I did not start the New Year off too Substackilly. I was sadly Un-Sunstackadacious. I suffered from Anti-Substackitivity. Oops!
The long story short of this brief absence is that I have been down a wrist for the past few weeks, making typing completely unsavory. The wrist brace I wear helps with pain, but is cumbersome (as you can imagine it would be for someone who uses their hands for a living) and is, to borrow a word from Massie Block of The Clique, fugly. There was no show-stopping event that caused this sprain beyond having already weakened wrists (from work) plus a slip on some icy steps coming out of a gay guy’s apartment after a Traitors watch party. I wish I could point to my brace with a smirk and tell you it was a magnificent kitchen accident, or lesbian debauchery, or even something chic like being hit by a careless MTA bus so that I could sue the city. But no, it was my already hurting wrists meeting an icy step.
Outwardly, to friends and family, I have been pretty dismissive about the wrist pain and awkward wrist brace. I even went so far as removing my brace when I went out to a birthday party the other week to avoid the glaring conversation starter. Because behind closed doors, I have been a Certified Organic, Grade-A, USDA Prime baby. So here’s the long story long.
It’s harder for me to articulate why this is hitting me so hard but it is obvious to me that it transcends physical pain. It’s a larger emotional mountain to summit. It hits a more vulnerable or tender part of me - striking the side of my neck, my armpit, or behind my knee - because it is a pain that most of my beloved, wonderful, and caring friends/family are farther away from. With this pain processing, the glaring distance in our day-to-day work looms larger over my head. I envy their high(er) paying jobs that have them sitting down all day. I envy their distance from their physical bodies in their work (or the ability to be not completely reliant on their body). I envy how they can keep working, relatively unaffected (although often hard, upsetting, and draining, I know this) through a twisted ankle, a terrible day of period cramps, a sprained wrist, a runny nose, or a bad back. Recovering from food poisoning. In pajamas on the couch after a long night. Camera off because you’re puffy-eyed after a fight with your partner. Working from home because your landlord is coming to replace your boiler and you need to be there or it won’t get done and it will keep racking up your hot water bill.
I have a family of co-workers who are empathetic, kind, understanding, and patient with each other. I hold them, and other friends/community I have made in my industry, extra close during my baby-like temper tantrums like this one I am moving through due to my wrist. I know they understand, without anything needing to be said. And when they come to work after being barely recovered from a bout of food poisoning due to bad sushi, or while their back is still tweaking from moving apartments, or when period cramps knocked them off their feet that very morning, I know that they know: I understand them. We see each other in ways people outside of the kitchen cannot easily see. And to boot, we are committed to turning each other’s frowns upside down; the amount of laughter and love at work is such a hopeful lighthouse when I feel lost at sea in a temper tantrum.
It’s as good a time as any to keep writing about the environment of love because damn… we’re almost there, folks. The Day. February 14th. I am going to try something new this year for Valentine’s Day: working date night, not participating in it. I am hoping that this pursuit of delivering (as in, delivering an experience, delivering good food, delivering a successful date night for people at the restaurant) re-grounds me in passion. I need a good Valentine’s-Day-themed-donkey-kick-to-the-head style recalibration. I think that is what could fix my wrist once and for all…
No please, Universe if you’re listening… please no real kicks. I can’t afford another accident. My joints and limbs can’t take it. I am suddenly 82 with gout and a family who is pushing me towards a Life Alert necklace. But I certainly can make room for a mental recalibration. How lucky am I to provide a beautiful experience to strangers on Valentine’s Day? How lucky to be part of the factory that produces the love? The generator of smiles, “oooohs” and “aaaahhs”, conversation, blushing grins, and full bellies?
Food does that. My hands (and my sprained wrist) do that.
When I succumb to my envy of others’ distance from their physical bodies at work, I have to remember the counterpoint. I live in tactile, physical days. I smush, and I knead, and I brush, and I crush, and I smell, and I taste, and I swish things in my mouth and talk about what profile it’s missing. I bend down, and I duck under, and I lift things above, and I slink behind, and I reach in. I rely on my body, and it’s right there waiting for me.
