Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
So here's the thinky rambley post.
Due to money issues and family issues and health issues and stuff, I've been thinking about the future a lot in the past weeks.
In spite of the unclear childcare problem (which I suppose could be organised if I actually had a job), I applied for a few jobs. Part of the problem, of course, is that I'm not really qualified for anything specific. That's OK because there are too many things that interest me (museums! publishing! education! specialised journalism! gardening! crafts! history! ---) so as long as I'm not qualified for any one thing, I can try applying for everything (as well as related stuff, like event management or marketing or what-have-you) and see how the dice rolls. Except it just keeps rolling, of course, because nobody looks for a professional universal dabbler.
Oh well.
Occasionally, ideas pop up that have nothing at all to do with my unspecific academic background, or anything I ever planned on doing. For some reason, these ideas like to grab hold, and I think them through a lot, and then never do anything about it.
That doesn't mean I don't believe in those ideas (I tend to do). It probably does mean that I'm a bit of a coward.
For instance, take the most recent one.
Backstory: The neighbouring town - my birth town - has a falconry. Their buildings burned down a few years ago, but they've rebuilt (better!) and made a succesful new start. They're looking for someone to run their restaurant. In fact, they've been looking for half a year, and for some reason, nobody is buying. (The place is a bit off track, but only if you look at cars. It's in the middle of a hiking & horseriding areal, and of course there are the visitors to the falconry who might fancy a bite. You can get there by car, too, no problem; you're just not going to drive by by chance.)
And here I am, getting tempted.
I'm not a professional chef. I love cooking and experimenting with food, but I neither have the training nor, if I'm honest, the stamina to survive in a professional kitchen, so I'd probably burn out faster than Fëanor after he ran into those Balrogs. I'd love running a restaurant, specifically one that provides regional, seasonal and - if at all possible - fair, organic food, the kind that changes its menu every couple of weeks and uses ingredients that have gone all but out of memory, the stuff I'm growing in my garden anyway (there'd be room for a kitchen garden on the falconry's grounds, too). I'm reasonably sure that I could come up with dishes people like. I can cook for maybe 10 people. 50 if we're talking about a barbecue. But a whole restaurant with room for more than 100 people? Ahahahahah. No.
So let's bin that thought, I tell my inner Center of Impossible Ambitions (CIA).
Well, says the CIA, don't do it alone then. Delegate. Employ a couple of chefs and aides and you're just, like, the creative head. You can have everything you want, but you don't have to shoulder it alone.
Yeah right, I tell the CIA. Because as a start-up new restaurant head, I'd totally have the means of hiring good chefs and service staff and what-have-you. Of course. I'm not even fit to get a bank credit.
You'd need money to hire the restaurant in the first place anyway, says the CIA. So plan bigger. Let's be honest, you could try to do it on your own but aside from burning up, the results are definitely better if you've got a team.
Actually, there's a thought, how about making it a refugee project? Haven't you been dreaming anyway about setting up some sort of refugee inclusion project?
Well, yes, that gardening idea, but --
That way the town and country and church would support it, and you'd also do a great lot of good. I mean, even better than the organic, regional, seasonal food stuff.
And of course, there are online kickstarters and stuff. How about trying one of those. Hopefully, the internet is full of people who'd support an organic, regional, seasonal, refugee-including restaurant, even if the banks aren't.
You know, that sounds awesome, I tell the CIA. And I'd like to do that. But what about the kids?
Well, while you're already employing people, how about a day-care lady, too? Maybe your chefs and aides can benefit from that, too. I mean, other people have children as well.
Yeah, I guess that could work, says I. But if I decide for this road, that'd forever close the door to all those academic things I'd also like to do. Like, museum?
Pffff, says the CIA. You could turn your kitchen garden into a Museum of Old Plants. Like, the ProSpecieRara [German Seedsavers] stuff you're doing in your home garden? Do it on a professional scale! You can put your own art on the walls. You can have an exhibition about the history of, um, falconry. FALCONRY. Did I mention that it would be on the grounds of a FALCONRY? Like, you could meet real living birds of prey? Every day? As a job?
What's not to love, I sigh. And you know what, I guess I could run it. But I'd have to get all sorts of information first. About employing people in general and employing refugees in particular. About the necessary requests and permissions and whatnot, I mean, I don't even know what it all involves. About professional kitchen-ing. About professional gardening, for that matter. About accounting. About taxes. About everything. And I hate having to deal with administration, and I'd have to do it on a laaarge scale. All that effing paperwork. And I'm not really cut out to be a manager, either. I mean, all those people I'd have to interact with. And all that stuff I'd have to plan. And I'm not a leader.
Though it would be awesome, if only I could set it up.
Yes, says the CIA. So think about it.
And I do.
And generally, that's all I ever do. Think about it. Enthusiastically and with deep longing. And the idea hangs in the air like a brilliant large soap bubble. But I don't, in the end, do anything about it, because I'm afraid that'd make the soap bubble burst.
(But it would be awesome. If only I could get someone else to set it up.)
- - -
While I was typing this up, I noticed that the museum that I did a few seminars with while I was still studying is looking for a research assistant. So maybe I'll rather just write another application. Because the soap bubble might burst. And because I am a coward.