May 2025: Transformations in a time of Cataclysm
One of my all-time favourite poems is called “Instructions for the Journey” by Pat Schneider*.
I return to it every time I feel the ground shifting underneath me. It starts with this beautiful stanza:
The self you leave behind
is only a skin you have outgrown.
Don’t grieve for it.
Look to the wet, raw, unfinished
self, the one you are becoming.
Lately I’ve been feeling entangled with the bakery in a new way. The old space feels like a skin we’ve outgrown. In many ways, it is ejecting us. Crumbling oven stones, a scale that suddenly stops working. An air conditioner that just can’t keep up. Some days, the bakery seems to be trying to kick us out. So we kindly ask it to hang in there for just a few more months as we prepare to pack up and leave.
And then there is me.
The version of me I am outgrowing–the one I grew into, the one I became in order to navigate the choppy waters of business ownership–I am also transforming. Shedding. Moulting. Becoming someone new. When we opened the bakery, I was 27. I had never been a manager before, let alone a business owner. I knew what kind of leader I didn’t want to be, but I had no idea what kind of leader I wanted to be. Becoming my own kind of leader and growing this muscle has been one of the most arduous processes of my life, no doubt.
This summer, I turn 39. I am different from the person I was at 27. So much of that has to do with the muscles and callouses I’ve had to build in the last 12 years to survive this difficult terrain. But lately, the armour I’ve built around my body has been falling off and I’ve been moving through the world in a raw, unfinished way.
If I had to trace it back to a pivotal moment, it probably started in October 2023. Not only was I witnessing the beginning of a devastating genocide in Gaza unfold, but I was reckoning with how to show up** for the people in my life whose lives were falling apart as a result. My partner in life–Sarah–who co-founded this business with me, was understandably reeling. Her connection to the Middle East is personal. It is where she comes from. Where she was born. Where she grew up. She left the region in her twenties but the region and its people never left her. Like most people with connections to that place, she was suddenly swept underwater, unable and unwilling to move through life as if the unthinkable wasn’t happening.
After a few months of figuring out how to put one foot in front of the other, get out of bed, not sink into despair, show up for friends somehow, and show up for each other, we had some long chats. Sarah is a deep thinker. She searches for answers to really hard questions. Ones like: what are we doing with our lives? When everything around us feels like it’s falling apart–cataclysms, genocides, the rise of authoritarianism–where do we invest our energy? One of her greatest gifts as a partner is that she asks me to stop and think these things through and not just move through life passively. So we did. Many times over.
In those discussions, we both honed in on two things that we know for sure:
In a world where we wield limited power as individuals, we need to invest in our relationships. Family. Friends. Each other. Animals, nature, colleagues. We need to invest deeply. To take chances on people. To boldly love and nurture. To repair when necessary. We cannot give up on each other, not when the stakes are so high.
Nurturing a bakery fills us with a deep sense of purpose. Over the years, when things got tough at work, we hashed out escape plans. We always had one foot planted inside the bakery and one outside. This work is hard, both physically and psychologically. As owners, we take on immense risk. We bet our homes against our leases. It is a great weight to carry, one that often goes unseen. But since October 2023, owning a bakery has taken on a new meaning for us. To feed people and be the caretakers of a community space is a great honour. Lately, I’ve started referring to it as a calling. This work feels real and important.
But here’s where things get a bit tricky for me and why I’m a bit uneasy with this transformation. As I’ve invested more in my relationships–my friends, my family, my people–I’ve started to put more boundaries around myself and the bakery. At first, it felt like a divestment from work. A necessary one so that I could care for the people around me. I felt a tinge of guilt and worry that I wasn’t giving as much of my time to my business. I wondered whether a shift in focus could de-stabilize the business?
Lately, I’ve been walking into the bakery on Monday mornings after spending time with loved ones on the weekend. For the first time in 12 years, I’ve felt what it’s like to take weekends off. Since January of this year, I’ve been working Monday-Friday. I walk into the bakery on Monday morning after investing in myself and others, and I feel a bit raw. Like this new rhythm in my life is transforming my callouses into something softer and more vulnerable.
So I’m sitting in this curiosity lately–can I lead a bigger, more complex, more demanding business as a softer, more embodied version of myself? What would it mean to bring this new self, one with less callouses and armour, to high-stakes negotiations, to staff meetings, to moments of crisis? I don’t know yet, but I’m figuring it out and seeing glimpses of it every day. I don’t know yet, but I’ve decided to have faith that it will guide me and others to a better place.
As I approach the middle of my career (and maybe my life?), and my business is about to grow in a big way, I am wondering how to bring this new me to not only my dinner table, but to the baking table. I think the political moment we are all living together will demand more rested, resilient, and interconnected versions of ourselves to show up to work on Monday mornings.
As my team and I walk up to this ledge together and dive into something big and new, I am lifted by the idea that we are being held by a vast network of support. The way you all showed up for us during our crowdfunding campaign and helped us reach our goal - that was a big deal. That support and many similar gestures we see and experience every day is the evidence that I carry with me that we are ready for this transformation. The village is in place and it’s doing its thing. Thank you for being in it with us.
A note about our move
I’ve heard many of you asking what our timeline is for our move. Our best guess now is that the new space will be open sometime in August. Our lease at 1065 Wellington Street West expires at the end of September and a new tenant will be moving in! Don’t ask me who it is, ok?!
We are currently working hard behind the scenes to draw up design plans and get construction started. If the idea of getting video updates on construction progress excites you, follow us on Instagram: @breadbyus
Our hope is that we can transition from one space to another without a prolonged closure. We’ll be sure to keep you posted along the way.
Footnotes:
*To read Pat Schneider's full poem, click here. I hope it carries you during your own moments of transformation.
** “How we show up” is the title of a book by Mia Birdsong. This book was gifted to me by a friend in July 2024, and it kinda changed my life and how I move through the world. I highly recommend it.