Baking Bread and Other Essential Skills for our Time

One of the hardest things I ever did was help start a school. It was a time full of possibilities, but was also flooded with unknowns and uncertainty—Would we have enough chairs? Would all our curriculum be ready in time? When would we know our final schedule? In that time of start up—and even throughout the first year, I relied deeply on my colleagues and my leaders. After all, we were all bought into the same dream and all committed to making this new school into a place of new opportunity, rich learning, and deep community.And—it was hard.

One of the gifts of our school model was having a coach who could help us figure out some of the unknowns and who had gone through it before. Jon had lots of experience in starting up new schools, including one where he was a leader. He recognized the panicked looks and the exasperation when we uncovered something else that we needed to solve for. But one of the most magnificent gifts Jon gave us came in a simple recommendation to all of us—“Make bread”.

At first Jon’s words felt like one more thing to add to the to-do list and I felt resistance.  Why would I make bread? When would I find time to make it? Who was going to eat it?

 But as he unpacked the message, I felt the compelling vision of what it held.

Jon explained that baking bread offered us a chance to start and end a process within one day. It also allowed us to watch something come together with many ingredients, create chemistry magic, and then transform into a delicious reward that could be enjoyed.

Jon’s recommendation came with knowing that all the issues in starting a school were never going to be solved on such a short timeline, and there was never going to be one recipe that could yield immediate results, but the bread could give us hope. Bread became the metaphor for what was possible, a small sense of completion, a tiny glimpse into magic and awe.

That year was full of lessons learned—both good and bad. I learned how to be a better teacher, a better teammate, and how to create a school out of an idea on paper. And—I baked a lot. To remind myself of what it looked like to create and finish in a satisfying way.

In this moment, I feel myself tapping into old feelings—of unknowns, of sudden discoveries that need to be attended to, of not feeling sure-footed about how I am showing up, but I am returning to Jon’s words. Yes, I’m doing some actual baking, but I’m trying to scale the immensity of what is happening in our country to something small and tangible that I can witness today.

Sometimes that comes through a coaching conversation that helps a client return to their center and find clarity. Sometimes that comes from a few hours volunteering at a local nonprofit that addresses food insecurity.Sometimes that means just making someone laugh and take a breath in the busy-ness of the world. Sometimes that means just centering in nature and reminding myself of all the members in our ecosystem. Whatever breaking bread feels like and looks like for you—short term, small magic, delight—find it and practice it.

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