Roses Lead My Way Into Reality

Each and every morning in my life has some rituals that go unchanged. Whether my day starts in the dark of winter or is bathed in the soft glow of summer sunrise I invariably am the first to rise in my home.

Getting up out of bed I touch my arms and legs to make sure they are still attached to my body and more or less function. Recently I have been checking the arch of my left foot to make sure the incision is healing where I had the cyst removed. Assured I am intact and still moving with the slow pace of a 50 something man I shower first in my household. Hot water is God’s gift to use all. A hot shower seems to wash away all the indefinites of life.

After my ablution I dress and then wake up my second child and tell him to shower and dress. Secundus or Squirrel boy’s (as he is affectionately known) role is to shower and then wake up/tell his mom to shower.

Me, after I am dressed I head down the hall to the circular stairwell that leads downstairs. On the right side of my hall I open the door to my first child’s room, turn off his ceiling fan and turn on the lights in the room. Loudly but not too loudly I tell him to wake up and get dressed. A grunt from Moose means things are progressing in due course.

Down I go to the kitchen and start making breakfast. Two bowls of oatmeal come first, 1 part Quaker Oats, 2 equal parts water and give them 3 minutes in the microwave. There are specific bowls I use. They were bought off the clearance table at Pottery Barn and they are the best bowls ever.

As the first bowl of this heart healthy grain is cooking I grind the coffee. My son with Aspergers has decided only Kenyan roast from Starbucks will do. Back when I still drank coffee I too had come to like this variety. I cannot drink coffee anymore but I brew some for Moose and his mother. After the beans are ground and placed in the filter and after the water is placed in the coffeemaker I hit the on switch and then turn back to start another 3 minute cycle of oatmeal cooking. This bowl is for my wife. I can only insure one healthy meal for her per day. No matter where I am in the kitchen that smell of brewing coffee is sense filling and wonderful. If only sex felt as good and was as consistently satisfying as coffee smells.


Now this is the tricky part. What to make Moose and Squirrel for their morning meal? I can get away every 2nd or third day with a cheese, mushroom and shallot omelet for Moose. Squirrel is harder to cook for. Some days I say screw the health consequences and they get cinnamon rolls ala Pillsbury. I buy the reduced fat ones but I am not kidding myself that they are healthy. Cinnamon buns green label or not are not healthy, they are just easy. Sometimes a basted egg with a leftover piece of pork chop will do to satisfy Squirrel’s palette. Well, that is what he got this morning. Sometimes his morning mealtime spread consists of biscuits and gravy. Make sure everyone has water or milk and then sit down to eat my cooling (if not cold) oatmeal.

Today however had a different Zen moment. The past weekend my wife and I celebrated our twenty eighth wedding anniversary. As part of the celebration a dozen roses were bought and were put in a vase that now sits on the dinning room table. After two days these flowers are in full blossom. Decay is at most a few hours away but right then as I sat down with my glass of ice water and tepid oatmeal that were at the height of beauty. As I ate my meal I was staring into a dozen blossoms, the epitome of nature’s celebration of life. For that moment I was there present with life’s glory. My health issues didn’t matter. The angst my wife is enduring due to the theft yesterday of her wallet was set aside mentally for me. I was just there immersed in the golden beauty of some roses. I was in that moment fully.

How often do we get that sense of being present in our life? At best it is a few times only. The scent and image of those roses may this day matter in my existence.