Daybreak

This morning I am thinking about breakfast. I remember one morning when my dad took me to breakfast when I was in college. My mom, a school bus driver, had to rise early each morning for her job. So when they’d visit me at college she’d decline the offer to eat breakfast at a restaurant, preferring instead the rare opportunity to sleep in.

I’d usually order oatmeal. If possible, with blueberries and brown sugar. My dad would order a heartier breakfast, some kind of bacon and eggs, “bacon crisp,” he’d request. Oh gosh, now I’m forgetting how he takes his eggs. I think over easy…I dig deeper into memories, trying to remember how mom cooks them. I think back to watching her in the kitchen when I was a child. I notice the small white bowl she kept on the stovetop–where she’d drain the bacon grease and later use it as a non-stick coating in her well-seasoned black cast iron pans handed down from my grandmother, who taught my mom to cook. I’m trying to remember how mom cooks dad’s eggs. I believe I can see her scooping out some hardened bacon grease and placing it into the pan; I see the white paste melt almost instantly in the heated pan. Then tap, tap, tap–she’s gently cracking eggs on the sharp ledge of the counter, then plop, adding each egg to the pan. I feel confident she’s cooking them over easy, keeping the yolk intact and just a bit runny. Dad can sop it up like gravy with his crisp sourdough toast.

Anyhow, when I was in college my dad and I would go out for breakfast when they visited. He’d sometimes order a meal called “Daybreak” with bacon, eggs, toast. There may have been sausage. Goodness I can’t remember if he prefers patties or links. I’d say links. I can imagine his shaking Tabasco all over his eggs and also making a line of red Tabasco dots down his sausage links.

So there we are, me perhaps 20 years old, my steaming bowl of oatmeal and a tiny pitcher of cold milk to pour on my hot cereal. I love those little vessels with dainty handles! Across the table there’s my dad with his Tabasco-dotted Daybreak.

Back in the present moment, I pause from my writing and look out the window. Officially, the sun doesn’t rise for 15 more minutes. Yet the sky is already light and bright, full of anticipation for the full new day ahead.

Little puffs of clouds are pinkish red, almost like dots of Tabasco.

I feel lucky I got to witness a beautiful Daybreak. Actually, I guess there were two.

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