Breakfast
There are several things I like about Joyce Sutphen’s poem. I like, for instance, the shared memory of her father, as it calls to mind similar memories of my own. Like how my dad would set us up at a table in the lodge, when we were taking a lunch break from skiing, make sure we were all reasonably warm, unlace our boots (in the days before buckles) to get the circulation flowing again, before going to get us hot chili and crackers to warm us up. We’d sit there, my siblings and I, slightly numb from the cold, red-cheeked and runny-nosed (I don’t know if that’s a word, but you know what I mean), until he would come back and rouse us with provisions and cheer. Memories like these do more than recall an event. They draw us more deeply into a sense of gratitude not for what a person did but who that person was and is.
But I also like the hint of ritual. There was a pattern, a rhythm, to the day, started with cornflakes and silence, admiration for strawberries and morning chores. I think it’s easy to underestimate the value of rhythm, ritual, and familiar patterns. How they order our day, free us to think and wool-gather and remember, and comfort us with their familiarity.
I have much to be grateful for in this present stage of my career – good colleagues, great work, opportunities to travel to many places and converse with so many folks. But if there’s something I miss – writing from another unremarkable hotel room miles from home and family – it’s these simple rituals. And so I will read of Joyce’s and remember my own of earlier times and long for the chance to establish them again.
Breakfast
My father taught me how to eat breakfast
those mornings when it was my turn to help
him milk the cows. I loved rising up from
the darkness and coming quietly down
the stairs while the others were still sleeping.
I’d take a bowl from the cupboard, a spoon
from the drawer, and slip into the pantry
where he was already eating spoonfuls
of cornflakes covered with mashed strawberries
from our own strawberry fields forever.
Didn’t talk much—except to mention how
good the strawberries tasted or the way
those clouds hung over the hay barn roof.
Simple—that’s how we started up the day.
By Joyce Sutphen, from First Words
Thanks, again, to The Writer’s Almanac, that featured this poem earlier this month.
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