Eating

There is no breakfast in bed, of course.

By the time we have finished with our waking and our washing, sacred morning rituals observed carefully without haste or hurry, the day’s first light has already found its way into our humble sanctuary. We have to leave and head for work. A week similar to everyone else’s, we will join the throngs scrambling for the offices, eager to get our nine-to-five done and over with.

But first, we will feed ourselves.

Not in bed, of course; we’ve already covered that. No reason not to have our first meal with grace and in silence. One of us will boil the water for the coffee; the other fetches the bread and the spreads, be it a trustworthy bottle of natural peanut butter or the unseasonal kaya, homemade and fragrant. The smell of fresh coconut and warm eggs in the morning is intoxicating, even if it’s just a memory enveloped in a jar of our favourite jam.

If we have prepared some sweet dessert the night before, we can have that, ladled slowly into large bowls so their steam may wake us up a little further. Dried fruits — longans, dates, wolfberries — blossom into flesh again, a sweet ghost of their former selves. A miracle double-boiled in rock sugar.

We don’t speak much; we don’t have to when we’ve done this so many times before. Waking first and then breaking our fast. A small meal, enough to satisfy the early pangs of hunger, yet in its own way a minor feast.

To begin each day in the company of the one you love, isn’t that reason enough to celebrate?

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Life for Beginners Stories by Kenny Mah