Line Cook Love Letter
The 7/11 near my house has a big gulp cup labelled "Food Bank Donations" and it's full of change. I mentioned that it's good thing they're doing, and the cashier tells me every month they donate 50 pizzas, paid for by the employees. My sister calls me on the way home and asks to use my blender. The chef at my new job tells me he'll find a place I can park my bike. My coworker cries in the walk in and the bartender gives him a pep talk. My neighbor makes an extra batch of cookies for the family next door. I put an extra chicken tender in the customer's to-go order after I see him pick the cheapest thing on the menu. The high school Burger King worker gives me an extra ranch with the meal I bought with a coupon. A woman at the grocery store puts a $5 bill under a can of formula. The cashier at the corner store puts a dollar in the drawer for the next customer who just needs a little more to cover his frozen burrito lunch. The guy I gave a cigarette to outside the library last week remembers me and tells me he got a new blanket to replace the one that someone stole while he was asleep. I fall in love with my city and the people in it every day, again and again and again. No one is coming to save me, and yet everyone saves me every day.
My roommate and I drink $8 champagne with raspberries and pie. I've never bought champagne before, but the lady working the wine section at QFC helped me pick it out. When we're both silly and drunk we swap stories about the scars we hide from the world. I'm ashamed of who I've been and she's ashamed of who she's been made into. I sit and stare at her and wish she could see herself the way I can, she's kind and hardworking and funny and gentle. I wish I could show her how much she means to me, but all I can do is make her dinner and learn to drink tequila (she doesn't like vodka.) We both hate each other's parents and talk shit about them every time we can. With Rosemary, my edges are softened and the frayed edges of my soul slowly knit back together. We dance in the kitchen to "Empire State of Mind" and laugh and I think to myself, "this is what I stayed alive for."
I walk into work and tell the old curmudgeon I work for that I'm gonna get a Michelin Star one day. (He says, "I've got you beat, I have five Michelin tires.") I don't know how I'll make it, but I know that I will. I'm working towards a future, and all of the pain has and will be worth it. I learned how to fall in love with food while being starved in the Utah wilderness. A dietitian taught me how to fall in love with the process while my friends were being shoved screaming into white rooms stained with blood. An alcoholic showed me how to infuse button mushrooms with all the things I couldn't say while I was being screamed at in a room of men I respected. A 5'1 girl showed me how to keep getting up after being pushed into the bed of a man I didn't want, how to take pride in my work. A suicidal divorcee gifted me the key to unlock all the things I hated about myself, and silently helped me understand the love underneath every burn and cut on my arms. Every plate, every ticket, every onion sliced into a shitty quarter-inch dice, is a statement. "I care" "I'm still here" "I know what it means to survive" "I'm gonna be someone" "I already am"