There are certain memories that stick like a Jolly Rancher lodged in my molars. They produce a panicky feeling that I want to get it out of my mouth, but the harder I try to wiggle it with my tongue, the more it seems to melt and wedge itself deeper, until I can feel the discomfort of the thing hitting my gum line. It’s the sticky, Jolly Rancher memories that form a pit just under my heart. Could it be a momentary paralysis of my diaphragm? Quite possibly, because I need to remind myself to breathe. When I do eventually start to breathe, the stuck feeling moves its way to the front of my neck, and everything constricts. I’m a three-year-old stuck with my head inside my shirt and my arms trapped above my head. There’s no way to get out of there except thrash around as much as possible, until somehow, I catch a cooler sip of air from what might be the way out.
It’s the feeling of embarrassment. Not minor offenses. I’m talking about embarrassment wrapped in absolute terror and shame, when you realize it wasn’t a nightmare and you decide to bury yourself under the sheets.
One of these moments happened at one of New York City’s finest restaurants. I idolized the pastry chef at this place. She was from Ohio, she was a James Beard award-winning chef, she created stunning, art-like plated desserts, and after I reached out, she invited me to spend a day in her kitchen. I was elated and nervous. I starched my chef coat and made sure my shoes were shiny black. I traveled from Boston to spend the Saturday “staging,” which is kitchen-speak for shadowing or trailing. The kitchen was underground, bright white and expansive for a New York City kitchen. It felt elite and I felt elite being there, especially having polished my shoes so thoroughly.
After a quick tour and completing several simple tasks of fetching ingredients and cubing loaves of brioche for bread-pudding, I kept asking for more. I was trusted to produce a few products and I spent an hour perfectly matching hundreds of macaron tops to bottoms, discarding any with the slightest imperfection. With anticipation, I watched as service began and the staff moved like a perfectly orchestrated organism.
By the end of the night, I felt powerful and confident. I developed a good rapport with the team and the pastry chef took a half-hour of her day to speak with me one-on-one. The time was creeping past 1 AM and I stayed to clean-up. I was tiredly, but enthusiastically clearing a few sheet trays of unused desserts into a low, half speed rack, when I felt a soft resistance against the entering tray.
I immediately stopped moving, but it was too late. My sheet pan had grazed the tops of at least 30 portions of the dessert below. As I slowly retracted the pan, chocolate mousse and glaze adhered to its underside, no longer the image of three-star perfection. I turned to the nearest pastry cook to reveal my folly. There were many wide-eyes of disbelief and the counting of portions to see if there would be enough mise-en-place for the next day’s service. This was followed by a quick dash to make more glaze and other product. I offered to stay, but they sent me home. I didn’t argue.
Over 15 years later, and I’ve only recently started sharing this story. It’s been a silent ghost for years. When I tell it, I still feel that pit rising in my stomach and the haunting feeling of devastation and disappointment in myself.
There are many other examples of embarrassment in my life. For example, in the eighth grade, I was on stage rehearsing a partnered swing-dance for the school musical. It had lots of lifts where I brushed against the legs of my partner and as a result, by the end of the dance, my 1998 break-away joggers had unbuttoned completely up to my underwear. Immediately after the number, I had to walk my exposed, 14-year-old bottom to center stage and deliver a monologue. Yet, this memory doesn’t carry the same weight as the evening in New York City. The middle-school swing dancing incident has melted completely out of my teeth and shifted to humor.
It’s the memories involving emotional error that might be the stickiest and usually, they’re a terrible flavor like green apple. Embarrassing memories come in all forms and they tend to stick around, giving rise to old, but raw feelings. Sometimes it’s breakaway pants, sometimes it's calling a new friend 20 times in an evening because you want to be needed so desperately in a situation where you are not needed, and sometimes its ruining an entire sheet tray of 3-star desserts. I suppose that things eventually become unstuck, and in time, I’ll get my head through the correct hole of the shirt, and the air will feel much cooler. And ultimately, maybe I'll learn something from these embarrassments because I now always look twice before putting a sheet-tray onto the rack.
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