Monday Morning Musings:
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
–J.R.R. Tolkien
“Coffee is a lot more than just a drink; it’s something happening. Not as in hip, but like an event, a place to be, but not like a location, but like somewhere within yourself. It gives you time, but not actual hours or minutes, but a chance to be, like be yourself, and have a second cup.”
–Gertrude Stein, Selected Writings
This universe must be home
(has always been home)
I wake warm and comfortable
drink coffee
(always coffee)
live mornings of caramel joy
remember a voice
a smile
cats
celebrate a secret sky waking
I wake to the smell of coffee
a childhood memory,
an adult reality,
a scent wafting through time
am image, too, coffee cups and morning newspapers
spread across the kitchen table
(now joined by laptops and phones),
the table in my young childhood home
lived in the kitchen-dining-den space—
my mother hated it—the space, not the table–
and when I was teen, she, no longer with my father,
bought a house with a separate dining room,
a large, center-hall house with five bedrooms
that became too much for her to keep up with
but it was the house by which my siblings and I later measured all other houses.
In that dining room, my boyfriend, now husband, learned about Sunday brunches
with lox, blocks of cream cheese, bagels, herring, boiled new potatoes, and crusty rye bread–
and on the little enclosed porch we’d sit before a fire late on Saturday nights and drink coffee and consume the treats, fried and sweet, from Dunkin Donuts, wiping sugar from our faces with paper napkins and kisses.
Food and friendship, more valuable than gold,
I eat Vietnamese food with a friend
we laugh and talk
she tells me (I had forgotten) that she dislikes tomatoes
then is surprised to find them in her stir fry,
we laugh and talk
I slurp vermicelli noodles with extra hot sauce
and we sit, chatting and catching up,
her mother’s house, her childhood home, sold
she is pleased that the new owners seem like good people
another family for the house
to imbue it with new dreams,
the old ones will fade from the walls
like night shadows gradually erased by the dawn
We don’t order coffee
though we laugh and talk for two hours,
the restaurant owners, mother and daughter, probably eager for us to go,
but we’re enchanted by the little girl, daughter of one, granddaughter of the other,
eighteen months old
she blows kisses and says good-bye.
A few days later, my husband and I go to a first communion party
the daughter of a daughter of long-time friends
we sat with them every Friday night in their first house
a TGIF Sabbath meal each week of dollar hoagies and beer
we were there when our friend went into labor with the daughter whose daughter
we’re celebrating at this party
where I sit and talk the entire time with another friend, my twin
though her skin is darker, her hair shorter,
we’re twins of the heart
we wear our matching bracelets
talk about another friend who could not be there
but who is linked to us
New Year’s Eve, 2016 We are linked, heading into 2017.
and catch up on news, share photos, her sons, my daughters,
it’s a miserable day, cold and raining, more like March than May
but warmed by friendship
After that, my husband and I travel to my daughter’s house
bringing wine for her and her husband,
we laugh about all the wine we’ve ordered
delivered to our door all in one day in three large boxes
so that the UPS man thinks we’re having a party
we eat Pakistani food with them at a nearby restaurant,
the genial owner recommends dishes,
“We have new items”, he says,
“try the spring rolls, vegetarian.”
They are different from Chinese spring rolls,
delicious, though not as good as the vegetable samosas,
our favorites,
my daughter and I share the platter,
everything is delicious, eggplant, vegetable korma, naan, the goat our husbands have
(I suppose)
“Always a pleasure to see you,” the owner says as we leave,
and we assure him that it’s always a pleasure to visit his restaurant,
and it is, even on a cold and rainy night.
In the morning, a package of chocolate covered strawberries arrives,
a special Sunday delivery,
from my other daughter and her wife,
a thoughtful present,
a scrumptious treat for Mother’s Day
even first thing in the morning.
Later I will talk to her on the phone,
hear about her trip to national parks in Utah
(while they still exist)
learn about her surprising facility for rock climbing
and allergy to Los Vegas
I miss seeing her, but it is good to hear her voice
from across the miles
We have lunch at my sister’s house
where we take my mother for Mother’s Day
Before lunch H. had made a grand entrance,
“Hi, I have to pee and sprints through the living room.”
We later talk about the house she and her husband have fixed up to sell.
It was their first home, bought with an inheritance from my father,
her voice breaks a bit as she describes painting over the clouds in her first baby’s room.
The sun is out, and we sit for the garden for a bit
though it gets windy
My family is goofy and wonderful
I love them
I’ve baked a flourless chocolate cake
because there must be chocolate
and my sister buys, rather than brews, coffee
from Dunkin’ Donuts to have with it,
which makes me think again of those long-ago days
I think of all the mothers and daughters
the houses we’ve lived in
the coffee we’ve consumed
and despite all that is wrong in the world
I’m happy to wake in the morning to my coffee, newspapers, and cats,
to my husband saying, “Can I pour you another cup?”
The joys,
transitory like the flowers that have recently bloomed
but no less beautiful for that
timeless in our memories
the sky has cleared in the morning,
there is a half-moon hanging crookedly in the sky humming a song of hope
I go inside and pour a cup of coffee
a cat settles on my lap
this universe must be home
especially if there is coffee
–and love
Yesterday and today: Merril's historical musings 