A bowl of simple pleasures

Everything Grits
Waffle House~Port Royal, SC

So many times our lives become filled with appointments, expectations, tasks, routines and promises that we spill ourselves out endlessly over the rim never really pausing to enjoy a full bowl of simply ourselves.  And when this continues to happen we find the necessity to retreat to reconnect to our true desires in living this life.

I rather relish these moments of becoming a recluse to my own whims.  I do not dally in their unfolding. I simply find what matters most to me in this middle life craze. That's me, myself and I. I need the best of me to forge ahead, not everyone and everything else I garnish myself with along the way. Those things and people are/were important and meaningful, but they do not make my dreams reality nor emote my truest desires.

Leaving behind the brandishing of titles and the conquering of monumental odds was no easy task.  I rather liked those aspects of myself and so over time I've wielded them, released them, wielded them again only to cast them aside one final time.  I find I'm more relevant now.  Relevant in that my instincts and desires fit into a far more important role that competes with no one, relies on no time clock and simply allows me to just be.

So I'm staring down at this breakfast bowl of grits, sausage, egg and cheese thinking "this is the best of everything." But I would say the same were it just the grits, just the sausage, just the egg or simply the cheese.  Any one of these singularly would make my day complete.  And so on the days when I have it all I'll enjoy it, but the days when its just me I'm far more likely to be happy.

Simplicity and Soy Glazed Mushrooms

Soy Glazed Mushrooms

We are reminded in the constant evolution of our lives that simplicity is a far better virtue.  Many of us attempt to keep our lives simple, our relationships plain, our households uncluttered and our food unprocessed and in our very attempt to achieve simplicity we retain a great deal of richness. A richness we're hard pressed to cling to when the very thought of not sustaining it enters into possibility.

Like many I have embraced the simplicity of scanning a select group of foodies on Pinterest to locate and repin a recipe that I might like to recreate later (along with quotes, books, reading tools, letters of the alphabet, storytellers). I still relish a Sunday morning thumbing through my hardbound cookbooks, but sometimes I like to lean on my peers to steer the course of the day. Today that course was a simple no nonsense side dish of Soy Glazed Mushrooms.  I needed only to purchase fresh mushrooms at our local farmers market as the rest of the ingredients were items I keep on hand for any occasion ~ which made for an easy decision to prepare this dish. In under ten minutes with a handful of ingredients I prepared something rich in taste that will be repeated and cataloged as a "go to" dish for entertaining.

Here's the interesting note on simplicity that one can not overlook...just because it is presented as simple does not imply that delivery will be dull or that the overall package will lack complexity~whether through the experience of living or the recommendation of fellow foodies simplicity is far more rich than anyone can imagine.