Outside the Bakery

Picture this:
A French Patisserie with floor-to-ceiling windows on both sides of its distressed wooden front door, with a view to gleaming cases of sun-touched, butter-kissed breads, croissants, pastries, some with jam, some with sugary/buttery/vanilla-enhanced cream cheese that manages to be smooth and creamy and not-too-sweet, tarts with fruit slices or berries atop lemony custard, baguettes in straw bins, a rack against the far wall with loaves light and dark, soft and hard crusts, some flour-dusted, others buffed to a shine with egg wash, baskets of rolls and bread knots, a large black cappuccino maker against the back wall, white ceramic mugs sturdy enough to hold a latte or hot dark cocoa and plates not quite big enough for whatever delectable, doughy, bready, buttery, flaky, just-right treat that fills your deepest hunger. You crave not only the flavor of the bakery items, but the way just being in the shop fills all your senses, fills the places in your soul that you sometimes forget are unfilled, and your whole being seems to recalibrate. You are right there, up at the counter, beginning your choice - which aroma, which vision, which color/flavor/texture plays more seductively with your senses, and the moment of choice, marking the beginning of a delicate waiting period – how much longer it may be before the mouth-watering morsel is in your possession – and how you will savor this moment. You’ll breathe it in, observe the line and color as if you were appreciating a fine painting, feel the weight and airiness of the treat in your hand, pull at one end slowly to remove the first bite. This foreplay is essential, as foreplay always is, to your pleasure, and you will not rush this treat. You will succumb to the whole-body pleasure release that an indulgence such as this offers. And you will delight in knowing that you can return, sample another treat, pull apart another doughy handful, inhale again the yeasty pleasure of this inner sanctum.

Now picture this:
You are standing outside the bakery, watching what is happening inside. People enter, make their selections; some eat there, others take their treats home in pink boxes and to-go cups. You want to go in, you believe you belong there. But others are inside, and you’re not. Some seem at ease, with the sense that there is no other place to be. Others are there so casually it’s as if it doesn’t even matter to them that they are there. Someone has taken your chocolate-drizzled croissant, and is engulfed in the rapture that should be yours. Someone else is devouring a marzipan puff pastry, but is eating it all wrong – big, fast bites, followed by guzzled gulps of plain coffee. The pastry is gone in three enormous bites. You feel outrage that this perfect taste sensation was wasted on someone who wolfed it down like a dog inhaling kibble. There was no chance of any part of it lingering on, let alone activating, the taste buds. You are suddenly weary. All the joy that is squandered in that shop – oh, how you would appreciate it if only you were allowed in. But somehow you know that you will never be let in. This is a shop that others will enjoy, many getting it just right, others buzzing through so quickly they will miss out completely on what is possible, but at least they had a chance. You don’t.

When I went through the melancholy of my misunderstood and lonely youth, I felt like an outsider, and imagined myself, nose pressed against the window of a bakery shop, prohibited from entry. I was convinced I was never going to gain access to the life that others seemed to take for granted, the one of happiness and joy and abundant sensual pleasure. Even as a youngster, I consoled myself with language and metaphor.

Over the years, and with the kind of relentlessness that can turn out in your favor if directed correctly, I have somehow created a life that feels as rich as my fantasy Patisserie. My bakery/life is filled with my own favorite treats, and nary a concoction that doesn’t appeal to me - there isn’t a pizza bagel, quiche Lorraine, or olive bread in sight. So it was a surprise to feel myself recently whooshed out the door, feet planted back in front of the windows. I had somehow recreated this early feeling, and was bumbling through my present-day routine as if it were happening again.

In hindsight, I think there is something in the present life bakery that I don’t like. But it’s not a pastry; it’s an occasional customer who takes over a table, stays for too long and stacks the table with a laptop and newspapers and a blackberry, wears a hands-free device and takes too many calls in such a small place, generates an energy that makes others want to be more than a few tables away, but the place just isn’t that big. I can’t ask this person to leave, as there is technically no law or rule being broken. Others sit at tables with laptops or iPads or are plugged in to MP4 players, some talk or laugh too loudly, some loiter over a day-old pastry and drip coffee that together won’t make a dent in this baker’s overhead, but none cast a feel like this occasional customer. I have come to dread the sight and sound of this person, who seems to take over the bakery for no reason at all, especially as he doesn’t seem to enjoy anything he’s ever ordered.

But a passing unpleasantry and the presence of one person who temporarily disrupts my equilibrium should not be enough to expel me from my bakery. This time, it was me who was keeping me out – it probably was that way, too, as a child, but kids don’t understand that their way of adapting to what they don’t like insures that it keeps happening. In younger years, I could catalog the injustice of - oh, here you can fill in the blanks – my family, my schoolmates, my town, my part of the country, ever-larger concentric circles of influence, right up to and including God. There was something at work here, keeping me out.

Thankfully, at some point during this gloomy redux, I remembered that I have been here before, in my old, youthful place on the other side of the window, looking in. There is no injustice, just the reality that sometimes someone comes in to my shop and makes it unpleasant for me. The injustice, perhaps, is that I presumed I’d be immune from unwanted experiences, that once I was granted entry into that fragrant Eden there would be nothing unpleasant. My mistake here, not to anticipate that part of the bakery experience all along was to encounter a crabby customer, or a late delivery, or burst pipes, or a burnt or unrisen batch that would have to be thrown out. I seem to have expected only bliss upon entry to the joyous life I longed for; I didn’t count on how a full and rich life requires joy and sorrow, loved ones and less-than-loved ones, and it is this mix that helps us appreciate the exquisiteness of surrounding ourselves with the people we enjoy most. With very little exception, my time in this little shop is exactly what I hoped was possible in this life. I remember all the savory moments I’ve had, the delectable, unrushed sensual joys and the occasional quick, ravenous, shovel-full bites.

I am not sentenced to live outside of the life I want, peering in. All I have to do is open the door and walk right back in. Head right up to the counter, with gratitude for the baker who has designed my favorite treats, and partake of one right here, right now.