The summer before my 16th birthday I was a kids’ rock climbing instructor at in Salt Lake City. Before work each morning, I’d shoot the breeze with my coworkers. Sarah, Katie and I would laugh, plan the day, or talk about the latest difficult child in one of our classes. We were happy in that little room, and before we faced the day’s work we knew we had each other. But we all knew the real reason we came to work early was Pierre. Pierre owned a French bakery next door to the climbing gym. Pierre was a small, old, French gentleman. Pierre brought us treats.
Anything that hadn’t sold the day before was fair game. We dined on pain au chocolat, inhaled macarons, and smacked our lips after eclairs. Pierre’s best, however, was his pear tart.
“These pears,” halted Pierre in his lilting English, “were grown by mon ami in Bordeaux and shipped across the Atlantic and now I am sharing them with you.”
It was heavenly. The whole summer was heavenly. The people I was around loved me and I loved them, my work was stimulating, and world (or at least, my memory of it) was cast in a golden-brown glow, almost reminiscent of the sepia crust of a pear tart. I tend to live in the past when the present hurts, and it is that summer that I travel back to most of all, a bygone idyllic era.
I had forgotten all about Pierre and his tart until last year, when a castmate of mine said his pear tree had more pears than he could possibly eat, bottle, or bake on his own. The memories came flooding back. I raised my hand. I’d take the pears, and I’d make my own tart to recapture some of the magic that I found that summer.
Spoiler alert: making a tart is hard. Pierre knew what he was doing. The key is to not overmix the crust. I overmixed the crust. It went way past flaky, waved at crumbly, and landed right on falling apart. But I clumsily assembled the tart, put it in the oven, took it out to cool, promptly left the house for 12 hours, got back, fell straight into bed, and woke up reliving the summer before my 16th birthday. I got up and drove to the park with the tart secured in the passenger seat. My attempts at conversation with it were met with silence, but I didn’t mind. It was a good listener. I sat down on my blanket, cut myself a piece and took a bite, not expecting much from a first attempt.
I could almost feel myself falling backward through time. My smile became less jaded, my shoulders loosened, and Mahler’s 9th symphony of flavors exploded in my brain. The crust, if a little dry, supremely flaky. The pears melt-in-your-mouth caramelized, but still crisp enough to snap. And the honey glaze. Oh! The glaze. I half expected to open my mouth and see Sarah and Katie sitting in front of me.
Of course, they weren’t there. I was alone in a park on a blanket with a delicious tart. But, I realized, it was never the tart itself that made that summer so special. It was the community the tart created. Pierre’s tart spanned across workplaces, language barriers, and even continents. It brought together vastly different people. It created its own capsule society by virtue of its tastiness. Here I was, trying to capture that same feeling, without connecting with anyone at all.
Food, and baked food in particular, evokes an image of coming together. Our semantic associations call to mind cavemen sitting around a fire, peasants sharing bread in cottages, even the free breadsticks you share with your friends at Olive Garden. Bread must be shared! It’s tearable. I can’t eat an entire tart on my own. Even my tart had the beginnings of a community: the pears were given by a castmate!
I called a bunch of friends, told them “free pear tart at Liberty Park,” and soon I had my very own faction of people eating, talking, laughing, and connecting over my amateur attempt at baking. I learned something that day that any potluck organizer already knows: food is a surefire way to bring people into relation. Being part of something is truly magnificent. In that moment, we were all pears wrapped in a crust of relationships, and we were as overflowing as a pear tree with too much fruit.
I first wrote this piece about one of the few bright spots in a pretty tough time. I had just been majorly injured, I was directionless after college, and I was going through a difficult breakup. So if it sounds sappy, trite, overly optimistic, if you can feel me grasping at something better behind the words, it is and I was.
But here’s the truth hiding in the quaint: humans have succeeded, evolutionarily, beyond other animals primarily because of our ability to form complex social structures. Our communities are our super power. They’re so powerful that we now pose an existential threat to ourselves and Earth.
Much of what we love is possible because of community. Theatre, music, culture, religion, all of them are dependent on other people. When we seek out connections with other people, we are able to borrow what makes them special to fill in our gaps. One person can’t know everything. Believe me, I’ve tried.
I don’t have any grand sweeping conclusions. All I want to say is that good people are out there. If you take the time to be an includer rather than an excluder, to widen your circle rather than tighten it, you will live a fuller, richer life. It takes real work. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. But if you start the momentum, you will tend to stay in motion. Inertia is a property of both matter and relationships.
It’s a radical act to invite others into your life. It bucks the conventional knowledge that people are out to get you. It is a risky act. We’ve all been hurt before by someone we invited in. I’m not advocating for not protecting yourself. But in instances where we can choose between cooperation and defection, between community and alienation, I invite you to choose compassionate cooperation.
We are nothing without each other.
The reason I reused this piece is a secret that I’ve been sitting on for a while now, and now I can finally tell you all:
The Emily Dickinson Musical is back. Sorry, let me say that a little louder:
The Emily Dickinson Musical is back.
That’s right: the very first musical I wrote, my first experience in full-length composition, the work that I described as “the best, biggest piece of art that I’ve ever finished” is back for a one-day concert at the Green Room 42 on July 7th, 2024. Teagan Reynolds (music and lyrics), Makena Reynolds (book), and I are hard at work making edits, watching audition submissions—we already have over 1200—and generally losing our minds in ecstasy. If any of you want to be there, please get a ticket! We would really appreciate it.
This is a dream come true to be doing my show in the big city. Make one of your dreams come true this week. See ya Friday ;)
-JT
Congratulations on bring Emily Dickinson back! Make it great, you guys!
Loved the essay drawing a connection between sharing food as a way to build community. Inviting people to our dinner table, and into our lives, can be scary, but can provide nourishment through connection that far outlasts the nourishment we draw from food. I like how you highlight this, especially today when division and separation are more and more the norm.
Your essay made me think of examples from the interfaith community where meals create connections that can far outlast the dining. During Ramadan, I've been invited by my Muslim friends to attend an Iftar, the feast that marks the end of their daily fast. There is always a great feeling of connection and community there. I've loved attending a Passover Seder with my Jewish friends, an important ritual in their community commemorating the Exodus story celebrated wiht family and friends. And of course we Christians still talk about Christ's Last Supper meal with his apostles, which undoubtedly gave Him strength to proceed with his atonement, trial and crucifixion.
Good read!
Thank you, JT !!!