Words by Bryce Coulton
Photos by Roland Massow
November 14, 2019
feat. in Issue 2

Living Beyond the Stove

Issue 2 : The second issue has exclusive content you won’t see here.

The banging on the car window was insistent, and in slow-motion I became aware of what happened. I turned and saw the floodlight intensity in a color of clear white, blurring the surrounding blackness. My thoughts filled with dread; had I jeopardized the safety of anyone else besides myself?

It was the middle of the night which displayed the blackness and a floodlight which beamed down from the front of a train.

The train lumbered slowly through a railroad crossing with the barriers down. Yet, I had zigged and zagged my way between the dropped barriers and drove square into a moving train. Yes, a train.

A train wasn’t in my field-of-view when I wondered what tomorrow would look like as soon as I stopped dragging olive-green duffel bags from one sandy, monochrome-colored place to the next after twenty years in the military. I wanted to feel settled and stable and part of a community, instead of the transient that I was. I felt I could make that happen through food. I had no idea what that life looked like or where it would be, but I knew I wanted to cook. I wanted to learn about and understand food. Maybe I could create new routines that would be attached to this place. Maybe I could create a home. Maybe cooking would slow my pace just long enough for me to take a breath and become connected to where I was again.

Throughout my childhood and the decades of that transient military lifestyle, I was lucky enough to live in and visit places where food was a way in which you shared a bit of who you are, a part of where you come from. Growing up in New Jersey, Saturday mornings were a ritual of stopping into the deli to grab mounds of capicolla and scooping full-sour pickles from a barrel so tall, us kids had to get up on our tippy-toes just to peek over the rim as our dad would chat with the other Kaiser Roll regulars.

As an American overseas, people were enthusiastic about sharing a part of themselves through their food. We’d wander and weave through Turkish back-alleys searching for a late-night restaurant because our friends insisted we have a traditional Adana meal. I would settle into a sodden friselle covered with fresh tomatoes and olive oil with my Puglian landlady as I sat on my sturdy, marble front stoop and she on her wobbly, wooden chair. In Crete, the “Village Wine,” as we called it, would catch you right in the middle of two bad choices - so strong, any more than two glasses and you had a long night in front of you or it’d make a quick left-turn towards vinegar if you held onto it for more than a few days.

We tend to fear opening up and asking for help because it exposes our shame, anger, isolation, anxiety, depression. A shame from not meeting expectations. An anger from knowing we know better. An isolation from family and friends. An anxiety from a future that doesn’t yet exist. A depression from a past that can’t be changed.

These people, places, and foods that I came across again and again never hid what they were all about. Everything was plainly laid out in front of me. “This is who we are, and you need to love it as much as we do!” It’s from that mindset The French Bulldog was built. Our guests also needed to love the foods we had come to love. Every part of the restaurant was open and transparent - from a massive window display of prosciutto and pepperoni hanging in-wait, to the counter where your server was also your cook and the food was prepared just beyond arm’s reach as you sat at your barstool. It was the kind of place my partners and I wanted to eat at ourselves, but it didn’t exist. So, we took these experiences of people, places, and foods and we went ahead and built it - a restaurant which had no precedent.

And we achieved what we set out to do. In fact, we overachieved. I would never have thought that from a tiny, back kitchen with nothing but an oven and a six-foot prep table we would have created a place that was filled on weekend nights, a waiting list of guests with their cocktails in-hand, holding them over until they could sit down to a simple plateful of funky meats & cheeses. “Finally,” I thought to myself. Maybe now I could become part of a community; and it could happen because of the food I cooked. I was feeding myself by feeding others, trying to make folks feel as if we were there only for them. In part, we were, yet the more I was there for everyone else, the less I knew how to be there for myself.

The military had filled my every breath with a value of Service before Self...the professional over the personal. I applied a similar sense of sacrifice and commitment to learning how to cook. I put aside friendships, family, relationships - the ways in which I had always connected with people - to become not just good in this new career, but damn good. I wanted my work to be seen as credible in its creativity and quality. As a person, I wanted acceptance.

Without realizing it, I began to tie my work to my identity, becoming separated from my interest in travel, language, movies, reading, the outdoors. Eventually, a cook was not only what I did: it became all of who I was.

Slowly, I began a cycle that was at odds with itself; a need to achieve limited the time and energy I had for myself or the community connection I sought. I used work as a convenient excuse to avoid getting together with friends because I was feeling socially anxious. Bit-by-bit, I was abandoning the community. It was ironic I chose to cook as a means of connection, but struggled to feel at ease outside of the restaurant.

Without a cutting board and a chef’s knife to hide behind, what did I have to offer?

Drinking became a part of this new routine to ease my unease. Go to work, go to the bar, go home. The bar was a refuge from work, home, people - and even from myself. I could simultaneously connect with people (or my thoughts) and abandon them (or my thoughts) and hide in a crowd all within the same physical and mental space as long as there was a drink as a handy substitute for a chef’s knife.

