Sushi Confidential: Pay it backward

Sushi Confidential

My father is coming into town next week and he really wants me to make sushi for him as well as teach.

It’s an interesting dynamic.

On the one hand for those who are fortunate enough to spend time with their fathers growing up, it’s spent holding a tool while he is doing something. Even better if you get the opportunity to learn what he’s doing.

The reality with sushi is that anyone can under or overcook rice then man-handle it with sushi vinegar and smear it across seaweed. Roll it up and smush it together to make it fit.

I am 1000% a novice, a tadpole in comparison to my teachers, but I have some skill.

Honestly I wonder how much my father wants to learn and how much he wants me to just do it so he can eat.

What is interesting to me is that this is something I know exactly how to do and he only knows what he thinks is good. I know more than him and have deeper perspective.

Then there is the dynamic in life.

Long story short, I switched careers in my early 30s. Sushi was a downgrade to him.

Believe me when I say there is so much nuance to this and he is absolutely right given his priorities, and equally incomplete.

Learning sushi and living that life is something that I will always identify with, hold close to my heart, and I say this very vulnerably that I consider at sushi bar at Ando in the top 2 places in this universe where I am at home, where I feel like myself, where I know who I am and it’s ok for me to be exactly that.

It’s not a part of my life that my father has always respected.

Again, know that there is so much more to this that is worth an hour Tedtalk.

And yet here we are.

We get to live this life only once. We start holding the tool and if we’re lucky enough, we get to do differently than our parents did while keeping in mind that they did the best they could and even now they’re still trying to figure it out.

However you judge the point of this life, which is more important, the journey or the destination?

Neither. It’s the company, the connections along the way, where you feel most like yourself.

Best,


E


#ARTiculate