About a month ago, an article about CNN’s Anthony Bourdain appeared on my social media feed. And, while I can’t remember who posted it or the exact words they used to draw me in, I took an interest in reading about this seemingly quirky host of a show I’d never watched.
The article had little to do with Bourdain’s enormously successful career. Th piece was about his modest beginnings and, I’m a sucker for a good story about rising to predominance from nothing.
The story, as I began to understand, was that of a New York City chef whose life turned upside down after submitting a piece he’d written, called Don’t Eat Before Reading This, to The New Yorker magazine in 1999.
As Bourdain told it, he was late on rent and heading into another downward spiral when his mother persuaded him to mail the article to the magazine. A few months later, still broke and working his way through kitchens in the city, Bourdain’s piece was published and his television and literary career was created.
His rise was as meteoric as his fall.
That article was the only thing I knew about Mr. Bourdain. His show, CNN’s Parts Unknown, never appealed to me. I mean, my wife had to convince me of the existence of vegetables other than corn for the first three years of our marriage. Hell, I complain about a $12 cheeseburger so his tasting of ornate meals in distant places wasn’t a great fit for me.
His rags to riches story intrigues me, though, as much as his suicide has me shaking my head. And, as I normally do, I tend to think about the tragic news of Bourdain’s passing in the context of how my kids will ask me to explain it.
I guess, I’ll say something like – Sometimes the most famous of people can be the loneliest.
Or, maybe I’ll take the opportunity to introduce them to Bourdain’s work and Parts Unknown, saying – See, he loved food and turned it into a career of traveling around the world and eating! You can do the same if you work hard enough.
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These answers will satisfy my kids insatiable need to be in the know. But, in all honesty, I’m not sure I’ll be heeding my own advice. In fact, I know I have friends that are struggling – maybe not as badly as Bourdain – and I haven’t taken the time to help, to call or to ask.
In fact, if there are days that go sideways for me, I’m not one to ask for help or to phone a friend either. I let things boil up and fall back on fact that doing so is a “man thing.” We’re tough – able to shoulder the load, to push through.
Stories like Anthony Bourdain’s, though, make me think that pushing through might not be for the best.
In 1999, in the piece that made Bourdain an icon, he described kitchens as “the last refuge of the misfit…a place for people with bad pasts to find a new family.”
We all need a refuge – a place to be at peace.
For me, that place changes all the time – a running trail, to chat with an old friend, a cold drink, watching my 9 year-old’s dance recital, a glorious sunset, a cool swim or the glowing night of my laptop late at night.
And, though I’m no chef or foodie, I can take a lesson from Bourdain by rearranging his thought a bit as it relates to my family and I.
After all, my family cares not about any bad pasts and hopes only that we find refuge in our own occasional misfit-ery.
