreviated menu are praiseworthy because Gjelina can swing a partial - not full - menu at this time. They won't sacrifice quality for quantity. I would hope any Hound could respect that.
Calling out ineptitude, laziness or even some sort of conspiracy is just to easy. To me, it highlights how little one takes into account the real and tangible variables that play into why restaurants do what they do. The realities of operating a higher-end restaurant within its constraints of limited kitchen and storage space, cost of labor, perishability, prep lead time and how all of this plays into swinging from one service to another is lost upon most diners. When these issues are laid out time and again, and one still feels some sort of conspiracy or hidden agenda belies the truth, I can only shrug and come to the conclusion that it's no longer worth the time.
re: bulavinaka
What I ususally run into is a simple "bar menu" between lunch and dinner. Guess you need a "bar" for that though.
re: bulavinaka
First off, what we are talking about here is not happy hour menus, late-night menus, brunch menus, etc. Seriously, we are all familiar with this, and it is not the issue. We are talking about what is available during advertised dinner hours. And where you are getting a conspiracy theory out of all this is beyond me.
So great that you brought up the example of Gjelina! For the record, Gjelina's full dinner menu is available at 5:30 pm. Just the time we are all talking about. How convenient! And since they would take my dinner reservation at that time, yes, I would expect the full menu to be available.
That said, does Gjelina have great service? To me - and I will make it clear that this is my (not as uneducated as you assume) opinion - this is not what I would call a service-oriented restaurant. The reasons why are beyond the scope of this thread, but anyone who researches the restaurant will figure it out.
To me, great food is a necessary, but not sufficient, qualification for a great restaurant. Service is the rest of the equation. And by "service", I don't just mean the competency of the waiter, but the service culture of the business, which is something that starts top down (in any business, not just restaurants).
Some examples:
A nice restaurant in Houston, TX, over a decade ago: I have to follow a gluten-free diet due to celiac disease (not a fad diet in my case, but a medical necessity). At this restaurant, long before most restaurants even had a clue what this was, I expressed my needs to a waiter. He brought the owner to my table. She assured me that she understood completely, and even had a son with the same condition. She verbally described a few great sounding things (none of which were on the menu) that she could make for me. I picked one, leaving the details to her discretion. When the entrées were served, she brought me, with perfect timing, a plate of food so fantastic that it made everyone's jaw drop. Not just my jaw, but the rest of my party of six who had no restrictions and ordered off the menu. It was by far the best plate on the table, and had all the components one would hope for, including a flavorful sauce, and a starch (you would be amazed how many restaurants nowadays assume that if you are gluten-free you are OK with a carbless meal - not me). That is GREAT service. Above and beyond. But above and beyond in service is what separates a great business from an ordinary one, even if the product (in this case food) is the same.
Another restaurant, Charleston, SC: On my first visit, I expressed my needs to the waiter, was well cared for, had a great meal. So good, that I decided to return the next night. Waiter from night one recognized me, and informed the waitress in whose section I was seated about my needs. She arrived at my table ready to go with suggestions. I had yet another wonderful meal, and have returned to that restaurant time and time again, always with equally great results. That is GREAT service.
Those were higher-end places, so as a counterpoint, a diner, in Charlotte, NC: I went to this place again and again for breakfast for a period of year or two when I lived nearby and it was on my way to work. They made a great breakfast, and once I gained confidence in the cook I started ordering poached eggs (which I will only do if I know the cook can do them right) as my "usual". The cook, who could see the parking lot and the street from his station, got so he would start the poaching water for my eggs when I pulled into the parking lot, so my breakfast wouldn't be slower than anyone else's. On the days when I drove by, and didn't stop, he would tell the waitress, who would then inform any friends of mine that were hoping to see me there that I had gone on to work. Another example, in a very different environment, of GREAT service.
