here we are, nearly three months since my departure from paris and re-introduction into america. you may be wondering what it is i’ve been up to. funny, i wonder the same thing.
when i left paris, it was with a heart full of joy, brimming with hope. i had finally (FINALLY) found what got me up in the morning (and through 16-hour days of hard physical labor) and vowed that i would make it my life. but, as these things go, upon my return to the states, i started a slow and steady vacillation. a near-constant pendulum swing between who i had become in my year away, and who i had left behind when i first started this journey.
the call to paris, to cooking, was a primal one, which i followed on blind faith. i never once considered what it would mean, what if any toll it would take, to shed my previous persona and move whole-heartedly in the direction of something i loved. i simply trusted that one foot would follow the other and carry me forward. and it did, in large and important ways. in ways that kept me there for over double the amount of time i had first banked on. in ways that have surely changed the course of my future.
and in the same way that i took as given that all would fall into place while in paris, so i believed it would go once i returned to the states. surely the momentum i had generated over the year would translate naturally into the next big thing back home. but a strange thing happened upon my return.
new ghaz (vibrant, unflappable, ready to give it all up for the love of food) came face to face with old ghaz (responsible, serious, dedicated to using her talents for “good”) and found, much to my surprise, that though the year away had flexed and stretched old ghaz to new measures, she was hardly vanquished. i was startled to find rumblings of the old calling still crying out from deep within. but what about a life in health care, ghaz? what about working for the sick? the poor?
and so, the tiny crack that ran clean through my core slowly grew into a great divide, until i felt i may nearly split in two. of course food was my passion, something i could see myself doing, something i was good at (and, by the way, something i feel obligated to, in the most positive way, by all the love and support you friends out there have given me). but i couldn’t simply shed a decade’s worth of hard work and dedication to public health like it was last year’s fashions.
so what now?
good question.
ever the undecided, for now i’ve chosen the path of least resistance. i’ve decided not to decide, and to instead ride full straddle with one foot in each world. how’s that work? delicately, i suppose. but for now, here’s an example: i’m spending the next two months in portland, oregon, doing humanitarian work by day (for the nike foundation) and exploring the food scene by night/weekends. i may even land a gig at olympic provisions (well-known resto/salumeria) helping out in their sausage factory. hold the jokes, please.
it’s imperfect, as most things are. but for now, for me, it works.
so here we go, into the abyss of the great divide, together…
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