My Patagonian Preacher
This post was featured in The Globe and Mail’s First Person October 24th 2018
I watched him follow his dreams. From the far corners of Patagonia in Argentina, to the throws of culinary excellence in France. I watched him cook with raging open fires and smoldering deep pits. He is so sure, so lost in his food, I can smell the char, feel the cool air and taste the blackened potato. I listened to him read Robert Service by fire light and felt like that glass of red wine he was pouring was for me. I’m sure I leaned in to take it. I was at church and he was my preacher. He spoke of freedom and being struck by its allure at the age of eight after watching naked women offer him tea and not care to cover themselves. I drooled with envy as he described being on a plane every two days because he craves change, new places and new language to inspire him. I understand what he is saying. Keep moving. Keep growing. Francis Mallmann, born in Argentina, 1956. A chef with restaurants in Argentina, Uruguay, USA, Chile and of course, France. I’m not a foodie and I’ve never been to Argentina. I’ve never even met Francis Mallmann and probably wouldn’t like him if I did. He is at times a wretched, self absorbed romantic but he reeled me in with his simple wisdom and authenticity. Francis Mallmann has either irrevocably screwed up my life or saved me. He is episode 3, season 1 of Netflix’s original series Chef’s Table and I am leaving my job because of him. As the uncertainty ensues, I want to both thank him and kick him in his frying pan.
A friend of mine, a foodie, asked me if I had seen Chef’s Table on Netflix. Of course I hadn’t because, I’m not that into food. I like it. I eat it. I often look on Pinterest to try to make it or bake it. When I am alone, I don’t think about it or feverishly plan the next encounter with it, unless I’m hungry. It’s not ‘fun’ for me to struggle in the kitchen. It’s only fun for me when I can share a meal with my favourite people and it doesn’t cost me a day or a fortune.
Much like my feelings about food, I have had similar feelings about my life. I like it. I participate in it and I often look on Pinterest for ways to make it better or at least make it look better. When I am alone, which is not often with 3 kids and a job as a teacher, I don’t work too hard at planning my next step or stage in life. I got it. It’s good. I do get hungry for adventure sometimes though. I just forgot that part. Enter Francis Mallmann.
I was mesmerized by his episode of Chef’s Table. I mean really mesmerized. He makes choices, he does not plan. When he was young, he looked for mentors and experiences, not books or paths. He honoured his roots but embraced the world and sought things and places he did not know. He conquered cities and retreated to the wild at will. He is not just ONE thing. He does not cling to one lifestyle and he does not bend to expectation. He seems entirely in hot pursuit of life and happiness and honouring his true self along the way.
Are you kidding me? Who does that?
Aren’t you supposed to assess risk, look at your skill set, have a financial plan and make your move? I did. I was once spontaneous, uninhibited and even open to chance. I had a backpack, and it was all I had. But I got older. I had to have a plan and pay bills. Why? What happened to me that I had to put paying bills and having long term stability in front of just being ME and hoping the rest just happened? I became pretend ME. And it was fine. It was necessary and it worked. Then I watched HIM, chef HIM, doing what makes him happy and I snapped. That’s how I was supposed to live! Without the chef part. Being true to myself. I have already reconciled with the shame of being inspired by a Netflix show. Francis is inspired by nature, food and language. Me? My life changing moment came from watching Netflix with my dollar store readers on. No wonder I feel slightly unfulfilled.
In grade one Mrs. Andrews, at Warnica Public School, told me I was a good writer. A seed was planted and I liked watering it. I kept it up. I went after the world so I would have experiences, stories, encounters and maybe, things to write about. I traveled. I was good. I was bad. I wasn’t shy. I came back and went to school and went on to work in television, intent on having a plan but still living a creative life. Living where television is made, a city, is expensive. And no surprise, television in Canada is a small and challenging business. My biggest curse, AKA excuse, was that I was not a salesmen. Keeping a good credit score and moving up in the world took a little salesmanship. I had to talk a good game to get that next gig. Admittedly, I have no game.
