Breakfast Chats: Quiet Luxuries of Life
And some more baking and plants
“Breakfast Chats” is a lighter series, where I share short musings and conversational tidbits about life things, like you would with a friend over breakfast. It’s a regular, monthly feature that I’ve made open for access to all subscribers, both free and paid.
Last week, a surprise package landed on our doorstep from Mehwesh and Ahsan (our friends from Adelaide). They were on a holiday recently in Malaysia and sent us a bunch of goodies that they’d lovingly brought for us. One of the things in the box was this slowpour Moroccan coffee, and as I write this, I’m making some for both Nabeel and myself. Marmalade is snoozing in the background and once I have my hot cup in my hands, let’s get into this month’s breakfast chats.
1. PLANT SHOPPING
These days I’m redoing the plants situation at my place. When we found Marmalade and it became clear that he was coming to us, I knew some of my plants had to go. Many months ago, when we’d been casually talking about cat adoption, I’d discovered that some plants can be toxic to kitties, and so it was always a thing that I figured I’d have to get around to if we went through with it. And well, we went through.
I’ll be honest, initially it wasn’t an easy change for me. I love plants very much and I’ve grown some over years from tiny pots and propagations. I did hear from quite a few people whose cats were happily existing with some toxic ones, and I also thought I’d maybe try doing that, but then I realized I’d be too strung out over the what-ifs. And it was just better for everyone’s sanity to remove all such emotional triggers.
Luckily, I only had a few very-toxic ones, and they weren’t really my favorites. I sold those off, and the rest of the mildly-toxic ones, I’ve moved to a closed room that we don’t use, until I can slowly do the same for them.
There are a bunch of things that I’m not good at, but one thing that I do value about myself is that I know how to take care of me and am a very look-forward kind of person in life. In pretty much most of the situations, after I’m done with the initial hesitation or overwhelm, I understand what *I* need to do to reconcile my feelings and make things okay for me.
I can always have the ones I’m removing now in a backyard if I really want to, when we move to our own home someday. And right now, I actually feel quite excited about the chance to discover some plants that are safe, but I’ve never experimented with. And as a bonus, our home will get a refresh ☼
I know we’re just talking about cats and plants here; it’s not such a big deal. But I think even when the numbers change, the formula remains the same. Even for bigger life decisions that we may make consciously ourselves, there can be parts of us that we don’t want to let go of. But I think letting go is not the same as choosing again.
And as life expands, and changes happen and we move through the phases, sometimes we’re not really letting go, but just choosing again.
2. QUIET LUXURIES
Last Friday, Nabeel finally wrapped up a project at work that he’d been working really hard at the past month and a half. And we spent that following weekend at home doing things that he hadn’t been able to do with complete ease for a while. It was so nice to see him all relaxed after some very demanding days.
The night he came back home after the rollout, we were talking about how things went, how his team was feeling, what was the feedback. But before he even got into the details, one of the first things he said to me was “Thank you for being there for me through it, you were so good to me”.
Hearing him say those words so genuinely made me realise how simple decency, being respectful, is also one of life’s quiet luxuries. It’s not that he did something so special that has to be celebrated. I just think, that to be someone who can maintain gentleness in words, softness of manners, patience – I feel these are one of the main markers of success, of personal wealth.
In today’s times specifically, too many of us are completely comfortable with using words that we know will leave someone with pain - because our idea of success has become predominantly about appearing intelligent with how much we know, instead of being empathetic with how much we understand.
We can all get caught up in situations where we’re unkind to each other, or even forget to be considerate, but this was a time that made me realise that warm, wholesome moments of life should be our greatest teachers. It reminded me that this is our life’s luxury and something that has to be consciously multiplied and paid forward, as much as possible.
3. STILL BAKING AWAY
On Tuesday afternoon, I wrapped up work early and baked some Anzac biscuits for a friend coming over. For anyone who doesn’t know, these are classic Australian cookies (also in New Zealand) and I absolutely love them. They have a rich, buttery flavor and come out beautifully golden from the oven. They only take about 15 minutes of baking time, so what I do is that I prep the batter and then pop them in once someone’s over. And then serve them warm from the oven with chai or coffee.
Here’s the recipe. And just in case you don’t have golden syrup that’s part of it, you can easily substitute with maple syrup. I’ve done that and they still turn out great.
4. WEEKEND PLANS
This weekend we have a couple of plans with friends, a trip to the library and then some stuff for Marmalade. Because he’s still a little kitten under four months, we don’t want to leave him alone for longer than 3-4 hours so the rest of the weekend we’ll be at home (which is something I’ll never complain about). I do want to catch up on my reading and maybe make something yum for Sunday lunch. That’s what on our agenda, hope you have a good one.
See you in a couple of weeks with this month’s larger issue ☼
Please ♥︎heart♥︎ this post if you enjoyed it. ‘A Slow Afternoon’ is a no-comment space by choice, to keep your reading free of instant reactions, just like the times of only newspapers and magazines where we had the time and mental space to form our own thought independently at first.
I also wanted you to know that all through this year, a portion of your paid subscription is being donated to the crisis in Sudan via Muslim Aid. You can let me know your thoughts later by sending me a message. Bye.
Music Credit: The music in my voiceover background is ‘Milky’ by Ninn Tendo.