Tokaido Road for Tony Bourdain

If you’ve been a reader for a while, you’ll know that I often make coordinations as a sort of coping mechanism when someone I admire passes on. Friday morning, I heard the news I wasn’t expecting to hear for decades yet. Tony Bourdain was dead. Devastatingly, lost to suicide. This one hit me much harder than any other recent death. I’ve been a huge fan of his for longer than I can remember. His television shows, his books, even the comic books he’s written. I’ve actually been working on a post that involves some of those, but it’s been put to the side for the time being.

In an age of approachable, inviting celebrity chefs and easily marketed sound bites, Anthony Bourdain showed us that it was important to be honest and true to yourself. He showed us that it was entirely possible to be ascerbic and foul-mouthed while being open and empathetic. He used his bad-boy persona and privileged status to amplify the voices of downtrodden people who so many would have ignored, and did it all over a shared meal.

This 53 Stations of the Tokaido obi is an item that had been on my wishlist for months, and when I got a notification that it was on sale I jumped on it. I hadn’t used it yet, waiting for the right time, and what a better way to use this motif focused on travel than to honour a man who encouraged us all to travel and explore and experience new things? I kept the rest of the outfit very subdued, to maintain the focus on the obi.

If you do anything today, do it honestly, do it with no reservations. Try something out of your comfort zone. Sit down and listen to someone you’d normally overlook. Reach out to a loved one. Eat something incredible. Do it with open eyes, open ears, open mouth, open heart, and open mind.

Items used in this coordination