I’LL NEVER forget one early morning breakfast in a farmer’s hut where I had spent the night sometime in the mid-90s. Back then, I was still working for a non-government organization and just about to start a day-long trek in the mountains to interview a few tribal leaders for our research.
But going back to the topic of breakfast, we weren’t having your usual city fare of bread or toast, eggs, and what-have-yous. Instead, it was just boiled “saba” (plantain), ginamos, a little leftover rice, and a heaping mug of native coffee.
The sun wasn’t quite up yet, but mixes of orange to flamingo already threatened to invade the dark where a few stubborn stars still lingered.
We sat there, facing each other and breaking fast with only the tiny light of a small kerosene can in the middle of our otherwise dark and bare table.
In my mind, I imagined we looked like track athletes before a race, with everyone deep in thought and in our own personal worlds. All quiet we were, reserved and content to just cup the warm mugs with both hands to stave off the cold.
In all, the ambience of our tiny kitchen felt more like that of a chapel’s, where even a hush meant breaking an unwritten law.
Yet I reckon it really doesn’t matter whether one is up in the boondocks or right smack in the middle of suburbia. The peace and quiet while having that first cup must rightfully belong as one of the things you would miss at breakfast.
I am likewise reminded of a young boy of about three sitting at breakfast wearing a face like Dr. Freeze and just staring into nothing. Her aunt (my gf then) had asked softly, “Adrian, what are you doing?” and he hoarsely mumbled, “I am thinking.”
All grown up now, I am wondering if he still sticks to his thinking ritual whenever he sits at the breakfast table before his coffee.
I know not everyone drinks the brew come mornings or drinks it at all, but I have to ask, whatever similar morning rite do you indulge in once you’re at the table? Surely, there must be some sacred ritual that involves a certain lull and silence. A quiet before the storm, so to speak. I imagine it would be different with others.
During our much earlier times, we weren’t afforded quiet moments. I remember my mother reciting to us high-schoolers the chores before we left for school or reminding us of assignments we dare not forget once we got home.
Even as others like us find a certain solace in a few quiet minutes while we have our first coffee, I am just starting to accept that other people prefer to fill theirs with whatever declarations of inspiration, insight, and discoveries they might have had during the night before.
In the case of many, it’s time for discussing news and many other trivialities that may have transpired in the past and the present. For politicians, perhaps the future. In the end, it’s to each his own, and that’s that.
I’m just about to have my second cup. And at that, the promise of a second quiet.
