Breakfast is Better

Compared to other students my age, I’m a morning person. After walking down the stairs in a still-quiet house, I flick on the lights to the kitchen and begin one of my secret joys in life: making breakfast.

When did this meal become so personally gratifying? And for that matter, why? Having a dietician for a mother early in my life had some impact on my habits, I’m sure. But I think I am drawn to this one time in the day because there is absolute stillness, both in one’s physical environment and one’s mental chatter (of which I have plenty). There’s a sense of hope with the approaching day, of all the unexpected things that could go right. Perhaps it’s just the lingering fog of sleep that clouds our memory of yesterday’s mishaps or the stress of an approaching exam, but it is one of the few times when we’re truly living in the moment. Maybe it’s because we’re so focused on operating the coffee maker (or French press in my case, of course).

Today, as I opened up the kitchen door (a habit I got into because a nights-worth of dirty dishes from this all-guys house thickens the air with a putrid stench of mildew and rot), I was pleasantly surprised to discover a cold breeze off a cloudy Puget Sound, requiring me to return to my room to throw on my favorite hoodie. So clad in this sweatshirt, shorts, and flip flops (I love flip flops), I boiled water for my first cup of coffee, and listened to an NPR podcast from my laptop. I switched to Bob Dylan as I made a scrambled egg sandwich on toasted sourdough bread and then a granola mix with frozen blueberries and raspberries (even for me, this is a bit much). Armed with this three-course meal (I include coffee as course-worthy), I sat down to begin in my still silent house.

Breakfast, for me at least, is a balance between nourishing my body with food and feeding my mind with the day’s news. This habit started young, reading the daily comics in the Detroit Free Press’ “The Way We Live” section. (And the family quickly learned that as soon as the paper was opened, my conversation skills closed). This has continued to evolve since then, growing exponentially in college when I lived in a house that had the New York Times delivered each morning. This summer’s reading routine takes place on my computer (provided I have wireless internet available): e-mail first, and then the on-line NYT (set to my homepage), my friends’ various blogs, Seattle’s alternative newspaper, “The Stranger”, andconcluded with a glance at who’s profile has been updated on Facebook.

This whole process, from brewing coffee to facebooking, takes about an hour. I know, I know! Who in the world has that much free time to enjoy such a luxurious morning? Well, me for one. But I know that it’ll only last as long as summer break. I’m pretty sure that I won’t have wireless internet access in Mali. Honestly though, I’ve noticed my breakfast being tainted by the bitterness of current events. Foiled terrorist plots and Israel-Lebanon conflicts is not part of my complete meal. So maybe being uninformed for three months this fall will be good.

I’ll get back to you on the tradition of Malian breakfasts.

Until then, enjoy this quote I found on the box of my chai tea:

“Yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope”
-Sanskrit Proverb-

Have a great day everyone!