We went to breakfast Saturday morning, way out through the hills and damp redwoods to a little forest town not too far from here.
It is our favorite spot for special occasions. It is my request for my birthday every year.
Now, my daughter, Tessa, has taken on the tradition,
and this weekend we celebrated her turning 16. She wanted all the same kinds of things I always want: Breakfast at Howard’s Station with all of us girls, a warm cup of coffee, maybe shopping in some antique stores after that.
We got the very best table, surprisingly.
It is a small space, so normally we are all crammed in, but on this day we were seated dead center;
The heart of the restaurant.
The murmur of voices, like its heartbeat.
We all sat, focused on the baby, and so did many others around us.
I, of course, love when anyone notices my grandbaby.
She always draws smiles, comments, and stares.
I’ve gone to that restaurant since I, too, was 16 years old.
My friends and I once skipped school completely to drive out there.
The old wood floors are the same ones, warped and slanted.
It still smells like seasoned potatoes, cinnamon, and coffee.
You have never had loaded oatmeal or potatoes like that.
I love how you can glance out the window at the turn-of-the-century buildings that make up the town and imagine how they were all those years ago, when it was still a train station.
I love how you can watch the early morning steam, like memories of simpler days,
rising off of the roofs of them.
It has always been dog-friendly. (As all the best places are, in my opinion)
They have gone so far as to create an entire printed dog menu.
I wondered as I sat there if anything could be better than those smells in your nose,
and the sounds of teaspoons clinking coffee cups,
while a dog lays at your feet on the same wood that has welcomed hundreds of them.
I sat at the table silently as the girls all chattered, and mooned over the baby, thinking about how that kind of moment was exactly what you want as a mom: All your kids together, maybe a grandchild or two, gathered in a spot with a special place in your heart;
Everyone happy and filled.
Other patrons were stopping by now, smiling at the baby who was loving her biscuit.
She loved it so much she rocked her high chair like a rocking horse.
They raised their eyebrows, and followed with grins.
I felt impacted by that moment, looking around, knowing surely others – like I was –
were feeling the tension of current events, but yet, there we were in a place that had stood through many tense eras,
unchanged,
still smelling good,
still filling coffee cups and frying eggs like it had always been.
Those people standing talking to the baby would undoubtedly go on to all different types of lives once they went off from there, but, in that moment, we were all just eating our first meal of the day, smiling at a clapping baby, tasting, smelling, and feeling goodness around us:
The simplest of pleasures at our fingertips.
It was like we were all one in that restaurant, out tucked in the hills.
Loving our dogs, tossing them strips of bacon.
Laughing, and having conversations. Leaving happy.
It felt like the old, warped feeling woodgrain surely must have absorbed and redistributed the spirit of a hundred years of it.
After we ate, and to their groans, I had the girls pose for a picture beside the restaurant, with the church my husband and I were married in in the background.
The picture of them all, our daughters and now granddaughter, felt like our entire story, whittled down: A timeline of rain, and coming through a dark forest into the sun,
of bird song ringing through the trees when all else was still.
I wished in that moment I could go back in time and hand a copy of it as proof of what can happen to that young, nervous couple that rang the church bell that day.
Look what you can build!
Look what is being built still!
My American Dream has always been just what was around that table that day.
Those girls are all I ever wanted. I do not need riches, or fame, or power.
I wanted fingerpainted portraits and refrigerator magnets. I wanted all that was real.
Later, we would go antiquing.
Tessa is an old soul who loves finding unique things with a story that no one else has.
She left with a vintage sweater and two old records.
When I held the bag I felt like you could be taken back in time just by opening it and breathing in their smell, and it was there in the middle of a warehouse of other people’s history available for purchase that I saw what can still be ours for myself.
On that day of warm sights, smells, and feelings,
I contemplated the things we crave most for ourselves;
How, often, they are the most simple things.
It’s why we love to return to the familiar, repeat the tradition.
Returning to what is familiar gives the feeling of going home,
even if home is unavailable to us – Even if it is gone, and we can’t.
The world outside right now feels so chaotic.
There are wars being waged with others, and within ourselves.
The trees are damp and dark, and the rooftops are steaming,
but there are still dogs on old wood floors, and there are still scents of cinnamon.
Our hearts still know when we are in a place where all is well.
Maybe this week we can all think of our own Howard’s Station:
A place where we feel surrounded by warmth, peace, and happiness?
Maybe this week we can remember that, though the outside grows increasingly cold
feeling, there are places in this world still full of the smiling faces of strangers,
and whose entire purpose is for filling us in whatever way we are needing it?
Maybe we can go back to the old wood grain, and ask a favor:
“Tell me about all the people and dogs and cozy breakfasts,
about the daughters born,
and about all the couples who rang that church bell.
Tell me about all you remember,
and I will carry it out from here.”
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
