I was getting ready for work on Friday morning, June 8 when Sean told me that Anthony Bourdain had died. I was sad but my first thought, honestly, was that it probably was a heart attack (he wasn’t necessarily the healthiest of people) or a stroke (how his father had died, also at a young age). My sadness increased at thinking of him and his incredible work for the world being finished. And then increased some more when we found out it was suicide. It’s heartbreaking and people feel many ways about suicide. While I have and do still believe it’s a permanent solution to an ultimately temporary problem, I found this perspective to capture a feeling deep within. 

“No one wants to accept that sometimes people are in the throes of a psychotic break but that probably far more often they just might have decided they were done with this shit. And that demanding they stick it out, stay here and suffer so other people don’t have to, might actually be what’s criminally selfish.” – Amy Glynn, Paste Magazine

We don’t know of his suffering – or anyone’s that chooses on their own when to leave this world. Is it selfish? We don’t ask to be born. Our parents make the choice for us. I don’t think it’s selfish. I think it’s complicated, hard on everyone and very sad.

He brought to light not just the gloriousness of travel but the hard realities of it. The things we travelers know and want those who don’t or can’t travel to know, too. Travel by a citizen of a first-world country should soften you. It should make you introspective, grateful, concerned and humble. It might make you cry – tears of both joy and sadness that somehow weigh on your heart while opening your mind; both of which create more space. And that space – that’s what I believe Anthony Bourdain hoped we would gain. 

I know it’s what I gained. Travel broke things down and in that space, I found myself. Not the cookie-cutter citizen I was trained to be in school but a human with a level of empathy, emotion, creativity, love and awareness that I didn’t know I could have. And in that space I was finally able to truly learn. Learn about my world, the rest of the world, the impacts of decisions both large and small. Food has been a tremendous part of that. 

Food is delicious and creative – an experience to cherish and seek out. But food is also political, environmental, medicinal and is used as weaponry, community-building, nourishment, closeness. In this way, I became inspired by Mr. Bourdain. To not just travel to the most popular destinations and eat delicious food but to try harder to understand what the food means in each place and to the people in it – and then bring that home to my own community, home and life. Tremendous growth of the self has been the result. And for that, I am grateful. Grateful for his time here with us and willingness to go through complex, painful situations so that we could try to make our own space within for more of the world – the good, the bad and the sad.

May you rest calmly, peacefully, and without sadness in your new phase of being. 

A few quotes that have stood out to me over the years from him:

“He taught me early that the value of a dish is the pleasure it brings you; where you are sitting when you eat it—and who you are eating it with—are what really matter. Perhaps the most important life lesson he passed on was: Don’t be a snob. It’s something I will always at least aspire to—something that has allowed me to travel this world and eat all it has to offer without fear or prejudice. To experience joy, my father taught me, one has to leave oneself open to it.” On his father, for Bon Appetit in 2012

“As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks — on your body or on your heart — are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”

“If I were a hardcore revolutionary, I would be applauding this — I’d be like, “Oh, the pendulum will swing so far over, and it’ll bring the temple down, and then disaster, and then we’ll have our revolution!” But I don’t believe that, and I’m contemptuous of people who feel that way. I think it was Lenin who said one of my favorite lines: “On the train of the revolution, we will lose the liberals at the first turn.” It’s always worth remembering: In any revolution, whose heads are gonna be on the pike first? Us. And shortly after that, the originators and founders of the revolution. ” Eater, Dec 21, 2016

 “I think we need outreach, understanding, to look inside yourself and ask, how the fuck did we get here? What did we do wrong? Who did we not convince? Who did we not make a meaningful argument to? And how do we reach them? What is our common ground? How do we bring them over, to understand that this man does not have their interests at heart? How do we make a reasonable argument? To not say that they’re idiots or fools or yokels or any of that shit, but to say look, these guys are not here to help. We’re here to help. Or at least, we’re marginally more likely to.” Eater, Dec 21, 2016

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s OK. The journey changes you; it should change you… You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

You left very much good behind, sir. Thank you.