Important Noodles
When a dinner helps make a big decision.
It was some damn good bolognese. As a lifelong pasta addict, who’s even traveled to Mecca aka Italy, I was relishing the experience. The long flat pappardelle noodles, cooked with a little bit of chew still in them, were made earlier that day by hand. The sauce was meaty and rich with the perfect balance of tomato and cream. A little bit of grated cheese topped it off. It wasn’t an entree portion, as far as we define “entree” in America, so I slowed down my bite frequency and chewing rate to savor the experience. Food means more when there’s less of it. In a dream world I would have ordered seconds but I wanted to uphold some sense of decorum.
The pasta isn’t why I took the job but it certainly encouraged my thinking on the matter. As I sat at table 14, warm amber light bouncing off the wooden table under my soon-to-be-empty bowl, I thought am I really going back to waiting tables. Hopefully no one saw the hot flush of shame on my face as I pondered the question.
Two and a half years earlier, March 4th 2018 to be exact, was the last shift I worked as a server in a restaurant. The upscale Midtown establishment I had been at for the better part of 3 years was closing which I took as a sign that the universe wanted me to move on from the food service industry. It was time to close that chapter of my life. I was almost 30, my acting career was picking up steam, and the two other part-time jobs I held were able to support me financially. Yep, the universe wanted me out as much as I wanted me out.
The glass of Nebbiolo outlived the bolognese but not by much. I milked that wine for as long as I could while I took in the room around me. A long marble-topped bar was a focal point with all manner of expensive and interesting liquor bottles perched overhead. “Classy” popped into my head. This place was classy. Low romantic lighting was strategically placed around the room. It was just enough to light the way for servers, donned in black button-up shirts and long black aprons, to move about and do their job.
Bernie, who played as big a role as the bolognese in all this, kept coming over to chat with me, offering more wine and maybe a dessert. As I looked at her, a career server and former coworker, I prayed she couldn’t see my inner monologue, my embarrassment. She encouraged me to come work there. We would have fun together! Like the old days.
I didn’t want the old days though. I wanted new days. I wanted the working actor’s life I had envisioned since my time as a high school drama club nerd. Restaurant jobs were a part of that package, certainly, but they were meant to be shed as one’s career progressed. Those survival jobs were a sign of the not-yet-made-it. They were the mark of an amateur, the scarlet letter of the hobbyist. And I wasn’t a hobbyist! I had been invited to join unions, appeared on network television, worked with famous people. Checks would randomly show up in my mailbox from the work I’d done, proof that I was the real deal.
But two and a half years saw to it that I change my thinking. March 2018 may have been the last shift I worked at a restaurant but December 2018 would be the last acting job I booked. Two and a half years brought dozen of auditions, maybe upwards of a hundred, some callbacks and some close calls but not a single acting job. Not one. Meanwhile a pandemic hit and uprooted everything. I was down to only one survival job at the time and that pandemic sent me into critical levels of burn out with it. That job managed to take up more mental and emotional space than I ever intended. Survival jobs weren’t supposed to do that. To top it all off, I was steeped in debt that started accumulating in my mid-20s and I couldn’t seem to shake.
The slow grind of the pandemic, along with my last sip of Nebbiolo, brought with it the bitterness of my reality. I was near desperation and the decision before me should have been an easy one. It should have been a no brainer. Take the job, work a few shifts a week, shake up this pandemic burn out, and pay off your debt. It was easy peezy…minus all the emotional baggage that came with it. It felt like two beasts wrestling inside my chest. One beast argued that taking the restaurant gig was further proof of my failure as an actor. The other argued that not taking the restaurant gig was failing myself as a whole person.
I was taking some slow deep breaths when Bernie came back over to clear my plate. “What’d you think?” she asked. I took in the beautiful restaurant around me, rich smells wafting from the kitchen, low golden lighting that seemed to glow from everywhere, uptempo ambient music from the speaker overhead, and answered honestly, “It was so damn good!”
One year later and I’m working two shifts a week at that restaurant, on top of my other job. As strange as it sounds, those shifts are sometimes the highlight in a weekly schedule laden with monotony. I’ve made new friends and tapped back into the world of food service employees, a cohort of the strangest, funniest, most dynamic, interesting weirdos around. It doesn’t hurt that the money is great and, week by week, I’ve managed whittle that debt down to almost nothing. Sure the shame still pops up every now and again especially when a guest asks that inevitable question (“so what have I seen you in?”) when they find out I’m an actor, as though my legitimacy is dependent on their recognization. Nevertheless I’m happy that, in the end, I chose myself over my ego. In many ways, I’m freer and more fulfilled than I was a year ago.
Funny what a good bolognese can do.