Time doing this is time well spent

This week in goosebumps: mushroom serendipity in Kokoro and The Bear

Single-strand embroidery, stitched 2019.

This morning I read a passage in

Beth Kempton

’s lovely new book, Kokoro, in which she describes a visit to Dairyuji Temple, where she encounters a statue of the Zen master Dōgen and “a temple cook drying mushrooms in the midday sun.” She writes,

The story goes that Dōgen asked the elderly man why he was working, given that he was a senior monk who could delegate his tasks and, besides, it was such a hot day. The monk replied that if he didn’t do the work himself, he would not have the experience of it, so he would not gain the benefit of the understanding that only comes with experience. He also said that the day’s conditions were the right conditions for drying mushrooms. The monk had no idea what the conditions would be like another day—it might rain, it might be cold—so ‘now’ was the time and he was the person to do it.

This passage made me gasp, because just last night I rewatched the “Forks” episode of The Bear, Season 2. If you’ve seen it, your mind might already have made the connection.

In this episode, Richie, a family friend/de facto cousin of the main character, Carmen, spends a week working as a stage (pronounced “stahj,” a kind of intern) at the best restaurant in the world. Richie and Carmen have been clashing, and Richie (a loud, obnoxious, cantankerous guy) has been a thorny, problem-causing presence in the restaurant Carmen is trying to coax into life. 

Since he spends his first few days as stage doing nothing but polishing forks, Richie views the situation as a punishment. He’s surly and resentful. But by midweek, his understanding of his role (in the restaurant and in the world), and of the meaning of a service job in general, begins to change. 

“Forks” is one of my favorite episodes of any TV show, ever. I’ve rewatched it several times independently of the rest of the series.

Including last night.

I'm just peeling mushrooms for the lamb des tournelles.

One of its best scenes is a moment of connection Richie shares with the restaurant owner and star chef, Terry, played by Olivia Colman. 

Gosh. Here’s a master artisan carefully, slowly attending to the preparation of mushrooms. A man in the role of learner asks why she is doing this menial task herself instead of delegating it to someone below her. Terry responds, “I like starting the day like this.”

Richie: Why?

Terry: Respect? Feels attached. I think time doing this is time well spent.

Richie: Time well spent? That’s what it’s all about?

Terry: Yeah, I think so.

Respect is a beautifully explored theme in the episode, as Richie comes first to respect the work and mission (service) of the staff around him, and eventually, by the end of his week at the restaurant, to respect himself. It’s a slowly unfolding transformation for a character who starts the series seeming unworthy of respect from anyone at all, least of all himself.

I went looking to see if there were any interviews with the writer that mentioned the Dōgen story as an inspiration for that scene. And—well, search engines are not what they were, are they? I haven’t yet found any references. Maybe it’s a coincidence. If so: a goosebumps-inducing one. Those mushrooms! A master monk/chef choosing to spend time on a humble, menial task because of a quiet lesson the activity whispers to anyone who slows down enough to hear it. 

I keep thinking about Chef Terry saying it “feels attached.” It’s a curious phrasing and in the scene it’s a quietly powerful line. She’s evoking a sense of presence, of being in the present moment—that state of mind that is so, so difficult for most of us as the world gets noisier and screenier. 

Time doing this is time well spent. In Beth Kempton’s book, the Dōgen statue story appears in a chapter called “Time.” 

I found myself coming back to the idea of heart-mindfulness, and the ability to tune in to the intelligence of a moment, and recognize that it contains all of the past and all the potential of the future, here and now, offering a new beginning now and now and now. When we are heart-mindful we act from inside the moment, rather than observing it from outside. 

Chef Terry, explaining how to peel a mushroom: Hold it like this. Knife at 1300. Grab the end and just peel like that. So slowly.

We’re observing from outside, but she is inside the moment with each mushroom, each slow glide of the knife.

There’s so much to contemplate in this scene, but what caught me today was the simplicity, the calm, of these slow, respectful attentions to mushrooms. Like the elderly monk in Beth Kempton’s book. The noticing, the presence. The openness to what a small task done with respect can teach the doer. 

A couple of years ago, I took an online embroidery class from master needleworker Sarah Homfray. She began by teaching the traditional technique of stitching without knots. At first (like Richie muttering over his forks) I grumbled a bit at the video: do I really care if the backside of my embroidery is full of knotted ends? (I actually quite enjoy the chaotic mess of a knotty, crisscrossing wrong side, but that’s a whole nother topic.) But I wanted to try it Sarah’s way, the way generations of women took pride in for centuries, and to my surprise: I found I loved it. The slow, quiet act of securing a thread with two tiny stitches. It felt…well, I don’t know that I’d have found this word for it at the time, but now I recognize it as: it felt respectful. The care, the attention.

Hold it like this.

So slowly.