breakfast.

I'm taking a moment of silence, of gratitude, not at the beginning of my meal. This is no precursor. But I've stopped, with berry to lip, in confusion.

Sometimes beginnings happen without our ever having noticed. For all the pomp and stutter stepping that accompanies the fiercest beginnings, sometimes they just slide past us, like a fish underwater. Inches below or to the side. All we feel is a slight rush of water. But suddenly, everything is different.

We commence, and once it is done, we are astonished, frightened, diminished by the crime of life not having given us proper warning. Something momentous has happened, and we were not given the rites of deliberation and procrastination. For an instant, we are bewildered. Misplaced from our own ritual stuttering. And then, it dawns on us. The exuberant moment when we realize that far away light wasn't a tired fluttering of exhausted eyes in the dark, but a chink in the great edifice.

I did not even feel this change, until it was upon me. For a lifetime, I have done what I must. I have moved by necessity. Ended up in this house or that town because of a lack of preparation more than any real decision on my part. Because I could not begin, my life carried me, and I reacted. I have allowed myself to be a refugee.

But today, with my blueberries, my coffee, and my philosophy homework, I realized that I chose this.

This is the moment I have chosen for my breakfast  (for breaking so many fasts) and it is of my design. I have chosen these days of feasting on knowledge, on joy, on the pleasure of a room which is mine. I am the designator of this revelry. I do not feel cheated, but as though I've cheated the world. Like I've slipped a five hundred note from the bank in Monopoly.

Now, if only more beginnings would slip past me. (like the beginning of my Palooka Journal fiction submission).

p.s. sorry there are no pictures, I was very hungry...