One and the Same

By Colton Guy Nelson

Wren, a collected and intelligent wine expert and restaurant owner explores and reveals herself in a perspective-shifting introspection of what it means to be happy. Daniel, chef and co-owner of the restaurant "Blackbird" runs a service with Wren, from beginning to end, assisted by their mutual supportive friend Grayson. Each chapter is told fro

• Language: English
• Publisher: Colton Guy Nelson
• Release date: Mar 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088090503

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cover-image, One and the Same

One and the Same



Group IMG_1114.png Caption: A Novella by… A Novella by Colton Nelson

For me, but for you, too.

Table of Contents

Wren

Wren and Grayson

Grayson

Grayson and Daniel

Daniel

Wren and Daniel

Blackbird

For me, but for you, too

Chapter 1

Wren

I strain to open my eyes under the thick comforter covering my exhausted body. Soft piano music relentlessly gripping at my eyelids as I resist rolling over to snooze the public domain melody of my alarm clock. I slowly rise, most of the bones in my naked body creaking as I sit on the side of my bed, gazing out the window at a dark and hazy sky. Monday morning, 4 am, time to start trying to remember why I love my job.

I finally put to rest the poor entrapped pianist in my phone and stand up, desperately rubbing my eyes and slapping my face a couple of times before brushing my long brown hair over my shoulders. No matter how much time I give myself in the morning, all I can ever muster is a quick shower, some old coffee, and a new shirt. So often to I entrust confidence and competency in the power of a new shirt.

I never wear make up, regardless of the constant expectation that I should oblige the world to camouflage my face to feel assured and whole with myself. As if the designer paints and hues could shield me from the world. As if make up will change the things about myself I wish that would. I stare at myself in the mirror, my (still wet) dark brown hair draping my shoulders, my sharp eyebrows, my pale complexion set against dark green eyes. I’ve always been tall. I’ve always been broad. I often wonder if I was smaller or less my life would be different. Either way, make up can’t cover my insecurities. All I’ve got is wit, confidence, and a full set of thighs. I can be satisfied with that, I think to myself in the mirror. Or at least I can believe that at 4:28 in the morning.

I finally tear my face away from every detail in the mirror, feed my cat, and walk out into the cold air of January. It’s time for inventory.

After stopping at a gas station for bags of salty carbohydrates and enough Red Bull to euthanize a horse, I pull into the restaurant. My restaurant. My child. My burden. Everything I have ever wanted to fill the holes left in me by my life, everything that keeps me going, everything that when I think of how I haven’t done enough with my life, the stoic and tall brick building stands there. Always waiting for me in the cold to come inside and turn on the lights. The only thing I’ve ever been able to bring to life and it mean something.

I briskly walk up to the back gate with my (STILL WET) hair practically freezing in the early morning air. I squeeze past the dumpsters and fiddle for my keys, trying every single one of them until, of course, the last one opens the heavy metal back door. I get inside and feel around the walls for the alarm panel. I really should figure out a more harmonious way to detour intruders. I reach to my left and slide my hand up the cold metal wall to flip the light switch. I squint as my eyes adjust to the 800 square feet of chrome, steel, ranges, and ovens before me. The smell of stock reducing from the night before fresh in the air, mingling with acrid scents of bleach and stainless steel polish from a successful close.

I was just here, no less than 3 hours ago. But I can still hear the clattering of the dish pit as my 18 year old dishwasher desperately finishes his shift, the sous chef relentlessly screaming tickets, the grill cook telling me he can’t come in tomorrow because he knows he is going to get too fucked up at the industry bar up the road. And most importantly the roar of the dining room. Every fiber of my people-pleasing heart loves to make these people happy. Every fiber of my people-pleasing heart wants these people to love me.

I make my way around the kitchen to make sure nothing devastating happened over night until I find my way into the office around the corner from the back door to the kitchen. If you’ve never seen a restaurant office, but you have seen a broom closet, you have all the information you need. I sit down at my wall-mounted computer and open the first of many energy drinks to compliment my breakfast of cold coffee and Cheetos, and print my inventory sheets.

I am the General Manager of my restaurant I opened two years ago called Blackbird. I’ve always been in the industry. I worked in my grandfathers bar from a young age, always dealing with the inappropriate haggling of old men, before graduating to the lustrous scene of sports bars while working on my undergraduate music degree. It was only until I started the great investment of my Masters in Violin Performance that I started working in fine dining. More money, less shifts, more time to write my thesis, I thought to myself. But once I found myself employed and successfully completed the bootcamp of fine dining training, I realized that part time wasn’t really what they were looking for. I gave them 40, 50, sometimes 60 hours a week (both on and off the clock), and finished my Masters.

But somewhere along the way, the beverage director I was working for at the time put a glass of Chardonnay in my hands from a bottle a table returned earlier in the evening, unsatisfied with the quality. She told me to hold it to my nose and breathe it in, and in that moment I fell in love with clementines and apple blossoms. I was completely enraptured in the beauty and elegance of French vanilla and cedar wood. I found myself in an orchard of golden apples on a cool summer night. I found a clear and sincere wonder in a glass of wine someone wanted to pour out. And despite my inhibitions and prior plans of the future, in that moment I fell in love with something I never even knew existed.

I started playing the violin at such a young age, my mother demanding that I be involved in music. I couldn’t imagine struggling with confidence at this point in my life, but was absolutely terrified of people when I was small. Crowds, public speaking, ANY speaking; if I was talking to anyone for any reason, I would immediately blush, freeze-up, panic. So I practiced at home, and in just a couple of years I became good- really good. I was going to music camps, summer schools, additional clinics; people were giving me lessons for free to say that they taught me during their career. I learned two things from a very young age, what it meant to be professional, and more importantly, what it meant to be talented. Both very valuable lessons.

But despite all of that, I think that is why I turned to this industry. Not just restaurants, but wine in particular. While I enjoy the nuance and execution of elegant service and cuisine, there is something uniquely magical about the grape juice. It’s so much like music. Mass produced, enjoyed everywhere, consumed in practically every culture in one way or another, but underneath that, it is so much more. Wine can be pop music- easy, digestible, designed to make money. But wine can