morning glory

What is it about Sundays? I always seem to feel a tad bit lost, not quite sure what the day expects of me, and frankly a little unsure of what I should expect of the day. Do I just flitter around aimlessly and revel in the fact that it is a day of rest or do I try to force myself to do something productive. Growing up, I would drag myself through the hours watching the minutes slowly wind down until the hourglass stood empty in anticipation for the following school day. Not the greatest feeling. But, but, but, there was a silver lining, because Sunday was also breakfast day in my house, like in the sitdown at the kitchen table all together kind of breakfast, not the slurp your cereal down kind of meal. My mom would whip up either eggs and bacon or oatmeal with apple hash. It was the real kind of oatmeal, you know the slow cooking kind, which as a kid I had not yet learned to appreciate. She would replace the water with apple juice, which I thought that was just brillient at the age of seven. Apart from snooping around the kitchen my job was to grate the apples. Gorgeous, crisp Galas would minutes later yield juicy apple slaw to accompany our hearty oatmeal. I would always mix the two together to make a heaping pile of oatmeal apple goodness. If my dad was manning the stove, breakfast would be pancakes and most likely bacon. He would geefully add sliced bananas, blueberries or as a speacial treat, chocolate chips to each tendor cake. My ritual would be to take the crispy bacon pieces, a drizzle of Aunt Jamina maple syrup and roll them in the fluffy pancakes. Sweet, porky, crunchy and tendor, a beautiful melding of flavors that I savored with each bite and washed down with orange juice, sans pulp.

These days, lost is the sitdown family affair and my treasured pancake rollups. In its place I find myself sipping café con hielo from my regular café steps from my apartment and snacking on a variety of fruit until my stomache pleads for lunch at midday. Clearly not as delicious nor lavish as the Sunday spread of my youth, however, a ritual still remains. Breakfast, or lack there of it, prepares me for the day ahead; it's a time to peruse the paper, write, read or simply daydream as I lose myself in the blackness of my coffee and the melody of song whimpering in the background. Perhaps  the minutes will lazily linger into an hour, and a second café will be ordered, which is certainly ok, because Sunday as it turns out is indeed a day of rest.