a perfect cup of tea, made by someone else, right to the end (into my hand)
waking up on a Saturday with no alarm, refreshed, and discovering that it is really quite early
arriving at the beach to run the moment the sun comes out after the rain
making an illicit diversion to the department store on the way to work and being welcomed with smiles, chocolate, fragrance samples and a hand-massage
using a pretty-and-robust umbrella on a rainy day
Yesterday I did something unheard of.
Instead of making my the café where I have gone to write for the last x number of years, a café so well-loved and frequented that I believe I may have worn a groove in the paths from my home to its threshold, I went to the library.
It had been little while coming. First they painted the beautiful big communal room dark blue. It altered the quality of the light, made it always a little bit sombre. Then slowly slowly things changed. The low-energy light bulbs cast less light. The manager moved on and the new one…. Well, these things happen. He introduced fresh flowers but when I visited they were always dead. Then one by one the staff abandoned ship. I saw the way that things were leaning, I made calls, encouraged from the sidelines, Canute-like failing to hold back the approaching tide. The replacement members of the team were sweet, but somehow insubstantial. No history holds them together. And then on Monday, with the wifi more wi-foe, and the toilets neglected and the broken lightbulbs not replaced, and the cookie turned to dust…
That was it. We had broken up. A hastily proffered replacement cookie disintegrated into crumbs on my walk home. There was no more left to say.
My city is not well-provided for cafés with large airy spaces and happy staff and a perfect cup of tea. Too many are haunted by the spirit of the formula. Faith has been put in track-records and not enough in the personal. But insinuating itself into my consciousness had been the reopening of our library.
I hadn’t gone to the opening; couldn’t bear the potential disappointment of seeing old, worn, wabi-sabi beauty trashed by a new-kid-on-the-block. So my visit yesterday was my first. I tiptoed over the threshold, breath held, hands metaphorically in front of my eyes, peeking, and – sigh of relief – it was beautiful. Not quite old-leather-armchairs-beautiful, but really, quite extraordinarily home and familiarity and sit-down-with-your-book-ish.
So armed with tea (yes, allowed in a travel cup), I took my place by a vast window, looking out to a park rustled by autumn winds, and I wonder about the change of seasons.
Having breakfast
I am going to tell you about my favourite breakfast and then see what is interesting about breakfasts. In fact I’m going to tell you about two favourite breakfasts. One is an everyday favourite, and one is a special day favourite. You might wonder which one is the actual favourite, and this is in fact a revealing question, because what it shows is that sometimes what is best is not about the actual thing itself, but about how things fit together. So, first of all, my favourite everyday breakfast is Yorkshire Gold tea with skimmed milk and multiseed bloomer freshly toasted in a Dualit toaster (set to 2) with butter (not very much) and Tiptree Orange and Tangerine marmalade.
What is yours?
A breakfast is a kind of handshake in the mouth. When you get out of bed, you use your sense of sight, seeing your room, smell, smelling the fresh air from the window, hearing, hearing sounds from outside and touch, touching the bed clothes with your hands and the floor with your feet. The only sense missing is taste. It is when you drink your tea or eat your toast that the world becomes part of you (breathing air makes it become part of you, but it is not as feel-able as eating). It is like with a person’s hand that you hold in yours for a moment, and that makes a connection point that is like a bridge to the person.
And this is why it is so important and delightful to have a breakfast you really love. You want your first big connection to the world to be a joyful one. And the other thing is that it should not be too much of a big event. It should be gentle, and it should fit your day. The favourite everyday breakfast is in many ways very ordinary – it is just toast and tea. It fits the ordinary-ness of most days, because it is simple and calm to make and eat. It is also a good breakfast because it requires just a little bit of waiting; waiting for the kettle to boil, and waiting for the toast to toast. These small delays ease the pathway into the bigger events of the day. But you might notice that it is very specific; a particular tea, and a particular marmalade and a particular toast, toasted in a particular way. If you pay attention to tastes you will find that you like a particular kind of thing. It is part of being a unique person. You might not always be able to have the thing you want, but when you can, you should. Different people like different things, and we can celebrate this at breakfast, whereas at dinner, we might like to celebrate everyone participating in the same thing.
So that was the favourite everyday breakfast and the favourite special breakfast is French baguette with butter (not very much) and soft apricot jam. To have this breakfast we would have to teleport to France. Have you been to France yet?
extraplorer 