All done.

Well. This is it. The end of an era. This Friday was my last day at the Noodle Factory. I'm off to try my hand at making actual, edible noodles instead of intellectual ones! That's right--it's time to see how this whole 'cooking thing' works out.

This change has been in the works for quite a while, but I haven't wanted to talk about it much until it was real. I'm actually not sure what to say now that it's actually here and happening. I think I keep waiting for...Something To Happen. The sky to fall. Or a million gongs to start gonging in celebration. Or someone to appear on my doorstep and hand me an official announcement that "The Deed is Done."

But instead, I wake up and find that I am still me. And that this change is really just the newest incarnation of a series of changes that have been playing out over the past year. Or several years, if you really want to get big picture on me. I think back to that Joseph Campbell quote that was so powerful to me a little over a year ago right as all of this changing was beginning to happen: "The adventure that [the hero] is ready for is the one that he gets."

A lot of people have been telling me how brave I am to be leaving my job and this career. Hearing myself described as 'brave' caught me off guard, though now that I've had time to think about it I think I understand what they meant. Leaving a stable job, a defined career path, a community of incredible colleagues, a place where your role in things is known and understood--it does take a certain kind of courage to do this, but it's a courage born from the feeling that this is just what needs to happen now. I don't really feel brave. I do feel ready. I feel like this adventure and I have been traveling together for a long time without knowing it, shaping each other and getting a feel for what's ahead.

Right now, what's ahead is an internship at Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen. It starts in another week, and I'll be working in their test kitchen doing prep work, helping the test kitchen cooks with their recipe testing, doing background research on recipes and articles, and answering calls of "Hey! You! Intern!"

So. This is it. Ok, Mister Campbell, I'm following my bliss. Fingers crossed.
P.S. This lovely picture is me hard at work at the Noodle Factory last summer dressed in my Launch Specialist Uniform. That's right: Emma C, launching manuscripts to production since 2005! ("launching" = "move 'er down the conveyor belt"--a fav bit of Noodle Factory Lexicon)