These examples may be exceptional, but they are real, and are not as uncommon as you might think. I have had many other such experiences, and to me, the definition of a great restaurant is one that goes above and beyond for its customers as a matter of routine. It is, as I noted, a part of the culture of a business, and it starts at the top. There are plenty of places out there that have incredible food, but don't have that culture of service. Some of them, I choose to patronize anyway, because the food is so good, but when I recommend them, it is always with a caveat. I have worked most of my career in consulting, with my clients being mostly very large, Fortune 500 or multinational corporations, but also some smaller business. What we do for clients is not that different that what a restaurant does, if we want to keep our clients. It is a culture of "yes" rather than "no", even if "yes" makes it extremely inconvenient for us. If the client wants us on-call 24-7 during negotiations for a merger, even though those negotiations will continue through a major religious holiday for most of the US, we make it happen. Cancel my New Year's Eve plans to run numbers for a client "emergency" and glance up to watch the fireworks from my office window? Yup. If our "standard" report doesn't give them all the information they need, do we customize the report? Yup. There are many people and businesses out there willing to go above and beyond for a client (or restaurant customer), and if the work product is just as excellent, it ends up being the service that separates the great from the good.
re: MelMM
People with special needs will obviously measure their standards higher on the service issues - accommodating their particular issues is important. However, you'd be SOL at Gjelina - no substitutions, alterations or omissions. Service there can be an issue with some, particularly when a diner is denied e.g., dressing on the side, or omit a certain ingredient - but what some consider to be bad service, it's just the front house communicating what is clearly stated on the menu per the back house's policy. Here's one story that made the news:
Otherwise, service is relatively normal there. It's all about the food - it's the product that delivers. And those who frequent this place obviously weigh their expectations heavily on the food part of the equation. It's their business, and they run it as they see fit. The market decides if a place stays or goes based on expectations being fulfilled. What is probably contrary to your views r.e. the various aspects of their business model, they still are one of the most sought-after reservations in town.
re: bulavinaka
re: bulavinaka
Yes, I know I would SOL at Gjelina, and their policy is unacceptable to me. It was what I was refering to, without being specific, in my earlier post. But my emphasis on service is not just about having special needs accomodated. It has to do with why someone eats out, and this of course, will vary from person to person. I am an experienced and accomplished cook, so I eat great food every day. When I go out, it is usually for reasons other than the food. Because I want a break from cooking, or because I'm traveling (which is a lot), or because I'm attending a business lunch or dinner or meeting friends. In all of these cases, service really matters. Of course, since I love good food, I seek out restaurants that have it, but if the service is poor, it really defeats the purpose from my point of view.
re: MelMM
When I say "bar menu" I don't mean a happy hour menu. I mean an upscale place that still has some upscale menu items available, just more on the simple side. And it is made known that from say, 2PM to 5PM, that is what is available. You don't actually have to sit at the bar to order!
re: coll
Yes, I know what you mean, and I have seen that a lot. Just to be clear, my post was a reply to bulavinaka, who seems to still think it is normal for the full menu not to be available even at a time when the restaurant is supposed to be serving dinner (as per their own advertised hours).
re: coll
Oh, I know, especially if for some reason you are looking for a place late, after most have closed. Sometimes I eat at very odd hours, due to activities that keep me busy through normal lunch or dinner hours. So it is not that uncommon, when I am traveling, to have a "lunch" at 3pm, and then a "dinner" at 10. At 3, I could get a lunch menu, a bar menu, a happy hour menu, or a dinner menu, depending upon the place. At 10 or later, I'm probably going to get a bar menu, and that's fine. I don't want a heavy meal that late anyway. But whatever menu I'm given, I expect everything on it to be available. Unless I arrive 10 minutes before the final closing time, in which case I'm happy to be let in the door. Also, a big exception for BBQ joints, which in some parts of the country, run out of their "product" around noon. And can't exactly whip up some more. But that's not the kind of place we are talking about here.
re: LindaWhit
<why shouldn't one expect that the full menu be available?>
I've never experienced it any other way.
When they're open for dinner they're ready to serve the entire menu.
re: latindancer
If the dinner menu is shown to be available at 5:30, ***even if the restaurant is open from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. for food, with no closing periods in between that time frame*** - then the ENTIRE DINNER MENU should be available.
re: LindaWhit
I just posted on my local board about a similar situation.
There is a local independent Italian restaurant that has solid positive reviews from posters I trust. Their weekday hours are 11:30 am-10 pm. A few months back I had one of those "run around" days, skipped lunch and was starving when I drove past the restaurant. I stopped in. Although I was greeted warmly, the staff was having their meal and I was turned away. No big deal. But I was put off; the other local Italian spot makes it clear they do not serve between 3:00-4:30. By 5:00, I would have expected full menu and full service.
