Asking for What’s Not on the Menu in the North Country

During my conversation with Becky Colpitts on North of Normal this week, she shared a story that has really lodged itself in my brain. It was offered casually, almost as an aside, the way people often share childhood memories without realizing the deeper pattern they contain.

Becky was six years old, visiting California with her family, when they went out to eat at a restaurant that felt unfamiliar and a little fancy. When she was asked what she wanted, she answered simply. She wanted a hamburger.

Her sister quickly told her that hamburgers were not on the menu. This was not that kind of place.

Becky’s father didn’t correct her or ask her to choose something else. He didn’t explain why it wasn’t reasonable or soften the request to make it more acceptable. He simply spoke with the staff. And despite what everyone assumed, a hamburger appeared.

Becky got exactly what she asked for.

As she told the story, she laughed. It was clearly a fond memory. But sitting across from her, I felt the weight of what that moment represented. Not the food itself, but the absence of self-editing. The way a child asked plainly for what she wanted without first deciding whether it was appropriate, convenient, or likely to be granted.

What struck me most was not that her father made the request, but that he never seemed to question whether it was worth asking. There was no visible calculation, no assumption that the answer would be no. He treated the request as possible, even when it didn’t fit the options that had been presented.

As Becky continued sharing her story, that moment began to feel less like a standalone anecdote and more like an early thread that quietly ran through her life. She talked about growing up on a farm in Ohio, wandering alone for hours and feeling a deep sense of belonging wherever she found herself. She talked about her father striking up conversations with strangers wherever they traveled, communicating with ease across differences, modeling a way of moving through the world that assumed connection rather than separation.

She described moving across the country at different points in her life, following instincts that didn’t always make sense on paper, trusting an internal sense of direction even when the path ahead wasn’t fully formed. Years later, she would pull her car over near Moore Reservoir, overwhelmed by a full-body certainty about a job at the Co-op that she hadn’t even been offered yet, simply because everything in her knew it was right.

Listening to her, I realized that the hamburger story was never really about food. It was about asking without first narrowing the field of possibility. It was about not internalizing the invisible menus we are handed so early in life, the ones that teach us to filter our desires through what seems reasonable or allowed before we ever speak them out loud.

After the show, that story stayed with me. It followed me through the day, resurfacing in quiet moments, connecting with thoughts I’d already been carrying. That very morning before the interview, I had pulled an oracle card that read, “If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want.” At the time, it felt important but lacking context. After talking with Becky, it felt grounded and real.

We are given menus constantly, not just in restaurants, but in life. These are the options. These are the paths that make sense. These are the roles available to you. Over time, many of us become so fluent in reading those menus that we stop questioning them altogether. We stop noticing when what we want isn’t listed.

I’ve learned this lesson in a very tangible way through navigating the world with celiac disease. For years, menus felt like barriers, full of reminders of what I couldn’t have. It would have been easy to decide that eating out simply wasn’t for me. Instead, I learned how to ask. To talk with servers. To speak with chefs. To explain my needs without apologizing for them.

Sometimes the answer is no. That matters. Asking doesn’t guarantee the outcome we want. But often, the answer is yes, or close enough that connection remains possible. And every time I asked, regardless of the outcome, I stayed connected to myself. I didn’t reject my own wants before anyone else had the chance to respond.

What moved me about Becky’s story was how early she learned that her wants were worth voicing. That the world was not as rigid as it often appears. That it was acceptable to try, even when something seemed unlikely.

In the North Country, where practicality and self-reliance are deeply valued, this can feel especially relevant. There is so much strength here in knowing how to make do, how to work with what’s in front of you, how to endure. But sometimes that strength carries an unspoken narrowing with it, a quiet belief that wanting more or wanting differently is indulgent or unrealistic.

And yet, when I look around this community, so much of what makes it work exists because someone asked.

Someone asked if they could start a cooperative. Someone asked if they could grow food in a new way. Someone asked if they could offer a service, open a space, or try something unproven. Someone asked for help when they needed it. Someone asked how they could contribute.

Asking, I’m realizing, isn’t risky. It’s relational. It keeps us engaged with life rather than resigned to its constraints. Even when the answer is no, the act of asking keeps us aligned with what we actually want, rather than what we’ve decided we’re allowed to have.

If there is something stirring in you right now, something you’ve quietly dismissed as unrealistic or unlikely or too much, I hope you consider this an invitation to revisit it. To ask, even gently. To see whether the menu might be wider than you’ve assumed.

Sometimes, it really is as simple, and as brave, as asking for the hamburger and waiting to see what comes back.

-Amanda