When my sons were young, I took them to the Nantahala Village to visit the artisans and learn about Native American history in the South. We toured the village and watched as women were weaving baskets and men were working with wood, shaping it with knives and heat. To be present with an artisan is to be present with a Zen master. No thought, just a careful dedication to the craft in front of them.
 
Since that profound experience in the village, I have been craving to use my hands to create something, to get away from academe, from conceptual thought, and from the ego-building that scholarship seems to require.  Our attention has become focused only on the outside of us. No more daydreaming to fuel imagination, no more idle thought that leads to creativity, and no more simply being present with our children or partners. This creative lived experience is exactly what I had been craving, and I have found it in a little bakery taking little yellow clumps of dough and shaping them into the perfect brioche balls.

Shaping dough is an interesting process. A bit of thought is required, but mostly the dough expresses itself as its own entity. One heavy finger and the imprint stays with it through proofing and baking. I am reminded of the flow of life. In the hustle culture, we must “make things happen.” This culture is as harmful to the flow of our lives as forcing dough on our terms is to the final loaf. Shaping dough takes practice. The fledgling baker has an idea of what the end product should look like, so she naturally forces the dough into the desired shape as quickly and as forcefully as possible. The dough reacts badly. Dough must be handled gently, finessed slowly into balls or shapes or forms. The experienced baker learns quickly that the hand and the mind must become one with the dough. Just like the orchestra and the audience become one in the flow of the music, the art of baking requires the same symbiosis. I have not yet found this perfect balance, but I am learning how to silence my own will to finesse the dough, to press with the perfect amount of pressure with the lines of my hands. There is also the time to stop and wait. When the dough starts to glisten, I have taken too long to shape the dough, and it must be cooled again. The process is beautiful, and silent, and artful.

My ultimate goal is to own and run a guinguette. In the 1800s in Paris, artists used to leave the city and go out to the countryside to frequent outdoor bistros where they would dance and eat and drink to find again their imagination and creativity. Fueling my own creativity has evidenced how necessary these spaces are now - the conviviality, the connection with nature, and the carefully and thoughtfully created cuisine.

I am chronicling my experience in the hopes that others will join me in finding their creative spaces and their lost imagination. I am eager to chronicle this experience not only in terms of how my baking skills develop and my guinguette comes to life, but I also want to share how this daring adventure teaches me how to live more fully and to be more present, and how following a life-long dream changes me from the inside out. I hope you will follow along.