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Something ShorterA Palate-Cleanser Between Big Bites
Years ago, while visiting San Francisco with a friend, we visited an Omakase sushi place that still has my mouth watering. Neither of us had ever experienced anything like this before: a style of dining where you leave the menu up to the chef and simply show up, eat till you’re full, and happily pay the bill. We were intrigued. In this case, the server brought us one bite at a time, served elegantly on a single dish, allowing us to experience every flavor as its own event. We didn’t know what was coming next or when it would stop. On occasion, she’d check in to ask how we were feeling and we’d respond by brutishly waving on more food. At one point somewhere halfway through the meal, a single potato chip arrived at our table. “What’s this?” I asked, staring at the chip sitting on its own plate. “A potato chip,” the server sneered. My eyes narrowed. “It’s a palate-cleanser,” she clarified. I nodded thoughtfully, the way you do at expensive restaurants, then crunched into the chip, trying to detect notes of something other than fried potato and salt. It was, by all accounts, a simple chip. Might have even been a Lay’s. And that, I think, was the point. It wasn’t meant to be complex, wasn’t meant to be anything other than what it was. The simplicity of that one little bite helped my friend and me both appreciate what was to come, cleansing our mouths of soy sauce and vinegar and the subtle remnants of raw fish. We chewed our respective chips and swallowed, curious and confused. Then came the rest of the meal. Our taste buds unlocked, we continued the feast, eating all things we had never seen before and haven’t experienced since. When it was all over, we were full and tipsy, having both enjoyed a few cocktails over the course of the meal. The bill came, and he asked me to put it on my credit card, offering to pay his half with cash so that his wife wouldn’t see any evidence of such indulgence. We both agreed it was one of the greatest meals of our lives. There is, in fact, such a thing as too much of a good thing. Chefs know this, as do writers. You can’t ask an audience to devour everything you’re putting in front of them, no matter how incredible the goods may be. After enough time, all the flavors start to blend together, and you need a break. This is true of life, as well. There is so much coming at us all the time that it can be hard to experience much of anything at all. We need the occasional interstitial to put things into context. Otherwise, we end up only racing from one buffet line to the next. I’ve been sharing a lot of deep thoughts lately and thought it might be nice to take a break in between big bites. So my hope is that this is that. A potato chip of sorts to reset the flavors in your life. And with whatever extra morsels of extra time you have remaining, may you appreciate all that is before and around and within you. Go for a walk without shoes one morning, just after sunrise, and let the dew kiss the spaces between your toes. Blow off mowing the lawn for another hour and instead sip your tea, watching from the front porch how everything continues just fine without your interference. Take a break in the midst of whatever you might be doing and find the face of someone you love and search for the humanity hidden inside that thing they call a personality. You don’t have to do this forever. You don’t even have to do it for a minute. Just do it now, for a moment. And then, move on to the next course. In Other News…In case you missed it, earlier this week I shared some thoughts on the Barbie movie, Oppenheimer, and a conversation we should be having in our society about binaries. I hope you’ll take some time to read it. It’s a big bite but hopefully worth the chew.
Also, The Ghost just crossed 200 paid subs, and I was informed this is now a featured Substack Publication. I appreciate all the support and am honored to be a part of such a wonderful community of writers and readers. As a thank-you, I’m doing another live teaching in a couple of weeks on how books and lives need the right kind of structure to thrive. To get more details, subscribe. Both the live call and recording will only be available for paid subs. If you missed the last call we did a few weeks ago, you can watch the replay (only available for paid subs, link below). Our next live call will be Part 2 in this series, so be sure to catch up.
That’s all for now! Drop me a comment with what’s new in your world and what you’d like to see more of here, content-wise. I can’t promise to give it to you, as that would be very un-Omakase-like. But it’s always good to hear what resonates and what you’re struggling with and working on. Let the rest of the meal begin. P.S. What do you do to reset the pace of your life? Share the last time you did this in the comments. Thank you for reading The Ghost. This post is public so feel free to share it.
© 2023 Jeff Goins |
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