"What if it rains?"
Chance, certainty and the paradox of control
A months long hiatus from a single word shared here finally comes to an end! The pause speaks to what happens every spring in the bakery: like paddlers in the current of a river as it pitches downward into a rapid, we experience a quickening which arrives in successive waves, beginning with the opening of farmers’ market in late April, crests for the high summer months and sustains through late autumn. Carving out time to write is a habit I’m working to strengthen, but I’ve also gotten comfortable with the idea that half a dozen essays a year is about right for my writing temperament and profession, so if any of you were wondering what happened, this seedling I planted in January hasn’t died, it just went unwatered for a bit.
2024 is our seventeenth season of weekly Tuesday pizza nights at the bakery. From the beginning, I’ve maintained that this is an all-weather event, one for which there is no cancellation policy. Given that the first seven seasons were held completely outdoors, with no shelter of any kind for me at the oven or guests, it meant that until we built the pavilion, it was a somewhat audacious stance. After a couple hundred chances and every imaginable summertime weather condition to test the wisdom of this approach, the answer comes back over and over in the affirmative.
A number of you reading haven’t attended pizza night, but put simply, if Norman Rockwell were still around painting scenes of communal revelry, a sunny Pizza Night would be a prime candidate for his next work. It epitomizes abundance, from the surroundings, to the pavilion, and the buoyant mood that lifts off the place so palpably I’ve wondered at times if we could bottle it up and sell it during bleak winter months. Not taking anything away from the very real joy that’s present, it’s also a scene of a few hundred people carrying out the specific plans they made earlier that day. Choosing which time slot, which friends to invite, what toppings to bring, whether they’ll bring a blanket or chairs etc etc. When mother nature announces that her plans are different from all of ours, a fascinating and I think very healthy thing happens. What is the “healthy thing”? While I try not to be overly sentimental or preachy, spend the next three minutes reading to find out.
Because it is in my nature to take small things that are mostly symbolic and expand their scope, like an old-fashioned slide projector that reveals a picture many times the size of the original, what I’m after here goes beyond the specific, and hopefully sheds light on something more fundamental about us as humans. So, while on one hand this piece is about why, with several hundred people in attendance weekly, I will never write up an “in the event of bad weather” clause, it’s also about savoring life in a way that I believe is only possible when we choose to stand in the rain every once in-awhile.
Measured against the total guest count, the number of calls is very few, but when multiplied by how many summer days call for a chance of showers, (50% or more?) and the number of years we’ve held this event, there are literally hundreds of “what happens if it rains?” messages tucked away in the pizza night memory archive at this point. I’d guess that my universal response: “pizza night is an all-weather event” is met with incredulity at least half the time. “Umm, how could this possibly work if it rains, all the people and pizza making and picnicking… there are so many ways that it all must grind to a wet, messy halt and turn into chaos, right?”
To varying degrees, control is a seductive dance partner for all of us. Feeling that we possess the power to be in charge comes close on the heels of control and these two forces together, control and power, drive the majority of human endeavor. The idea that we can make and then execute our plans lies at the core of our sense of order and well-being. It’d go against some very basic tenets of existence to pretend that some amount of having things our way isn’t a good thing, but there are very real costs that come along with the pursuit of eliminating chance in the name of being master of every moment. “Whoa, Noah, you sure you’re just writing about the weather policy at pizza night?” Yup, hang tight, I’ll get back there, I promise.
Whether we like it or not, from the moment we’re born, we crawl, walk, stumble and dance through the world as unfathomably complex, vast and highly sensitive, sensory receptor contraptions. The millions of years spent evolving our nervous systems led to this, and despite our unrelenting efforts, especially so in the past handful of decades, to separate ourselves from experiencing the world in an immersive, sensory rich way, (I’m looking at you climate-controlled transportation, buildings and digitally mediated everything) we still possess the capacity to fully (and yes, messily) “be here now”. It’s not my place to say what constitutes time well spent for you or anyone else, but taking a moment to reflect on what evolution sets before us, and my own lived experience, I just believe things are better when instead of backing away or bowing out, we consciously choose to lean in. It’s an insidious, not insignificant form of robbery when every time it’s “too hot, too cold, too wet, too snowy, too windy, too late or too early” we allow the alarmed nature of these warnings to dictate our lives for us, forfeiting the chance to just be okay despite what’s going on. I have a feeling too, that if more of us could approach all sorts of situations deemed challenging or scary, with an attitude of okayness, ease and contentment would organically follow suit. So what’s the thesis here? Rainy pizza nights are a gift, just one version of a myriad such possibilities, offered to all of us who stick them out, to let go of a tiny bit of the control we’re used to, and the illusions it affords us, and a chance to step across the threshold into trusting that things can and do work out, even if you have to eat your pizza standing under an eave, or umbrella, or shoulder to shoulder with someone you’ve never met. If these sound challenging or unpleasant, still hang on, because when the rain passes, you’ll be treated to some of the most spectacular views you’ll ever see.
Come find out for yourself, forecast is for rain this week.