I like it. It may be one of my favorite parts of the day. Even living alone, it seems quieter than the rest of the day. Even without the hustle and bustle of a job to prod me forward, it seems more peaceful than the rest of the day. My head isn’t jumbled with a whole bunch of thoughts. I happen to also like breakfast food. Sweet gooey syrup and butter soaked waffles (yes, frozen – I’m lazy) or pancakes (those I make) or French toast, bacon and eggs on the weekend and, of course, coffee. Hot, comforting quiet coffee. For as much as I like breakfast, you would think I’d take more time with it, savor it. I think it took me three minutes to eat my two waffles this morning. Admittedly, I sometimes have the appetite and mechanics of a wood chipper – best to keep fingers and hands away. I also love going out to breakfast. Here in Memphis there’s a little diner around the corner that I’ve enjoyed. Back home it was a few different places in Yardley (Edgewood Cafe and Mil-Lee’s), Philly (Sabrina’s and OCF Coffee House), and State College (Corner Room and Waffle Shop).
I suppose as much as I like breakfast food, I enjoy the ritualistic aspect of it more than anything. Throughout much of my life, it has been a time of solitude. It’s when I read the morning paper (mostly uninterrupted), or when I petted and greeted the cats, and when I just took my time. The actual eating might take a few short minutes, but it seems like it’s at least an hour for me to get going. I’ve also had different routines at different points in my life – though honestly I’m not sure I remember much past these last couple of years. I know for a while, as part of reading the morning paper (and the comics – I liked the comics), I also read one random obituary a day. I wanted to see into other people’s lives and honor them and their families. My thinking was that this person lived and is gone, and someone who cared about them took the time to try to capture their spirit in words – that seemed worth a few minutes of my time. When I was married, my routine was to get up have a few moments to myself to eat and then get my daughter up and get her day going. My current routine is to get up, have breakfast and read online news, maybe write, maybe surf Facebook or dating profiles, and then have what has become the best part of the routine, a second cup of coffee out on the balcony or on the sofa with a book (usually poetry) and my notebook where I jot down ideas.
Among the things I read last night was an article on Inverse that stated when you eat breakfast and dinner could affect your levels of body fat. It suggests eating breakfast later and dinner earlier – the opposite of what I’ve been doing. When B, my ex-fiancee, left, I was depressed. I pretty much stopped exercising altogether – precisely the opposite of what you’re supposed to do. I couldn’t do sit ups because I missed having the dog come and try to give me kisses. I couldn’t run because I missed my running partner. I was also looking pretty hard for a job, and trying to sell the house, and about three or four other lame excuses. When I moved to Memphis, things only got worse. I was in a new city, eating lots of BBQ and drinking beer to go with it, and still not finding or making the time to exercise. After a few month I had put on a couple of pounds. It was nothing dramatic, but enough that I was feeling it or noticing it. My weight always fluctuates a few pounds every day…. but as a quick comparison – just before getting divorced, I weighed between 195 and 205. Within three months of getting divorced, I dropped to between 165 and 175. I stayed at that level for the next three years. After a few months here in Memphis, I was creeping past 180 and getting closer to 185 (I think. For the longest time, the battery in my scale was dead). Ever since being let go from work, I’ve refocused on exercise. I try to run and/or lift five or six days a week and walk everyday. I’m down to about 170 again. I don’t care all that much about the actual number, but I do care about how I feel (and yes, as I get closer to thinking about dating, how I look). One thing I’ve noticed is that despite my efforts, I’m struggling with the jiggle in the mid section. Walking through the park where there are a bunch of guys ten years younger and shirtless and fit doesn’t help. My theory is that I spend too much time sitting hunched over my computer – which is probably bad for my back and my gut. I also still really like BBQ and beer (I have no intention of giving those things up). To combat this, I’ve tried standing more as I write and I’m starting to incorporate more core exercises in to my routines. And… when I come across an article that suggests waiting 90 minutes to eat in the morning may be beneficial, I give it some consideration.
The other day I wrote a post about other ways to live. In it, I wrote about some of my routines and the influence my ex-fiancee had on those routines. Few people have made me want to break out of my habits the way she did – not because they were bad habits, but because I admired how she was in the world. I absolutely loved when we had breakfast together, especially the sitting on the sofa drinking coffee together part. We usually only got to do that on the weekends. During the week, I woke up early in Philly, got dressed, gave B a kiss on the head, gave the dog a pat, and drove home where I would have breakfast, read the paper, exercise and head in to work. I typically left Philly around 5:20am (yes, I was that scheduled) and was back in Yardley by 6am and in work by 8:00am. In that blog post I also mentioned that B couldn’t eat first thing in the morning. On weekends, we often got up at the same time. When we didn’t, I usually had a cup of coffee by myself, fed the pets, took the dog out to play a bit, etc. etc. I always waited to have breakfast together and my body got used to it.
Now, it turns out, there might have been a health benefit to waiting…. with that in mind, I thought, maybe I could get back on that type of a schedule. Maybe I could wait the 90 minutes to eat. This morning I failed. I’m not sure I got much past 30 minutes between getting out of bed and wood chipping my way through two waffles. As I paused and thought about my impending failure while waiting for the toaster oven to ding, I started to wonder how I did it before. Even the thought of waiting made me hungry. And then I thought about my current routine… what would waiting 90 minutes do to my glorious second cup moments? Could I switch them and make the first cup (while I waited to eat) the more thoughtful and appreciated cup? This was all way too much consideration for 5:30 in the morning… but what also does this say about motivation and change? That was something else I tried to touch on in my consideration of learning to live differently through someone else. Breakfast with my partner was motivation enough to want to do things differently…. the getting up early and driving back was motivated by wanting to avoid traffic and front-loading my day so that we could spend quality time after work. Left to my own devices, I crumbled under my current routine. And what does all of this say about the associations we build? For me breakfast equals peace and is often tied to past ways of enjoying the moments… Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow. More than likely, I won’t think about it too much until someone shakes me loose and gives me good reason to break from my routine. And now it’s time for a little more coffee.