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These months have opened my eyes to what a charming custom breakfast is. I'm never hungry for the first several hours after I wake, so I never really ate it and never missed it. But ever since we got married, it has become a Great Thing Without Which We Cannot Do. So we often skip lunch. Or, I do. A really good breakfast takes a bit of time to make, so it isn't eating as soon as you get up, which solves most of my objections against it. (My objections were all practical and flimsy and unemotional and therefore backed hardly at all.) There are a few which take no time, and of these we accept half. Toasted muffins, cheese, pears, and tea, and variations thereof, are swift. I think I like them best, too, though Thad prefers the ones that take time and flipping of pancakes and frying of bacon just so and slicing potatoes and all that.

We love food more than anyone else we have ever met, so everything about it is magical and splendid.  There is the morning light, which is shy and still. There is the sitting across from each other, still a bit bleary eyed, not saying anything. There is the marmalade and the warm tea and the slouchy socks and informality and delight of being alive. I haven't words for it, as I seem to be in most places these days, but I have acres and acres and acres of feelings. I am feeling more intensely. I attribute this to the fresh air.

We linger about breakfast. Linger making it, linger setting the table or getting out the dishes or carrying the tray to the bedroom, (slowly, so as not to spill the little pitcher full to the top with milk) in the eating and the tasting and the sipping, and in the washing up afterward. I think breakfast may be the clearest way to say “I love you,” both to a person and to life.

I don't think a person should ever eat breakfast unless they are going to go about it slowly, with love. Never in haste, never with a crabby spirit. Well, I admit I am often crabby in the morning, especially if Thad makes me breakfast in bed (which is just tea and fruit and toast which I don't eat because he doesn't put enough butter on, no matter what I say), but it's never crabbiness against food or Thad or even really morning. Morning is the very best.

You know how I used to loathe mornings? I'd hate them, or think I did, because I hated everything I clapped eyes on, especially the people who were so cheerful. But here there is such stillness and not a hint of bustle, and morning blossoms in her shyness and touches me with such love. It helps that we have so many windows and the only other person within about four miles is Thad. He is sufficiently standoffish to keep me happy.