Odd thing was, I stopped again today for lunch at 12:30. Not a soul around--diners, servers, kitchen staff. I went to my usual (hours clearly posted) independent Italian place, and it was near capacity at 12:30 on a Saturday afternoon.
These two independent Italians are only a mile or two apart. I think I can predict which one survives.
re: LindaWhit
That's what I tried to say earlier in the thread. Especially in my neck of the woods where just about everybody eats supper between 1700-1800.
re: bulavinaka
Oh, I can imagine that a restaurant may have some issues transitioning from the lunch to dinner menu. But that doesn't make it normal or acceptable. That some people can't conceive that a restaurant could make this transition competently is sad, and frankly, insulting to all the restaurateurs out there who are on their game.
re: MelMM
I live in a *very* urban, restaurant heavy area with many people eating all times of day. I've dined with people at that time because their schedule requires it.
We go to one particular restaurant, we all love, where the owner is standing there at that time ready to go and happy to seat.
It's not unusual.
re: latindancer
please be kind enough to share the name of the restaurant(s).
it would be nice to know where to go when i'm picking people up from or dropping them off at the airport and their flight arrives/leaves at a "non-mealtime-time."
re: julesrules
That afternoon time between lunch and dinner usually will have a limited menu where the pick-up for the kitchen is easy and doesn't take much "space" in the kitchen. Simple dishes that any of the cooks can do like a burger, salad, pizza, etc. You usually will not see the more labor and ingredient intensive items on such a menu. Same for a "late night menu" after most of the kitchen has been broken down for the evening.
As for specials, they're usually the last items that make it onto the evening's menu; they're limited in quantity and are sometime being prepared at the last minute whenever the chef has his inspiration.
re: bobbert
Lol. You haven't been to this restaurant. It is not some chef's playground with market fresh ingredients and last-minute inspiration. Oh and fyi, I have been to a restaurant before (and worked in them) and didn't have a problem with any of this. It was what it was. But ya'll are VERY educational.
re: julesrules
Holy moly Jules. You are a very nice lady.
In my book (speaking as someone who has owned and operated a successful resto), if you are open, you are serving and if there are specials you better darn well have them up and going when the doors swing open or have the servers know them or be willing to ask the chef.
If the place is empty, why they can get a family of three in and out in no time without the family feeling rushed or put upon.
I would be furious as an owner if I found out my staff turned away PAYING customers because it was inconvenient for staff. By gosh I will wait on them! I will cut their food and feed them if need be! LOL
But then again I was in it for the money and because I like putting smiles on people's faces. Decidedly unhip Sal.
* I am talking times given by OP.
restaurant reservation policies are all over the lot.
any and every approach is used by some restaurant or other.
the restaurant business is not standardized.
the hostesses that handle the reservations come and go and often are clueless about what to do.
some restaurants have computerized systems that, themselves, are pretty inconsistent, often not functional.
i've seen restaurant that is operating two incompatible systems at the same time--one for the online reservations and one for the phone reservations.
also, if they had someone with a 7pm reservation call to cancel at 6pm (something that i've done on a few occasions), that would be a simple and straightforward explanation which, imho, is the most probable explanation.
Different strokes for different folks I guess. We would have no problem taking a well behaved 10 year old into the bar for dinner. If it was offered there that is.
re: miss_belle
in my state, it would have been illegal to let a ten year old into the bar for dinner. the restaurant, if caught, would probably lose their liquor license.
re: westsidegal
Good grief. What peculiar places some folk live in. Is there a reason why it is illegal for a ten year old to eat dinner in a bar?
Presumably it can't have anything to do with the age at which folk can drink alcohol - I doubt whether many places in the world permit it at such a young age (where I am, drinking with a meal would be permissable at 16, so long as someone 18+ was paying for it - of course, children much younger are legally permitted alcohol at home or other private premises).
re: Harters
In my state, the drinking age is 21. Most of the bars and restaurant bars have a clear sign at the entrance stating that you must be 21 to enter. Children are not allowed inside the area period.
re: Harters
I know you are in the UK, Harters. Here in the US, laws regarding alcohol have been confusing since Prohibition ended in the 1930s. (My great-grandmother would joke that it was easier for her to get a drink during Prohibition than after it was repealed! She was Italian and did not understand eating a meal without wine. So she and my great-grandfather made their own, which was legal even during Prohibition as long as they did not sell it.)
