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| 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)
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