The breakfast nook has always been my corner.  At times we’ve situated tables there, to eat breakfast or light meals.  For years, our first, bulky desktop computer lived on a desk there, long before computing became mobile.  Now I have a utility cart and an old linoleum-top table with two wooden stools.

But the walls in the breakfast nook have always borne the weight of my memories.  Angels, little china soup cups, pictures, ornaments — the fragile emblems of my childhood and my son’s childhood rest on dusty shelves and hang from crooked nails.  I stand in the nook to drink my first cup of coffee, read the morning news, and listen to NPR.  This morning I settled on one of the stools to eat strawberries and play my moves in the online game Words With Friends.  My friend Dave in England always  beats me but I win sometimes against other players.  Our vocabularies grow. I’ve heard playing such games can combat dementia.  If so, I should be immune.  And it passes the time while my coffee cools.

My nook has been compared with Les Nesmann’s office with its invisible walls.  Now that I live alone, I don’t worry about intrusion.  I let the quiet surround me.  Today the radio plays quietly and the dog has already gone outside.  I drink coffee.  I study the pictures on the walls and the sweet smiles on the faces of the china angels.  I think about the future.  I close my eyes and let myself relax into the moment.   I find my center. I have no complaint.

It’s the fifth day of the thirty-second month of My [Never-Ending] Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

The top picture is my son Patrick at 8; he made the frame. In the bottom picture, the man on the right is my little brother Stephen Patrick.

The top frame holds a wise piece of advice penned by Patrick, who appears in the bottom picture.