Restaurant server dancing

(I actually wrote this over a year ago - it's been a while since my one and only restaurant serving job. But I still find it pretty interesting.)

Clint, the manager at the Early Girl, was describing yesterday those moments when tempers are flaring in the kitchen – among those kitchen workers who are not temperamentally cool to begin with, working in the heat, etc. – and your job as server is to make that absolutely seamless when you hit the restaurant floor, to be warm and charming and peaceful, betraying no clue of the stress behind the scene…and to be really peaceful dealing with the stressed-out guys in the kitchen, to be the oil on troubled waters, to not let your temper enflame things. He described it consciously as a kind of Zen process and remembered fondly those moments when he had managed to go into a kind of “zone” doing it – to dance it. But more it just drove him out of doing that work, he felt it wasn’t worth it for him, wasn’t truly his work, and he was glad to move out of the line of fire into restaurant managing – his current work.

Clint said another funny thing. He clearly enjoyed taking the 10-15 minutes talking to me, just standing at the front counter of the restaurant at this 2 p.m. time, with few people entering. “It’s really different talking to someone who wants to go into this work – mostly people get stuck in it.” I’m sure it is different that I am – here and now – so excited about entering this work, so much seeing the spiritual possibilities in it, but I’m sure it’s not unprecedented. I’m sure other servers have thought, do think about all this.

Later, I thought more about the whole dance image. I want serving to be an inspiration to me to keep my body strong, supple, responsive, dancing. I want to use Tai Chi and various forms of dance and yoga to facilitate the emergence of those “zone”, danced moments on the restaurant floor. I want to keep a vision of being both very grounded and solid, but also very light on my feet. Why can this not be the spiritual practice I have really been looking for – a movement meditation that has some pressures built in to keep my attention (like downhill skiing), a Tai Chi with more skin in the game.