Week Six: Memory
Question:
What is an insignificant early memory you refer to often? Why has this one stuck with you?
The story started with a wooden spoon. The spoon was clutched in a small hand, the hand was attached to a little body, the body was perched on an old bar stool, and the stool was pulled up close to a steaming ceramic pot. What was inside the pot remains a mystery. Time has a devious way of blurring the best parts of memory and, in this case, erases the only necessary part of the image. Nevertheless, this remembrance, out of innumerable, remains steady and immovable in my mind.
Why is it that this hazy memory, wrapped in warmth and anticipation, remains after many more have strived to take its place? Is it possible I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth but a wooden spoon in my hand? Perhaps this memory decided to stick because it had an understanding that the kitchen would remain my sanctuary. Food, a word I feel far too small to encompass the category it encompasses, would run through my life, appearing whenever I seemed to have lost direction.
I have often wondered if you come into the world with certain pre-instilled passions. How, potentially, the Unagi my mother craved while pregnant with me, laid the circuitry in my brain that led me to become a sushi chef twenty two years later? That her life, full of hard work and adventure, wrote itself into my DNA so that I would be pushed to cross oceans just to find some sense of fulfillment. What early recollections seem to guide you? What memory floats to the surface unexpected and yet relevant?
Impact
What impacted me this week? Let me tell you. I started a program called Praxis which is basically a "crash course in badassery". Well, that isn’t exactly how they describe it on the website but that's the best way I have found to encompass my feelings in four words. Their desire is to create kickass, intelligent, hardworking, people who have an entrepreneurial mindset and wish to bring value to the world through their work. What has impacted me this week is seeing the numerous creative and driven individuals that are involved with the program. Not only do I get to participate in Praxis, but work with and around these inspirational humans.
Create
I spent my week improving this website and adding a “projects” page. Interested in traveling? Want to know some tips and resources to help you make it happen? Need a good reading list for your adventure? Been wanting some new recipes? Or, if you’re my family, want to view some of the art I have been creating? Check out this link.