White Jacket Required

by Jenna Weber

  During the next few weeks, I began to pack up my life. I didn’t really have a plan, and it felt almost freeing, the way you feel after collecting a basket of fresh produce from the farmer’s market and have a total blank canvas in front of you on which to create your own masterpiece. I started to feel more and more confident that I had made the right decision. I needed to get out of Florida. I knew I wanted to live in Healdsburg, in the town that had originally sparked something so deep in me in July. It was a small town, full of families and foodies, and I loved that it was close to both the ocean and the mountains. More important, there was a certain sense of peace there that my soul ached for. I felt like I could breathe, in a way I’d never experienced in Tampa.

  I spent the next few months thinking about making the move and putting out feelers for jobs. I signed up to attend a food blogging conference in San Francisco in the fall, so I knew that I’d be able to visit California soon, even if I wasn’t quite ready to move there. Then, one September day, my phone rang with a part-time job offer working at a different winery in Dry Creek Valley, only about fifteen minutes from Healdsburg. This winery was small and organic, and had apparently heard about me when I had been in California with Kendall-Jackson. Without even pausing to think, I said yes. Later that night, I took a deep breath before cancelling my return flight from San Francisco. With a click of the mouse, I had completely changed my life. I stared at the computer screen with my new flight email confirmation for about ten minutes, until my mom called me down for dinner.

  Adam had also been offered a job in the wine industry and had accepted as well. Over the weeks our friendship had blossomed via long phone conversations and lengthy emails, and we both couldn’t wait to spend more time getting to know each other and exploring Northern California together. Ironically, Rocky would be Adam’s new intern, so the three of us would all be together again. Since the guys were moving there before I was, they offered to let me crash on their futon until I found a place of my own. I gratefully accepted, laughing to myself at the craziness of the situation.

  In five days I would be taking my second-ever cross-country flight from Florida, this time to move my entire life. Funny, the thoughts that run through your mind when you are packing up your old life for a new one—the things that you keep, the things that define you, and the things that hold you back. Out of all my hundreds of cookbooks, I only packed five. I figured I could send for the rest later and didn’t have space for everything. Also included in my “California pile” were old photos, journals, and poems; my favorite dresses, skirts, and T-shirts that formed a timeline of the past six years from sorority parties through culinary school; my yoga mat. Having my whole world reduced to objects felt surreal. I bundled myself up in my faded college sweatpants and an old T-shirt and padded down the stairs to enjoy one of my last meals at my parents’ house: my mom’s “famous” chicken enchiladas. She had been making them practically forever, and they never failed to comfort me, no matter the situation. Before I knew it, the big morning had arrived. My flight was leaving at 7 a.m. out of Tampa, and I was lugging along two fifty-pound suitcases stuffed to the very brim, a journal, my beat-up point-and-shoot camera, and a book of quotes by Paulo Coelho that a friend had given me for my journey. My dad insisted on being the one to drive me to the airport early that morning.

  “Jennifer, you know your mother and I are very, very proud of you,” he said, and I could hear the pain thick in his voice at the idea of losing one child exactly five months after he’d permanently lost the other.

  “Dad, I’ll be fine. Really. You guys have no need to worry . . . ” I told him with confidence in my voice, trying to mask the fact that I, too, was terrified.

  “You were never meant to be fenced in and you have so many extraordinary gifts. I guess it’s just your turn to fly,” he said. “We both know we can’t keep you here even though we may want to! And you know you can always talk to us about anything, and we will always be here for you.”

  “I know. Thanks, Dad. It’s going to be fine, I promise. You are only a phone call away, and I’ll see you again before we know it.” I said this without really knowing when the next time would be. We pulled into the terminal, and my dad stopped by the curb.

  He lifted my suitcases from the trunk, and I hoisted my backpack up over my shoulders. “Well, I guess this is it!” I said and gave him a long, tight hug.

  “You be safe now, you hear? I love you.” My dad had tears in his eyes, and I realized that this was only the second time I had ever seen him cry.

  “I love you, too. I’ll call you this afternoon,” I said and watched him walk away and get back into the car while I was left standing there with my life stuffed into two bags and a backpack, waiting for a plane to take me west.

  Once on the plane, I sat back in my seat and took a very deep breath. I couldn’t believe this was really it; I was really moving away on my own, to return only on holidays. I was going to start a whole new life in a place I had only visited once for a short weekend. I had nowhere to live. Never before had my life been so spontaneous . . . and scary. I pulled out the Coelho book and read as my plane crossed the sky.

  Whenever we need to make a very important decision, it is best to trust impulse and passion, because reason usually tries to remove us from our dream, saying that the time is not yet right. Reason is afraid of defeat, but intuition enjoys life and its challenges.

  My decision to leave everything I had known and move to California was purely based on passion and intuition. I had a feeling deep down that California was where I was supposed to be, and so I simply went. I felt remarkably the same as I did on my very first morning of Basic Skills class, when the kitchen was still quiet and I had lined up my sharp knives at my station and tied on my apron tight. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I knew that it was going to be a really great adventure.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN MY DREAM TO WRITE THIS BOOK. THE journey hasn’t been the easiest, but after three years of late nights, part-time jobs, and dozens chocolate chip cookies, I finally have something I am so very proud of. I couldn’t have done any of it without my family and friends, who constantly believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself; my editors, who helped me become a better writer every day; and most of all, without all of you who continue to read my website every single day without fail, lift my spirits when I’m down, and always give me a reason to smile. I cannot thank you enough for your constant support and encouragement throughout this journey. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.