To keep things interesting, I decided to marry another creative person. My husband was, and still is, in Canadian television. The financial ice under our Sorels was more than a bit shaky at times. Almost predictably, when we had our own children, rather cool ones I must say, I switched gears to teaching without a second thought, to enjoy some stability. I love kids and have always volunteered with kids and teaching is natural for me. Not a stretch to want to change from walking a tightrope in the wind to sitting on a streetcar firmly on the tracks. I could say this was for my family but make no mistake, it was for me too. IT WORKS. And it’s not that hard to lie really. “Did you always want to teach?”. “Yes”. See? Easy.
Time, as an excuse or a force, ate up my ability to write so I let it go. That was easiest. It just never let me go. I fight my urge to be more free every day.
Actual teaching can take your breath away with its moments, it's demands and the heroic kids and people it attracts. But it is scheduled and that can be a challenge. My alarm goes off each morning, quite early, since I need to get up, get kids ready and be to school for 8am. I hate mornings and always have. My day is divided into 75 minute periods and I eat lunch at the same time every day. What I like to do is stare at walls, think my thoughts for as long as I want and eat when I’m hungry. I work at a suburban high school. What I want to do is work downtown, in a sexy foreign city, or be curled up at home with my laptop, creating. I am on vacation at the same time each year. What I want is to find a seat sale and vanish. I’m one more year away from being able to calculate my life’s earnings within a percentage point since I have reached the top of my salary grid. I need to not know that.
What happened to me and where did I go?
After watching Chef Mallmann move in and out of life like a sand crab on an endless beach, shunning predictability and seeking what fed his soul, my heartbeat quickened, the top blew off my head and I felt like I stood up from a cozy campfire and the blanket of my life just fell to the ground. I was literally never the same after that point. I submitted for my leave of absence within a month of that episode.
I am now full of excitement.
My confession to wanting a creative life, whether as a writer or something else that allows me more freedom, is a result of a Netflix show, I know. Not very Jane Austen. It wasn’t even a movie. At least the subject is a real person. I didn’t get up one day and quit my life because Nanny Macphee spoke to my soul.
Our culture today, while it fixates on meditation and self care and ‘finding yourself’, simultaneously defaces the notion of self. We self-medicate with pills and booze to divert our thoughts and feelings and indulge in plastic surgery to avoid embracing our physical self. We masterfully create perfect online profiles of the life we think best depicts who we are rather than just ‘being’. Kernis and Goldman, psychologists at Clayton State University, studied the benefits of authenticity and being true to yourself. Some of the benefits of following your inner voice include enjoying a strong sense of purpose in life, greater confidence, healthier relationships and hardy coping skills to deal with change or difficulty. So cheers to Shakespeare for “To thine own self be true” and Francis Mallmann for under cooking his fish because he likes it that way. I’m going to see where authenticity takes me.
My husband knew me back when I was interesting so he should still recognize and love me now. I made my children (with help) and I should be allowed to evolve in front of them. If nothing else, I will show them how to fail and survive and let them know how happy it will make me to fail and survive in their company. I will sure as hell be a better teacher for having left. I won’t be kept on the tracks by a plan but rather take my chances in the wind. We might have to sell the cottage and do our own dental work. Somebody must have posted a how-to root canal video by now? But before my time is up I will know I tried. Mrs. Andrews will know I listened. I don’t worry about failure because I already failed. I failed to try. I want to honour the fact that I hate mornings and that I don’t want to eat just because it’s time. It will be a beautiful day of unemployment when I actually work through my lunch because I have an idea.
I am leaving my job and a good salary, maybe not forever, and I am going to do things that feed my soul. If you do what you love, you don’t work a day in your life, right? I think I’ve been working for too long now. If you are out there living an interesting life, hiking around Patagonia or lunching in Paris and you meet Francis Mallmann, throw one of his burnt potatoes at him for me. And then tell him I say thank you. I will have no income. I might be hungry and poor, but I will have slept in. I have him to thank for that.
Carol Sloan
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