I’m eating bacon and drinking coffee. I do these two things on Saturday and Sunday more than any other day of the week. It’s probably not healthy when I think about it, the shear amount of coffee and bacon (and eggs) consumed in this house on the weekends. But then again, whatever.
Rituals. They’re something that I once associated only with special occasions, like days when we carve turkeys or get married or say goodbye to our loved ones who’ve passed. But rituals can exist in every corner of our world, in every moment of our lives if we let them, if we need them.
We don’t always have to wait for something big to happen to acknowledge the tiny patterns of Life all around us. I think there is something very soothing about small rituals and I thought I’d blog it out to think it out a little more:
In Lisbon I had a ritual. In Paris I had rituals, too. They seemed to sneak up on me as I was just going about exploring my new surroundings, living somewhere else, being someone else, just getting to know the city. I highly recommend this to everyone, especially young writers. Being other people helps you build up characters for stories… if you’re that kind of writer, that is.
When I’m traveling, I love the feeling of going about my business and then one day, smack! I realize I’ve been doing something for several days in a row, like visiting the same bookstore every other day or going to the same coffee hut in Principe Real or the same bistro for onion soup in Les Halles. More than that, though, I realize I’ve been feeling a little different, too, which is always a welcome change.
Rituals, big or small, can feel like magic.
So. It’s Sunday and I’m eating bacon and drinking coffee and writing and I’ll admit I wasn’t feeling very motivated about that an hour ago. The idea repulsed me in fact (“again with the bacon and coffee? Go to a museum or something lazyass”). But now, I’m thinking maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe it doesn’t have to be “holy mother I’m drinking coffee, eating bacon and writing blogs again on Sunday, screw this….” because I actually get a lot done during this time.
Maybe, after all these years of sticking to it (and really kind of enjoy it) my Sunday morning habits are simply just rituals now; a way to process the week gone by and plan the week ahead; a time to blog and think some stuff out. A time to write.
So what if my ritual involves pig fat and caffeine? From now on I’m just going to call it what it is: my Sunday morning ritual of Bacon and Coffee.
~sandy.
