Loving Monday: Chocolate Bread and Stripey Cookies

It's been almost a week since most of the flights were cancelled, except one little flight to Pittsburgh: the one where I met (Richard?), who works at Novartis, in the financial department.

(Here is the beginning of a long plea of forgive-me-if-I've-forgotten-or-altered-your-name-I-met-so-many-people-in-the-span-of-six-days. This coming week I will be sharing about my time at Geneva College and Jubilee... I do remember your faces even if I somehow slip with your names).

What does it matter that I met Richard? And that someone flew the plane through blinding snow? What does it matter that someone made the seats we sat in, or that another man refused to move his small bag from the overhead compartment so I could put my big suitcase somewhere?

And the pizza I ate that night in haste, due to a mixup about speaking times (we rushed from the airport to (was it Joe's?) and on to a group of waiting students at Geneva College).

How about the inn that greeted me late, with the promise of a clean bed, a quiet room, and quiche in the morning?

What of the all the presentations (six in total), one where I spoke of chocolate stripey cookies, and their potentially honorable place in the world? (a story from Alain de Botton's The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work.)

How about the (Slavic?) woman with a heavy accent, a tired face, and beautiful golden eyes (I told her, "You have beautiful eyes," and she poured out a brief story of the day's weariness. Later, I came back to a fresh room, fluffed white comforter, and I found her down the hall to say, "Thank you for cleaning my room so beautifully.")

And the chocolate bread? What of that? Special made by Raymond's, who took the order late at night (called in by a waiter who knew him and wanted me to have my chocolate bread I remembered from last year).

In the dualistic mindset Beckett speaks about, what of these things?



Shoes at the College Inn photo, Chocolate Bread photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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