Lost In Translation

Tomorrow tea ceremony instruction starts again. I wrote about my previous attempt in Spiritualitea so we'll see how I fare this time around. Certainly part of the problem is just getting up early enough to make class. The other problems I've written about so I won't repeat.

Preparing for the class does bring up a perpetual dilemma for me which is reconciling the spiritual and material worlds. I know they are one and the same. Perhaps a better description would be the intellectual and the physical worlds. This is the dilemma described by Mishima, one of my favorite authors when I was a young man, in Sun & Steel. His will not be my solution but I certainly am attracted to Japanese culture as an embodiment of the physical manifesting itself creatively.

My problem comes when trying to translate the experience to my own sensibilities. I've been trying Japanese cuisine because it appeals on so many intellectual levels but viscerally I've yet to connect. There are textures and flavors at play which I just don't "get" on a taste level. I have your basic American palate, salty, sweet are my first choices, crunchy and creamy are preferred textures. Some Japanese food translates and some confounds. I suppose this is a good thing. But it is illustrative of the division in my life between the head and the body.

I really wish I were an integrated person. Unfortunately I really have no role model for that. The examples I see just seem one-dimensional. Perhaps I am just too resistant to the idea that mind and body can be one to see clearly. Perhaps at this point I'm just not making sense to anyone so I'll shut up.

We have been really busy, which is good. We seem to have reached another plateau in customer attraction. Our reputation has grown in some way that appears to have weeded out a lot of the annoying summer customers. With that change comes higher expectations and I've noticed the comment cards are getting more nit-picky. That's great, because it means people are searching for things to critique. Hopefully we'll be able to keep a balance between a reputation that invites discerning diners to find us and one which invites people to come to try to tear us apart.

The season is taking its toll on us and the staff. Some are hitting burn-out. I'm certainly a lot more tired. I know the GM has been dragging. Unfortunately this season too shall pass.

Comments

[Jennifer]

July + August are horrifying months to be in the restaurant business. I'm starting to really feel it... can't wait until all the non-tipping Europeans go home and our regular diners come back from wherever they've been. I've been cross and snappy - in fact, the whole staff is a little bit loopy at this point. Hang in there, Haddock!

[dr five pints]

We're kind enough to not tip in Europe, why isn't the reverse true?