Toast

…is more than toast

I briefly interrupt my string of essays about old loves to invite you to virtually sit with me at my kitchen table. I am sitting with my back to the deck outside, you are sitting facing it, and you can see that despite the snow we had this morning, the flowers are rising up, and the birds are singing. Or they might not be singing. They might be saying what the heck is up with all this snow? They might have had their feathers ruffled, ha ha.

I got up this morning in a fair amount of pain, it’s that old pinched nerve business, you know. But I stood and walked across the living room and looked at things I love in there, like birds’ nests and colored stones and green plants and candles and paintings and books and furniture that I really like, even though a certain cat, who will remain anonymous, unless I say her name, LILY, that’s L-I-L-Y, has scratched up a few things. Whenever I see scratched furniture in other peoples houses, I think it adds character. When I see it here, I get exasperated. And isn’t it funny, at such times, I can never find the cat so I can dress her down a little. I swear she reads minds.

Anyway, when I got up this morning, I looked out onto the front porch and there, reliable, as ever, was the newspaper, and I love the newspaper. I had some coffee, and then I had an idea regarding a certain kind of indulgence. I put two pieces of bread in the toaster, and when it popped up, I buttered it lavishly, and then I added boysenberry jam, which I had heated in the microwave so everything would be warm and comforting. I sat at the table to read the New York Times Book Review, which I am only now getting around to, and I read Charles Frazier talking about “Chet Baker in Tokyo.” I love Chet Baker, and I had never heard of this, so I told Alexa to play it. I ate my toast to the sublime and silky sounds and I stared at the artwork hanging on my pantry doors that my little grandson has made, and I focused on the one that said, I love you with the “U”looking like it was awfully unsure of itself. I think it’s hard, sometimes, when you’re going through something, to lose track of all the comfort around you. But today was a good day for me to remember that. I think of my father, who in his late 80s went to visit his brother, who was in a nursing home and wheelchair-bound. My uncle asked my dad how he felt, and my dad said, “Eh, not so good.” My uncle looked up at him and said, “You can walk, can’t you?” That changed everyone’s perspective, I think, everyone who was in that room that tried hard to be cheerful with its greeting cards lined up on the windowsill, but was sad nonetheless. So yes, I can walk, I can eat toast, I can pet my dogs, I am home. And I can sit here at the kitchen table by myself, and reach out to you, and feel anything but alone. That is the gift of writing, one of the gifts of writing, I should say.

That is all. The next report will go back to old loves, another blessing, another sacrament. Thank you for being here.

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash