Reading I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally

Blasts from Baja, where I find myself further than ever from finishing my letter to Berlin. Please join me in being present, and admitting my regrets, getting tattoos.

There’s nothing more dangerous than an angry woman speaking her mind. Scratch that. Imagine a pregnant woman reporting live from the middle of a 12 hour fast sounding off on the internet. Certainly not I! Allow me to save you the details on the test I’m currently enduring at the lab. Luckily for us, I do have something up my sleeve from last week that I wrote on holiday in Mexico. Which feels paradoxical, to have worked from holiday, but I think that’s the sign of a good rest and an inspiring living, when you feel recharged and driven to create for the love of it, and you angels.

Upon starting McNally’s memoir, I wanted to marry him, until I realised I can be him (Cher’s “I am a rich man”, in response to her Mom telling her to marry one, stands up). If you don’t know Keith and his Instagram, which goes from roasting celebrities and himself, to his restaurants, of which he’s built and operated a whopping 14 in 36 years. Balthazar and The Odeon are among his most notable, both of which I’ve dined at, completely unaware of the hype that surrounded them, totally ignorant living in my 2015 fashionista bubble (at the time I was probably just looking for a poor woman’s french onion soup. Which felt very dignified at the time considering I grew up on onion dip from a packet and deemed it a delightful snack). Little did I know Anna Wintour was at Balthazar every day of the week. Probably best I didn’t know. I was going through a manic fan girl moment that year. Waiting in line to get my Grace Coddington book signed by the icon herself at Barnes & Noble, and all the rest of it.

Anyway. There was always something that struck me about Balthazar’s exterior, and all of Soho in fact, the cast iron architecture being the largest of its kind in the world, another thing I’ve learned in reading I Regret Almost Everything. Even on my latest trip to TriBeca last Spring, I found myself drawn to The Odeon, again not the faintest clue of the culture behind it, but unable to escape the tangible pulse of pedestrian activity in the street out front, not dissimilar to the vortex we refer to Santo and Seco as on Sunset. To take in Keith’s perspective now, as the man with the plan behind it all, comprehending that one could amass enough capital to walk down the street and choose which buildings they would like to use and for what purpose, to then sign 15 year leases, and curate urban society at this scale, well it’s a whole new vision isn’t it.

“No one man should have all that power” comes to mind. Not to quote Kanye but he sure proved his own lyric to be true, I don’t think I need to explain myself with that one, but what I do love about McNally is that he doesn’t hold himself in very high esteem, at least from the outside. He does a very good job at feigning modesty. Being self deprecating is timeless in my books. I do genuinely look forward to objectively looking back on life when I’m in my 70’s and writing the stories of youth with such an unfiltered candour, possessing not a shred of self pity, pointing out the failures and regrets, and spotlighting the people who gave you all the leg up’s along the way.

I don’t know if anyone else struggles with a never-ending curiosity for changing careers, or whether surviving in this changing world simply requires flexibility to go where the money is, so to speak. This dynamic has been bestowed on millennials due to the economy we inherited, yet we’ve taken it in our stride and been labelled as slashy multi-hyphenates, as if we simply cannot focus. Maybe we just want to do it all. Reading in his memoir that the closer he gets to what he wants, the more graspable it feels to him, and the less he actually wants it, I could relate. What do we call the opposite of perfectionism? Acceptance? Flow? Personally the more I ruminate, shape and polish, the work gets tidier sure, but the more attached I get, and anxious I feel.