From Outside Yourself

Some Serendipitous Connections between A Man Called Otto, Chef, and a Writer Thinking About Buying a Bookstore

This week, I watched the movie A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks. Also, after having discussed movies about food with my sister on our Winnipeg Jets fan podcast, I re-watched the movie Chef which stars and was written and directed by Jon Favreau.

Also this week, I read this very fun post by Shawn Smucker about him and his wife, Maile, seriously considering buying a bookstore, but doing that serious consideration kind of on a whim—really just because Shawn saw the sale of said bookstore pop up in his Instagram reels. I should mention that I only sort of know Shawn. He and I had a couple of conversations at a writers conference maybe six years ago. He was very encouraging to me in my pursuit of fiction writing, and since then I’ve been following his writing and podcasting efforts. His substack is worth subscribing to.

Shawn’s post inspired me and as I was pondering the two films I watched, I thought to myself—there’s a connection here.

What could these stories possibly have in common?

A Man Called Otto is about a grieving man whose wife died recently and he wants to join her, but he keeps failing at his suicide attempts because each time he tries he gets interrupted in some way by his annoying neighbours. It might not sound like it, but it is actually a super heart-warming movie.

Chef is about a chef who has a public feud with a food critic, losing his restaurant job in the process. He then goes on a cross-country journey in a food truck where he re-discovers his love for food and builds a relationship with his ten-year-old son along the way.

And Shawn and Maile are thinking about buying a bookstore.

You’d think maybe the connection would be about the power of the human spirit.

You’d think that A Man Called Otto should be a celebration of life where Otto learns that there are indeed reasons to continue living. You’d think it ought to be about him persevering, discovering a resilience he didn’t know he had, and overcoming his grief in order to develop new and lasting friendships.

Or that Chef ought to be about the chef triumphing in his goal to bring Cuban food to California.

Or that Shawn and Maile’s story ought to be about pursuing their dream to run a bookstore against all odds.

But these stories aren’t about that. Instead, all three are filled with serendipity, spontaneity, unexpected joy, and other people besides the main characters playing a vital role in the action.

In Otto’s case, he is literally saved from death by his neighbours showing up at his door with some food, though they had no idea that he was about to attempt suicide. This happens several times in the film in various ways, and I think even a cat saves him one time. Otto is saved by the seemingly unrelated serendipitous actions of others. He doesn’t save himself through his own ingenuity, strength, or resilience. He is saved from outside of himself.

In Chef, Jon Favreau’s character never wants to operate a food truck. It was his ex-wife’s idea which he only agrees to when he reaches rock bottom. But the food truck rescues his career and, as his son comes along on the road trip, it also rescues their relationship.

There is another moment in the movie where one of his friends just shows up suddenly to work on the truck with them. He says something like “of course I was coming. This is what I want to do.” The Jon Favreau character doesn’t go it alone. Yes, he is the key person and he is great at what he does, but he has an enormous amount of help from others every step of the way.

And what about the bookstore for Shawn and Maile? They love books, they are both writers, so perhaps it is no surprise that the sale of a local bookstore would show up in one of their Instagram feeds. Is that serendipity or the almighty algorithm? Or somehow might it be God at work. My point here is the opportunity came from outside of themselves.

As Shawn tells the story, he notes his surprise when he asked Maile “Want to buy a bookstore?” and the response was simply “Yes, I do.”

Please, at this point, if you haven’t read the post for yourself, go do it. My meagre summary is no substitute for Shawn’s telling of his own story and he makes a different point in his telling than I am here. Still, it stirred my imagination this week, so I’ll continue.

Shawn describes running the numbers and then talking to “smart business minded friends.” Instead of caution, the friends encourage them, saying “you two would be perfect for this kind of business.” This response is another big surprise for Shawn. Friends being encouraging when it wasn’t expected.

As he wonders about how to answer the question of whether or not they should buy the bookstore, Shawn reflects on a quote from Mary Oliver:

“so many of us live most of our lives seeking the answerable and somehow demeaning or bypassing the things that can’t be answered, and therefore denuding one’s life of the acceptance of mystery and the pleasure of mystery and the willingness to live with mystery, is greatly what I think about. And if I could do something for people, I would say, don’t forget about the mystery, love the mystery . . . don’t want answers all the time.”

Shawn concludes, “What if the decision before us should be entered into as a mystery . . . and not an equation to be solved?”

Indeed!

Even Mary Oliver mysteriously shows up in Shawn’s thoughts to come alongside them in their instagram-reel-prompted potential life-changing business venture.

But, what about when it feels like there is nobody is there?

This feeling has been sharp for so many people in the last few years. So many people are alone, and this is exactly how Otto feels in his story. His wife has died, and any person that does cross his path contributes nothing to Otto’s happiness, at least until those same people who were annoyances at the beginning of the film become the very people saving his life and opening him up to relationship again.

Watching Otto reminded me of my favourite song by Eeyore. Yes, that Eeyore. Is there another one?

When my daughter was little, we would often listen to a particular Winnie the Pooh album and Eeyore’s song was titled “Nobody wants to be my friend.” Throughout the song, the little donkey is reminded that actually Winnie the Pooh, and Piglet, and Kanga, and more of their gang are all, in fact, his friends. Still, Eeyore continues his refrain, but adapts it. “Nobody wants to be my friend… except Piglet, and except Pooh, and except Kanga, etc.” Eeyore never drops the “nobody wants to be my friend” part, but he makes a lot of exceptions to his “nobody loves me” rule.

Sometimes it does feel like nobody is there. And I’m not saying something as trite as “you just have to look for them.” The beauty of these stories, the two films at least, are that the main characters don’t really learn how to pay attention to the friends that are there by someone telling them to simply pay attention.

No, it all just sort of “happens.”

Good things happen to the main characters precisely when they are not looking for anything of the sort to happen, and the main characters don’t even recognize those things as good at first.

The chef wants nothing to do with a food truck. Otto doesn’t want his annoying neighbours bothering him. But the neighbours do show up, and the chef ends up running a food truck. The very things they didn’t think they wanted, end up being the things that save them.

And Shawn and Maile and their bookstore? It probably isn’t that they don’t want to own a bookstore. It seems that they do, but they weren’t particularly looking for it. And when they saw the opportunity, they started exploring it. They took a step, and then another, and there will certainly be more steps to take.

And this is what happens with Otto and the chef as well. At some point, the chef decides to take a meeting about the possibility of a food truck with someone he doesn’t want to talk to at all (his ex-wife’s other ex-husband). And Otto actually does open his door when the neighbours knock.

So perhaps we need to open the door to those supporting characters in the story of our lives as well, even if our first reaction is “what a bother.” Maybe we need to take the meeting that we don’t want to take about the thing that we never thought we’d do. Or maybe we need to pay attention not necessarily to the Instagram reel, but to the nudge within us as we enter into the mystery before us that is life.

Or perhaps, after all is said and done, rather than wondering too much about our own story, we might discover the joy of being a supporting character in someone else’s.