The laws vary from state to state, and even within states themselves. I think there are 1 or 2 "dry" counties still in existence somewhere in the South.
re: iluvcookies
Thanks for that - and,yes, I appreciate our European culture is different from American culture in many ways, which is why I'm trying to understand the reasoning behind such decisions - they often just don't compute for me.
Without wishing to take the thread too far on a tangent, I also understand the thing about "dry" counties. Until about 40 years ago, counties in Wales could decide if they would be wet or dry on Sundays (alll are now "wet" and that decision cannot be reversed). However, there was a legal exception for bars in hotels which could open - which meant they got great business on a Sunday. My father would always recount the story of a Welsh pub he knew where the county line ran straight through the place - meant on a Sunday, one of the two bars could be open but not the other.
re: Harters
Heck, Harters, I'm Canadian and there are noticeable differences between our culture and American culture, even though most Candians live within an easy drive of the US!
re: CanadaGirl
Indeed, CG. Whilst I've visited the US on several occasions, I've only visited Canada once. Prior to that I took some advice from Canadian contributors to another (non-food) board I use about what cultural issues I should be aware of. It was all very light-hearted, of course. But certainly I noticed there was a different "feel" to things.
re: Harters
40 years ago, I tended bar while attending university in Philadelphia. The on the edge of the campus bar was in the first two floors of a 4 story rowhouse. The third and fourth floors each had 2 rental bedrooms and a hall bath.
The owner explained to me that this qualified as a hotel, and bars in hotels could open all day on Sunday, other bars could not open until 1PM (after church got out).
re: iluvcookies
FYI I'm in New Jersey and there are still a few "dry" towns here. Not actual counties but towns, yes.
re: iluvcookies
I think there are a lot more than one or two dry counties; we took a train trip to New Orleans and every 10 minutes it was "Bar closed, dry county" then "Bar open". We happened to have a bottle of bourbon with us and became popular very quickly with the other passengers!
re: kengk
coll and kengk, none of this surprises me. These are great examples of how disparate the liquor laws are in the US.
Here in NY, stores that sell wine/spirits cannot sell beer, but beer is available in supermarkets. Wine shops can sell glasses and corkscrews, but little else in the way of non-alcoholic merchandise. They can't even sell gift bags for your purchase. Restaurants can get a full liquor license, or one for beer/wine only--and I am told neither is very easy to obtain.
When I travel, I am never surprised if liquor laws seem odd to me, especially in states where the state controls the sale (PA, VA come to mind).
re: iluvcookies
Prohibition was, singularly, the worst attempt to legislate morality that has ever been enacted in the US.
re: latindancer
100% in agreement with you. The financial ruin it caused for business did not help the great depression whatsoever.
re: latindancer
There's still a prohibition in this country, just not on alcohol.
re: westsidegal
There are generally state laws that prohibit children or minors from sitting AT the bar even if just to eat with an adult. I'm not aware of any states that prohibit kids from sitting at a separate table in the area of the bar. If that is illegal in your state do you mind sharing what state you live in?
re: jrvedivici
I can't speak for westsidegal, but when I lived in Indiana, I believe the law was 21 to be in any bar, including the bar area of restaurants. I once had family in town for a football game, and we had to wait for our table in the threshold of the bar area because my youngest cousin was only 20, and thus had to wait on the restaurant side of the entryway.
re: Wahooty
I live in Indiana presently. Kids are still not allowed in bar sections of restaurants. They are also not allowed to accompany adults (or go themselves) into liquor stores. Coming from CA, where things are much less uptight, I was surprised that my 8-year-old son couldn't come with me into a liquor store (where I actually wanted to buy a cigar, as it happens).
re: Bada Bing
So the parents have to shop for alcohol on their own or in a pair so an adult can stay with the kids in the car? Seems extreme that the child cannot accompany the adult in the liquor store.
re: LindaWhit
yeah..or worse.leave the child, alone in the car while you "pop -in"
re: FriedClamFanatic
Which is illegal in some states, depending on the age of the child.
