breakfast

For two years, I haven't had a dining room. At my last, tiny, dark apartment, I had a small living space that was supposed to serve as both living and dining room, right next to a kitchen that took up a third of the apartment but had no room for a table. So when I moved there I put my tiny table and chairs for two (an entirely mismatched grouping) in the living room and moved it around, along with the furniture, in frustration, until at last I took it down, returned the table and one chair to my grandparents who had lent it to me.

At that point, I decided I would rather have a few extra feet of space in the living room for living than a weird table in weird places to eat at. Leaning one arm on the back of the couch while eating spaghetti just didn't feel right. So for about a year and a half, I had no table to eat at. I had the couch, the coffee table, the kitchen counter. And during that time, I pretty much stopped eating meals. Everything I ate was easy, quick, not fixed. I didn't eat meals--I just put food in my mouth while standing up or leaning over the coffee table or sitting at my desk. I didn't save time for breakfast. Life was jumbled. Food was just stuff to keep me alive.

I have lived in the new apartment for nearly two weeks now. I have a breakfast bar, which I was overjoyed to find, and promptly bought two handsome stools. I have an adjoining dining room, too, so I took my brother (and his truck) to Nebraska Furniture Mart (as planned) and bought a five-piece counter-height dining set. I have a table! I have a place to eat! I have two places to eat! I can't tell you how much that thrills me. How much having friends over for game night and pizza last Friday--at a table--thrilled me. We can sit! We can eat!

I must admit that first full week here (last week), I didn't eat breakfast at home. I was hurried, still getting settled, so I drove by McDonald's or Burger King several days that week for cheap sausage biscuits. But I had the foresight Friday night to pick up canned biscuits and a package of Jimmy Dean sausage when I was shopping. So Saturday morning, my first settled non-work morning, I got up early and baked biscuits, cooked sausage. I made breakfast for the first time in I can't remember how long. I made my breakfast and ate it on the patio (at a third table!) while Snickers sniffed around and lounged in the morning humidity. Sunday morning I got up later but reheated two biscuits and two sausage patties and ate breakfast at the breakfast bar, a pleasant start to the morning.

This morning before work, I got up, started the coffee, took a shower, cooked more sausage, reheated the biscuits, and ate breakfast and coffee at the breakfast bar. It's perfect. This simple act of sitting down to a solid breakfast, for taking that time, for having a place to sit and eat and notice the food, starts the day admirably. I wasn't starving by 10am.

So, my friends, I have discovered the value of breakfast sitting down. I plan on keeping it up. I might need to find an alternative to sausage biscuits, but I'm not worried about that right now. I might add fruit to my meal. Or a glass of milk (maybe chocolate) in addition to the coffee. I'm actually starting the day with a meal, and I feel real again.

for you

Thank you, my friends, for your responses/comments. I'm grateful for your thoughts, encouragements, attention. Sometimes it helps me to write about not being able to write. Like a journal on my own doubts about my path and abilities. It comes around. It is the recognition of the worthwhile in my head.

"People love pretty much the same things best. A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all. Strange seizures beset us." --Annie Dillard, "The Writing Life"

perfect

I am looking out again. This time, the view is different. In fact, it is a view. It is a new view on life and writing and reading and smiling and health and being. So here I am all moved in to the new place, to this place that really feels like a first home. It's homey. Homey apartment that is not a box. With a room for everything I need. With rooms that flow together, open rooms. With windows, tall windows that cross, diagonal, from one side, one side of one side, to the other. Furniture that belongs, that belongs to me and represents me. Furniture I bought and built. Snickers running through the place, turning corners, sleeping at my feet and on the patio.

Now that I'm settled, my mind is settling. I'm back at it. Things are right. I read "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard this weekend. It changed things, or reaffirmed things, or made me change or think. I'm reading "At Large and At Small" by Anne Fadiman. She changed things, reaffirmed things. Familiar things. The familiar essay is right, is what I'm doing. I'm working on five essays right now. I'm back at it. I'm at my desk, looking out the window, writing, thinking, believing again. I exercised on my indoor bike in this office watching an episode of "The O.C." online and then sat down to the writing again. I've discovered that there is this one spot at the meeting of two cushions on my couch that is perfect for reading. It feels right.

I turn off my bedroom light at night and open the blinds so I can see the sky. I've done this for as long as I can remember, but I haven't been able to see the sky for three years. My first night sleeping here, I opened the blinds and nearly cried at the sight of the moon through the slats, from my bed. I fell asleep following the moon again. Last night I saw lightning. It flashed through my room. I fell asleep to thunder and the flashes of lightning.

I'm home. And it's changed things. I moved in and felt the immediate dread of leaving. Only a year here, huh? That's sucks. I don't want to apartment search again in six months. I don't want the anxiety of it all again just yet. I want to enjoy it here. It's made me reconsider my urge to leave Lawrence immediately after I graduate in May. I could stay another year or so. I don't have to rush, right? I'm thinking about my possible book (thesis) and the job market and how I already have a job here and a good place and good people. And maybe I could stay here--not forever--but for another year. When the job market unfreezes, when I have a book and publications to my name, when I have a degree and a life outside of classes. I could stay here for a bit. For a little bit. Take it a bit slower. I'm open, more open to it. See? This place has changed things.

Josh Rouse

One of my favorites. Everything he does is amazing, beautiful, right. Listen to him. Now. You can't go wrong.

World's Largest Community Workout

I took part. For some reason, as they spoke about Red Dog and Red Dog Dog's Days and Live Well Lawrence before we started the workout, I got emotional. Emotional, I think, that nearly 3,000 adults and kids came together for this event. I was so thrilled that I decided to go on my own, miss Zumba for a second week in a row (at the Zumba instructor's suggestion, too), and do leg lifts in the grass and itch all over.