Saturday, December 12, 2015

Little Daily Miracles



author (in striped blouse) Grant School, 6th grade
Little Daily Miracles (a response by a.c.fonte to a prompt in The Creative Writer’s Notebook)

“Write a short piece using the following lines from [Virginia] Woolf’s To The Lighthouse for inspiration:  “Little daily miracles”--

My little daily miracles:  waking up in a warm bed, listening to rare rain on the roof, feeling Gray, our cat, press his back against my ankles.  Later, the miracle of a hot tea bag infusing my cup with the sweet scent of bergamot, stimulating my senses and brain.  I read the newspaper—skimming the bad parts of terrorism, disease and dipping stock market—to savor movie reviews and comics.

A toaster is a miracle of engineering. It takes a piece of plain bread, warms it, browns the lightly sugared flour into an inviting picture of texture and taste.  I sprinkle a mixture of three grated cheeses over one thinly buttered side of the toast and bite into it. 

Now I am back in Elgin, Illinois where whiffs of early morning black coffee beckon me to the breakfast table.  My mom is pouring her last cup from the McGraw Hill plug-in coffee pot and watches me eat my toast.  It’s Saturday, and my dad is outside shoveling the overnite layer of snow from our slick driveway so my mom can go to work.  He will get groceries from Gromer’s and take two bags of requested items to my Grandparents.  They live on a small farm about fifteen minutes away and their driveway will need to be shoveled, too.  While my mom manages a busy day of pre-Christmas Saturday shopping at Ben Franklin’s Store, my sister and I will go with my dad on errands and be greeted at the farm by our Grandmother who has just finished baking sugar cookies.

All this is rediscovered in today’s toast, eaten at a small table with my husband in Tucson, Arizona.  Marcel Proust was right:  taste is a miracle of memory.

 

(325 words 12/12/15)