Weekend Meditation: Mornings, with Breakfast

When I wrote about Sundays last week, I realized afterward that the most important thing to me was in fact Sunday morning. And in particular, my favorite meal: breakfast.

There is something very soothing about mornings and breakfast. The day hasn’t quite come up to speed, with all it’s complexities and imperatives, and there’s a tenderness to everything, a post-sleep vulnerability where defenses and concepts haven't been completely reassembled yet. A fresh potentiality: what will today be like?

I have a meditation practice and one aspect of that discipline is to get up early, in part because it’s helpful to meditate before the mind is in full swing, before concepts and conditioning have had a chance to take hold and build their version of reality. Cool and quiet, mornings offer a refuge in simplicity, a unique opportunity for stillness and awareness. Everything, including you, is brand new.

And right on the heels of that comes a down-to-earth question: what’s for breakfast? Sometimes a soft boiled eggs with toast. Or homemade yogurt with fresh strawberries. Strong hot tea or coffee with milk. Fresh juice. On occasion, steel cut oats or 9-grain hot cereal. Even more rare but such a treat are yeast-risen pancakes with fresh bananas and maple syrup.

So what are your mornings like? Is there time to linger and appreciate the newness of the day, or fuss a little at the stove? Can you manage to get up before everyone else and find a quiet moment before you have to be fully assembled and ready to roar? What's for breakfast today?

PS For more morning and breakfast inspiration, visit 3191, a blog that dedicated last year to mornings. Also Jon Huck’s photographs of people and their breakfasts are facinating. Simply Breakfast is simply wonderful and of course The Kitchn, as usual, is full of delicious ideas.

Comments (5)

i'm a hot breakfast sort of lady. breakfast this morning was steel cut oats with a granny smith apple, dried tart cherries, pecans, and loads of cinnamon. that's my breakfast about half of the time. the other half of the time, i love eggs with potatoes or toast. and a latte. always a latte. (my gaggia espresso machine has been one of the best purchases I've made in *years*)

i'm a morning person - once my eyes are open i'm awake. i've gotten into the (now-loved!) habit of going to the gym for an hour in the wee hours of the morning and then coming home, showering, and having a nice, lingering breakfast while reading the news. i can do this mostly because i'm a graduate student and it's the summer, so i'm just working on my dissertation and my schedule is my own. once the semester starts and i have to teach at 8 three days a week, my nice leisurely mornings are sure to change a bit!

I cannot relate even slightly to the notion of morning as a time of tender vulnerability, because I have an early-rising toddler. She is not allowed up until 6, but begins inquiring about that no later than 5:45. I get up at 5:00 to run/do yoga/work and for the privilege of using the bathroom all by myself. Around here, the day begins a bit like being shot out of a cannon.

I DO relate to all things breakfast, however. Breakfast is our family meal, and it involves several "courses," starting with fruit. It's a madhouse, and I am consistently late to work, but we eat well and when we step out the door we are all very well nourished, though the adults are generally quite frazzled and looking forward to that soothing moment known as the mid-morning coffee break.

Growing up, my parents usually got up to make breakfast for the family--usually eggs, rice, some fruit, and some sort of meat. That was this morning's breakfast--a Sunday luxury of eggs, rice, bacon, and some apple wedges. Usually, it's a grab-and-go that I can eat at my desk at work, something like yogurt with honey and granola, a muffin, a banana, or oatmeal. For me, mornings are all or nothing. I love the feeling of getting up early enough to get my gears oiled, sit down and have breakfast at home while I read or check the news. Those mornings are so rare, though. Last night, I was up reading until 3 a.m., and on weekends, I have the privilege of letting my body sleep until it's ready to get up. So this morning, I got up just before 11. Almost exactly 8 hours of sleep. On weekdays, I usually lean on the snooze button until I absolutely have to get up. If anything, it certainly makes me appreciate my weekends a little more.

Is there a recipe for homemade yogurt on this site?

I skip breakfast during the week but we have cooked breakfast in the weekend. Breakfast is the my fiance's domain (I cook our dinners). He does poached eggs eggcellently :) We normally have poached eggs with bacon or sausage or mushrooms with toast. Awesome!