When the barman needs it, his friends come to him to support him.

The chef's friend, lovely lady from Cote D'Ivoire, an artist, comes to help me mourn the sudden passing away of the long time regular.  She reinforces the support the chef has for my place at the old bistrot.  We talk about reading the Old Testament.

The moral support of work shines on me again.  You put so much into it, she tells me.  It's your bar. Give the chef a call.

And I feel better about things, having found the Biblical dignity of working the God's vineyard, administering to His vines.

I turn on the Bose to listen to the radio for work, news on Trump's politics, winning the next battle, his focus, and it is all bad parenting, very bad.


With Carman, late at night, playing guitar as a tribute to Uli, I returned, in the Fall, to the Bible.  To the spirituality of work, by which I mean.  And for the first time in a long time, I took breaths without as much fear and generalized anxiety.  I had found the essence of my job, and as I say, it was one hundred percent a spiritual practice, which sometimes, blinded by concerns, we do not see.

I suppose such things can only come through stress and journeys...