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Complications on a Sunday Morning

Complications on a Sunday Morning . . .

You wake, but it’s still dark outside. You lie in your bed, not ready to put your feet on the floor. You listen, but the rain has finally stopped. Thirty days and thirty nights it has poured down. Acres of ponds have sprung up in the middle of fields. Road have become rivers. Rivers have become floods.

But all is quiet now.

You sink back into your pillow and all the work waiting for you comes crashing down.

First, though, you are going to read. You push the thought of work away and go downstairs.

You feed the dog and get a cup of coffee. Pouring in the cream, you realize it has gone off. Such a funny expression. “It’s gone off” – like on a trip somewhere and might someday return. It curdles in your cup, which you dump down the drain and go to your reserve of powdered Coffeemate, which has a half life of a million years and is undoubtedly bad for you, but still . . . it’s Sunday.

Coffee in hand, you download Unfollow on your e-reader. It’s fascinating and terrifying, to gain insight into a cult of hate, but the no-nonsense voice of the narrator divorces you from a more visceral reaction. She’s a human being who endured an almost unimaginable childhood. You think of your own childhood and wish there was a nonreligious word for blessed.

You read for forty-five minutes, but much as you’d like to, you can’t stay in bed and read all day.


More complications on a Sunday Morning


So you get up, intending to sit at your computer. You need to put a blog post up and that’s just the start of your work for the day.

But you realize there’s laundry to be done. So you gather the “colors” together and get them going, a basket of “darks” on deck.

It’s Sunday, so you want to go out to breakfast. But if you did, you’d eat toast AND potatoes, and that’s too many carbs, so you talk yourself out of it and go to the kitchen.

Complications on a Sunday morning
Veggies!

Eggs, you think. Eggs are protein, not carbs. But you feel a little guilty about balance, so you chop up onions and orange and red peppers and feel a little better.

You fry them in butter, so the guilt returns, but it’s “plant-based” whatever the hell that means, so not as guilty as you might have.

You drop a single piece of sourdough into the toaster and get out the strawberry jam. It’s your favorite, and it is, after all . . . Sunday.

You add a little salt and pepper, because you don’t have high blood pressure, so how much can a TINY bit of salt hurt. You butter your toast (plant-based) and glide the bright red preserves across the silky surface.

You make a cup of tea, because you drank coffee already and you’re trying to cut back on caffeine.

You go for a decaf Earl Grey, because you love the taste and go to pour in a little cream.


A few more complications on a Sunday morning.


You’re going to splurge, because it’s Sunday and add a little Xylitol (which is better than regular sugar, and you use it sparingly) but remember the cream has gone off, hand in hand, no doubt, with some other product in the refrigerator you really should clean out later in the day.

You give up on making the tea the way you want and drink it straight, because sweetner without cream never makes sense to you.

You finish preparing breakfast and sit down to eat, pulling up the second episode of Happy Valley to watch, then bite into your toast.

Complications on a Sunday morning
Yum!!

You decide that carbs, covered by a layer fat (even plant-based) and another layer of sugar (strawberry!!) may be the most delicious taste experience on the planet. It has it all, crunchy, smooth, sweet, the slight sour of the bread.

You add a little more salt to your eggs, because you don’t have high blood pressure, so how much could it hurt? You’ve rejected potatoes and a second piece of toast. You didn’t add sweetner to your tea. You have done your best to BALANCE.

You watch only a short section of the episode before you finish eating. You know that means you have to go to work. You hear the buzzer from the laundry room, time to put the “colors” in the dryer and the “darks” in the wash.

You go upstairs and do your chores. You take the last of your unsweetened, unlightened tea, which you still enjoy, even if it’s not “perfect”.

You sit down at your computer, and the river goes by outside. It has gone way down now the rain has stopped. The sky is tinged with blue. The sun peeks through the thin clouds.

And you think to yourself.

I am blessed.


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Veggie photo by Engin_Akyurt on Pixabay. Click the link here for more information.

Sunrise photo/header photo by realworkhard on Pixabay. Click the link here for more information.

Strawberry photo by Alexas_fotos on Pixabay. Click the link here for more information.

Elena Hartwell

Author and developmental editor.

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