Usually, my drinking was harmless and occasional. I rarely had alcohol in the house, but the bar and other social settings were the places I found it. Most people can make a quick stop at the bar, have one-for-the-road and head-off home without a problem. That wasn’t always the case for me. I could keep it together for a week or so, but then there would be an issue at work and the typical drink or two became many, many more.

For years, I would drive myself home from the bar. If I just drove slow enough, rolled down the window, took the side streets, and avoided stoplight intersections - I’d make it home just fine. I’d carefully park the car, quietly roll into the house, set the morning alarm...and be able to do it again the next day. This wheel turned for quite awhile, until it suddenly stopped.

The night the train and I crossed paths, I recall walking out of the bar and sliding into the driver’s seat. At some point after driving off, I must have blacked-out. It wasn’t the first time I drove in that condition, but it became the last.

My first thought was to ask if anyone else was hurt - or worse. Relief flooded my mind upon hearing that the extent of damage was only to the hood of my car. Still, there was nothing forgivable in my actions. But despite the accountability, one question hung in the air.

Who had I become to let myself get into this situation?

This didn’t happen to me; I happened to me. I didn’t get here because of anything or anyone else. This was mine to own. Yet, I had nearly given it away, this life of mine, and I could have taken someone else’s. Even now, when I consider the possibility of lives given away and lives taken away, I feel like collapsing where I stand.

In the days following the accident, it was clear I was burnt out and I couldn’t compartmentalize my emotions anymore. I had to bring a sense of control to the professional and personal parts of my life by addressing my relationship with alcohol. In doing so, I had to acknowledge I was and I am still an alcoholic. As difficult as it is to consider, when the light at the end of the tunnel is an actual train, I can’t say I was ever truly in control of how I dealt with alcohol.

I had two choices: either I was going to continue to put aside the parts of life that made me whole, or I was going to learn how to live confidently vulnerable with my screwups and messes. I attended AA meetings and began individual and group substance abuse meetings at the VA, and came to an understanding. I realized I hoped for acceptance through my identity with food. Conversely, I avoided the day-to-day issues that were right in front of me. On the one hand, I was trying to shape a future hope; while on the other hand, I wasn’t dealing with my present reality.

After several months of meetings, therapy, self-care, and the support of friends, I understood that alcohol wasn’t the only thing I had to clear from my life. I needed to step away from the environment of the restaurant. I couldn’t commit to the restaurant unless I also committed to sacrificing my own well-being. Leaving wasn’t part of my original plan. Hell, the idea of opening a restaurant at all wasn’t part of any original plan, but establishing and maintaining self-control within an environment full of a nourishing energy was the new plan. As fulfilled as I was in feeding others, I needed the space to take care of myself and get my mask on first. Then, maybe I’d be able to help the person next to me.

So I left the restaurant I built - The French Bulldog - and began pulling my life back together, picking up the parts of me I had lost along the way. I began adding the things into my life that allow me to tell this story one layer at a time - therapy, meditation, relationships, setting boundaries and stepping away when they’re crossed...even writing. I realize I don’t have anything more to prove; I never did. I realize I don’t have to be perfect; I never could be.

Years later and I still have a fear I may revert to my old ways as I continue to sort through who I am, try to wrap myself around it, and keep hold of it as best I can. I’ve been sober since the accident, but life happens and sometimes I’ll think, “Yup, this is a time when I would have a drink.” But now, I don’t have that drink. I can still be adamant in believing I should persist with a situation a bit longer and make a positive change. But now, I’m quicker to acknowledge an environment that isn’t healthy and pull myself away from it. I’ll continue to struggle with wanting to escape with a drink; with feeling a need to achieve in order to prove myself; with depression and feeling paralyzed by it. But now, I know I’ll find my way through it. I always have. But this time I’ll have help.

Whether I’m looking to therapy, meditation, friends, or family - I’m making a shift from the stubborn stoicism we often carry around which keeps many of us from asking for help. I don’t know how open I would have been in seeking out help had it not been for a friend at the restaurant who had dealt with therapy. Knowing someone else’s story took away the embarrassment or stigma in saying, “I can’t do this on my own.”

We tend to fear opening up and asking for help because it exposes our shame, anger, isolation, anxiety, depression. A shame from not meeting expectations. An anger from knowing we know better. An isolation from family and friends. An anxiety from a future that doesn’t yet exist. A depression from a past that can’t be changed.

In turn, these things can make us feel weak inside. It’s challenging to allow ourselves to be so vulnerable as to ask for help. Yet, it’s our confidence, not our weaknesses, that allows us to say those other three words that make us feel exposed, “I need help.” When our vulnerability has a voice we become increasingly confident in that vulnerability. Vulnerability breeds confidence, which breeds even more vulnerability, and the cycle continues its momentum from within.

In the middle of all of this I had a birthday, and a friend told me, “Fifty is a reward denied to many.” I am constantly reminded of the rewards that surround my life and what I nearly gave away. I am grateful to coach a team of eight-year-olds and give out high-fives after a base hit. I am grateful to share a fishing trip with a best friend. I am grateful to say, “I love you.” I am grateful for all of my truths - messy and otherwise.

I am grateful I can finally be OK with not being OK.

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