re: Bada Bing
On the no kids in liquor stores, I don't know if it is State law in Illinois or just the store policy, but we encountered this situation a few years ago, when we were hosting a large family gathering at our home. We discovered that we were out of Jack Daniels, so we asked our 25-year-old niece to accompany our 20-year-old son to the liquor store to pick up a bottle (she's from out of town & did not know where it was). They both entered the store and were told that he needed to leave; so he sat in the car while she made the purchase. My understanding is that the practice is to prevent situations in which someone over the age of 21 abets the purchase of liquor for an underage drinker. Not clear to me that making the underage kid wait in the car is an effective deterrent, however, if that is the issue.
re: jrvedivici
kids can sit at side tables, but, as you mentioned, NOT at the bar.
also, to harter:
in my state the age of legal drinking is 21.
if a kid younger than 18 is caught driving with ANY alcohol in their blood (i'm not talking DUI here, i'm not talking about any impaired driving, i'm talking about an alcohol level of .02 not a drunk or impaired level and no actual driving impairment) they will have their license suspended for a year and their driving record will be wrecked for many years after that.
re: westsidegal
Thanks. Yes, I'd understood that jurisdictions have legal drinking ages.
What I hadnt understood is why a jurisdiction would ban someone under that age from simply being in a bar - but you've now clarified your earlier post confirming that this actually isnt the case where you are.
re: Harters
We ARE very puritanical with our liquor laws here, it's easing up in some ways (Blue laws on Sunday disappearing) but I do remember when I was a child, it was no biggie to be in a neighborhood bar with an older family member. But hey, we had candy cigarettes then too.
re: coll
Exactly what I was going to say - the puritanicalism of some laws remain from hundreds of years ago.
In a town I used to live in a few years ago here in MA, if adults were moving from the bar to a table, they were not allowed to carry their own drinks. The hostess had to do it for them. In addition, the bar was NOT allowed to serve anyone alcohol if the patron was standing. So if you *were* waiting for a table? You couldn't drink alcohol if all of the bar seats were taken. That local law was finally repealed several years before I moved out of the town, but it was absolutely ridiculous.
re: LindaWhit
Sounds like Woburn! If it was, Woburn had another crazy law. The person who made your drink, was not allowed to serve you your drink. Learned that while sitting at the bar, right in front of the beer taps. Ordered a beer, the bartender poured the beer, and put it to the side of the taps. Another bartender came by and placed it in front of me-and of course I asked why! Crazy.
re: LindaWhit
It was crazy- it was a long time ago- it was Thackerys' in the strip mall where MB is.
re: Harters
But just to be clear, Harters - I live in one of the "blue states" that just decriminalized small amounts of pot - and we can't take a kid into a bar here. Period. Not even an infant. And all our bars are non-smoking.
It is ridiculous.
re: Vetter
Wow..just wow..Vetter..Too much..:-(
re: Vetter
Aren't you lucky!!
re: Vetter
As an ex-smoker, I'm very glad the Commonwealth of MA went non-smoking back in 2004.
re: Vetter
Same in BC for certain types of liquor licences -- no child, however small, allowed in these establishments. Smoking is also barred though that is a far more recent development. The universe as we know it would probably implode if a kid came in and lit up ;-).
re: westsidegal
I think there is a clear difference between a night club bar and a bar that serves good food. Additionally restaurants with bars for accommodations. In my state if you allow smoking you must be 18 to enter. Night clubs, those that predominatly gather revenue thru alcohol can either be 18 or 21. In order to be 18 and up requires more stringent policies and funds to government. If the establishment does not take on those responsibilities it is open to the owners discretion what and when they accept patronage.
re: westsidegal
As I understand the law in NYS, as long as a bar/pub serves food, children are allowed in at any time. That would explain why our neighborhood bars and pubs have tables full of families in them when we got out early, from babies in high chairs to teens.
Just to see if the hostess was telling the truth, I would have done 2 things. First, used my phone to go on opentable to check their availibility and second I would have called the restaurant directly.
If you were successful with either of those, it would have been amusing to walk back in and announce "reservation for 3 at 5:00pm" :)
I think most of the reasons that restaurants would turn away walk-ins have been mentioned. The issues behind the reasons can be many - IMHO westsidegal's posts are spot on.
It would seem silly for a restaurant with any opens eats to not welcome a walk-in. However, if one were to be able to look into the restaurant's reservations lineup for the evening, know what the staffing issue was at the time, what mode the kitchen was in (in this case 5:30 can be rounding third base for the kitchen to get their preps set up/finished for the impending 6PM dinner service), what the capacity of the cold box is, or how many servings of any particular item were on hand for the night (e.g., spare factor on dry-aged NY strips or Pacific lobster might be zero), the reasonings might be far more apparent.
