“I sink into the water and consider Chef Bertrand’s comment that pastry is like people. You can’t hurry love, and you can’t rush puff pastry, either. You can knead too much, and you can be too needy. Always, warmth is what brings pastry to rise. Chemistry creates something amazing; couples with care and heat, it works some kind of magic to create this satisfying, welcoming, and nourishing thing that is the base of life.”
I read a lot. I mean a lot a lot. So often I am reading a novel while at the same time also hip deep in some book that is intended to help me in either my professional, emotional or spiritual growth. And yet it wasn’t a book on growth that brought me back to an awareness of an area in my life where I am selling myself short.
Instead it was a conversation with an old flame and a memoir about studying at Le Cordon Bleu.
In the conversation I was reminded, by a man who has been in love with me, that I am spectacular in a relationship. That I am the best version of myself when I feel comfortable, intimate, and passionate about my partner. He believes this is also true of me in my closest friend relationships…when I am working at a job that I am in love with…or when I am mentoring, writing, teaching or doing any of the number of things that light my soul on fire.
Then this morning I remembered the above quote in the Kathleen Flinn book that I just finished today. I went looking for it in the earlier chapters and shot my friend this text. And he said “Yup…you are a puff pastry.” Which made me laugh at the same time that it sent a little shock through me.
I am a puff pastry damn it. I am not some stupid convenience store doughnut or a vending machine cookie. I am worthy of time, effort, interest, and care. All of us are…but sometimes in life we act like a fast food value meal instead of a gourmet morsel to be savored.
I am the puff pastry of friends
I am the puff pastry of daughters
I am the puff pastry of girlfriends
I am the puff pastry of employees
I am the puff pastry of leaders
So take your doughnuts and stuff ’em because I’m waiting for the “nourishing thing that is the base of life.”