I am black, and have been plundered and have lost my body. But perhaps I too had the capacity for plunder, maybe I would take another human’s body to confirm myself in a community. Perhaps I already had. Hate gives identity. The nigger, the fag, the bitch illuminate the border, illuminate what we ostensibly are not, illuminate the Dream of being white, of being a Man. We name the hated strangers and are thus confirmed in the tribe. But my tribe was shattering and reforming around me. I saw these people often, because they were family to someone whom I loved. Their ordinary moments - answering the door, cooking in the kitchen, dancing to Adina Howard - assaulted me and expanded my notion of the human spectrum. I would sit in the living room of that house, observing their private jokes, one part of me judging them, the other reeling from the changes.

Sometimes it all comes back to me and I ask myself: “Why all this shit? Why do all these horrors happen to me? … All the shit I’ve been through in this motherfuckin’ world ever since I was born. … What kind of world is this? A world where you get your ass kicked if you do good … but given a medal if you kill some guy in the name of patriotism! What shit is that?” My first clash with “law and order” people was on 30 April 1974. I can’t forget that, man! Oh, what bastards! There I was in my house in Surulere. At that time, you know, there wasn’t any barbed-wire fence around my place. I had nothing to fear. I wasn’t even thinking they could have something against me. I was just preaching revolution for Africa, you know.

One night, desperate for the loo, I stepped on a giant slug and it squelched between my toes in long green tubes. I think that’s the night I became a soprano. After that, I made myself a salt path every night to dispose of them. As young, first time tenants, we had no idea that we could complain – we had to pay the whole term’s rent up front, so we had no leverage at all. God, it was awful, but we loved having our independence.

The time with the kitchen knife—the one you picked up, then put down, shaking, saying quietly, “Get out. Get out.” And I ran out the door, down the black summer streets. I ran until I forgot I was ten, until my heartbeat was all I could hear of myself.

Not every guest wanted a history lesson during their dinner. Many were charmed and wanted to engage with us. But some people were there to talk to their companions or to eat; they wanted us to drop off their food and leave them alone. I had stripped the team of their authority to read the table and deliver an appropriate level of detail—to tailor the service experience to the guest. In my pursuit of a sense of place, I’d actually made the meal less hospitable.

Worse, it was essentially the same mistake I’d made the year before, when I’d hesitated to promote a general manager. Once again, the guy known for talking about how much he trusted his team had acted as if he didn’t trust them at all.

In truth, I’m not surprised I made this mistake—and I’m almost certain I’ll make it again in the future. My compulsive attention to detail is one of my superpowers; it’s how I take aim at perfection. But that tendency also means I’m always walking a tightrope between my desire to guarantee excellence by controlling everything and knowing I want to create an environment of empowerment and collaboration and trust among the people who work for me. Like excellence and hospitality, these two qualities—control and trust—are not friends.