If you've ever been involved in restaurant management, you'll understand why some will not allow "walk-ins".
I see a few possibilities. Maybe they did not want a kid but a 10 y.o. is not a crying baby. Maybe there was some incompetence involved. Maybe the place was actually booked starting in an hour and you would throw off those with reservations - the later available 7 PM opening would have had to be a cancellation.
What I don't agree with is the notion that even though the restaurant opens at 5 they're not really ready for service until the bulk of their reservations at 7.
In the BOH, everyone should have their prep done and are ready to go when the doors open at 5. There are no line cooks scheduled to show up just as it starts to get busy at 7. That would be a recipe for disaster. In the FOH, usually about 1/2 hour prior to doors opening, the chef will be briefing staff on any specials. There might have been a staff meal. Once again, everyone scheduled for the shift is there ready to go. Ideally, every seat will eventually be filled with tables at different points in their meals. If the entire restaurant is seated at the same time - crash. That's one reason your table may not yet be ready even though there sure looks like several are empty.
If the host were to seat 3 tables of 4 in one server's area at the same time, there will be 8 people waiting for the server to finish with table 1 before they got to them and so on. Seat 3 tables of 6 or 8 at the same time in most moderately sized restaurants and watch the kitchen crash as orders for 18 appetizers arrive at one station on the line at the same time, etc, etc.
Seating a restaurant really is an art form. A good host can make for a smooth operation. One chosen solely based on looks will not help business. What happened in this instance is pure speculation but I highly doubt it had anything to do with the kitchen or the foh not being ready. If they're open, they're ready. I will allow that depending on the number of reservations on the books there might be more/less prep but in the end it would be ideal to be running out of items at the end of the night. Really ideal would be to serve the last of everything to that last table.
I agree with those that have said the story they gave you is the true one. How many posts have you seen on here where people are pissed because they show up for their reservation and then have to wait? It's often because of accommodating walk-ins, in addition to the "campers" who spend way too much time at a table. They have to give priority to those with reservations. The right way to communciate it would be to say I'm so sorry, we can't get you in right now but we had a 7pm cancellation if you have other business in the area, or try Restaurant X or Y just down the street, they may be able to accommodate you. It's the service in the response that's lacking IMO, not the actual information.
BTW, we go out to eat HELLA early. We have a toddler and eat during the week at 5 or 5:30, 6 at the latest, and my tummy is used to eating at that time when we go out without him. No way do I want to d*ck around until 7:30 or 8 without any food, I'd be starving to death or have to have a snack or something. We'd much rather be in for the night and off the roads by 8:30 and enjoy some TV and relaxing with the kiddo in bed than stay until he's in bed, starve/snack, and then go out later.
re: rockandroller1
the "early dinner" habit is VERY useful for getting into otherwise packed restaurants, as is the "late lunch" habit.
re: westsidegal
Indeed. We rarely can afford to go to a resto that takes reservations, but for those special occasions when we do, we never have any problems.
re: rockandroller1
We eat that early, too, without the excuse of a toddler. I'm usually starving by 5:30 and so are the kids (teens). Restaurants are usually much quieter if you eat early, and this makes it possible to have a conversation.
re: Isolda
and service is better, the kitchen staff are fresher, etc etc. No downside that I can see.
Sounds like they were not wanting your child.
But under other circumstances not involving child discrimination - if they are booked out at 7 and you arrive at 5, if you tell them you will wrap it by 7, they will probably sit you. I would say very likely would.
I wonder what the owner would have to say about the snub.
I don't think the host was lying to you she was doing her job. Have you ever had to wait for a table you even though you had reservations? This is one of the ways a poorly managed restaurant can inconvenience their patrons.The reservation blotter or whatever it is called is just as near and dear to restaurant staff as anyone's tight, budget driven calendar.
When getting together with friends after work, we make early reservations. Personally I wouldn't think anything of it. I'd make a mental note that reservations are needed. This has happened to me before. But there is always another place to eat.
Sounds a bit pretentious...........and maybe they worried about your 10 year old..........either way...........pass on them in the future
This all just gives me horrible flashbacks to that time that I went through the drive thru at McDonald's at 10:35 and couldn't get a sausage mcmuffin......