First Meal, First Thoughts

My first newspaper was a cereal box. I hid behind that orange rectangular box of Wheaties believing those flakes were the breakfast of champions. I was becoming the hero of my life, ready to soar. There was a certain magic watching the written words come to life; like witnessing a flower bloom.

These days the only things I read on the box are the carbohydrate and fiber content.

Breakfast is more than a meal. It’s a ritual. Same routine every morning to get us ready to meet the day. It’s the imposition of order before the chaos of life has its way with us.

Everything is contained in anything. Wallace Stevens never left this country; Emily Dickinson hardly left her room yet found the universe within. Walls became windows. 

Many of us have learned the power inherent in a circumscribed space. We gain an intimacy with borders. The  cottage cheese ceiling might yield its secrets. There is a choreography in the way we move and a music in the collective hum.  

Consider the snowflake. Better yet, the cornflake. Each one, unique. As an island in a sea of milk it has an enormous seacoast. No flakes could be mistaken for Colorado or Utah with all those perpendiculars. The flakes look more like Michigan or the jagged right margin of a poem. It welcomes possibilities.

Then, as now, I am in a profound engagement with my cereal bowl, eating and ruminating at once. Now at the bottom of the bowl in faux-Delft blue is a scene of two peasants crossing a bridge between mountains with their cargo revealed, mission accomplished.

What I am spooning is a flag of strawberries, milk and blueberries. A morning anthem. A reminder of what once was and how far we have strayed.