A Toast to a New Season

the shift has begun

This past Friday, most of the college kids at my country club restaurant job had their last shift of the summer. One of the dishwashers, the bus girl, and the girl who works cold side (salads, desserts). They will most likely return next year as they did this year, but we said goodbye with a sweetness in our voices, just in case. At the end of the night, when the restaurant was empty, we shuffled up to the bar with our plastic bags of leftover food. Some of us were waiting for rides; some had shift drinks to finish. We had signed a card for Katie, the cold side girl, and the kitchen staff had made her cupcakes in the shape of stars and bought her a potted red daisy. While we hung out around the bar, the chef poured shots for everyone to toast in Katie’s honor. He poured different liqueurs for each person, the good stuff for Katie, the gross stuff for his sous chef so we could all get a good laugh when he unknowingly drank the thick honey whiskey that none of the members even touched. I don’t drink anymore, so I hugged my Hydro flask to my chest and laughed at their puckered faces, screamed along when we told Katie how much we would miss her. Another Labor Day weekend, another end of a season. 

Well, kind of.

Golfers won’t stop playing until there is frost on the ground, so the dwindling of our staff and the start of the school year means nothing to them. They probably don’t consider this the end of a season at all. But now that the sun is setting earlier and I have to go back to bussing my own tables again, it does feel like a kind of ending—a shift change. 

I suppose I don’t mind endings so much because I love beginnings. The seed of an idea, the first few pages of a book. Blank notebook pages. A to-do list. 

I love the preparation that beginnings bring. It used to come with back-to-school supplies where I’d swear to keep my agenda more organized than last year, and not allow my folders to be smashed at the bottom of my L.L. Bean backpack.  A promise to myself that I’d do all my homework and write my notes with my neat handwriting and not the half-cursive hybrid that even I could barely read.

This preparation allowed for evaluation. What do I have here, and how am I going to use it? 

Of course, I can’t help but think about my writing. 

On Monday, my husband and I cleaned the house. We dusted and vacuumed and then pulled everything out of the office closet. It’s that one closet that was somehow designated for all the stuff we didn’t know what to do with. More than half of it went into the “donate pile” or the trash. We decided we might as well clean out the bedroom closet while we were at it, so we tore that apart, too. We love minimizing the amount of stuff we own, so we gladly loaded up my husband's truck and took our crap to Savers. It felt good to have the house cleaned and organized, especially in this transitional time of a new month, or as I’m calling it, novel writing season. 

I also bought a new MacBook over the weekend, which I desperately needed. But the timing felt right in more ways than one as I prepare to start draft 4 of my novel. I also bought easel paper, pastel post-it notes, new notebooks, and a pack of Sharpies—supplies for my outlining venture thanks to Martha Alderson’s The Plot Whisperer, which has been blowing my mind since my writer friend Kristen suggested it to me in one of my last posts. I reorganized my desk, set up my new laptop, and made space on my wall for the long sheet of easel paper I will be using to plot. I also printed out said novel, all 272 pages of it, ready for my first read through of draft three this week (yikes). So yeah, I’m prepared.

And, if you read my last post, you should know I’m now in my Follicular phase (the best phase!), so all this reorganizing is precisely what I crave. (No, I will not preface each newsletter with a phase update…or should I??)

In a recent interview with The Creative Independent, Giselle Buchanan said something I keep thinking about: 

“My relationship to consistency has changed a lot. I do recognize the value in regularly tending to your creative work, but I also recognize that life happens in seasons. Sometimes, if you’re facing a period in life where you’re not as generative as you would hope to be, maybe you can listen to it as an indicator that perhaps you need to do more living. I find that the more that I lean into my living, the more I have to pour into my art. Intentionally making the time to give to my art is something I must do, but if I ever find myself unable to pour out onto a page, maybe that means I haven’t filled myself enough. So, I’m not too harsh with myself when I encounter periods where I don’t have anything to give. I try not to make it a failure of my efforts. I make it more of an indicator that I have living to do, if that makes sense.” 

I didn't write at all last month except for a few pages of a short story idea and these newsletters. I asked my writing partner in one of our video messages if I was being lazy or if I needed a break from fiction altogether. We both didn’t know the answer, but I think Giselle would tell me that I needed to enjoy my summer (summer is precious time here in New England). I needed to fill the well and replenish my energy. To take stalk of what I have and reevaluate how I plan to use it. To slow down. Take this particular season in my life literally and figuratively for what it is, and enjoy it. 

image from Pinterest

I still have a good month left at the restaurant where we won’t slow down, where my Friday night shifts will still be a blur, just now with more tables to clean, food to run, and roll-ups to make. The kitchen will be a little more chaotic with their skeleton crew. But we will make it work—we always do. 

As we left last Friday, dispersing in the dark parking lot, I said bye to Katie once more. 

“I’ll see you next year?” she asked. 

I say yes because I don’t want to explain from my car that I hope to God my business will be profitable enough to allow me never to waitress again. That even though I love the staff and the country club for the most part, I’m over waiting tables. I just want to run Write or Die and write novels and never serve a filet mignon again. 

But instead, I tell her, yes, I’ll probably be here, that I’ll see her in May. 

“Kailey will never leave,” the chef yells.

As my 5th season draws to an end, I can understand why he said this. I’ve been there a long time. It feels strange to think about my life without this job. 

But on that tired drive back home in my sticky polo shirt, I thought about my novel and my deepest hope that someday, it will be the thing to get me out of here.

I’m ready for that change. For that new season.