Eating in silence

My bowl is cup-sized, hand-thrown with horizontal ribs formed by the fingers of the potter. It has a blue matte glaze like the bloom of my blueberries and just a shade brighter. The perfection of the container for the contents delights me.

I sit alone at the table by the double window of a treehouse apartment in a friend’s house. It a place of retreat, sunny. Mine alone, a great luxury. 

The tablecloth is red-and-white woven cotton, the placemat faded red. I stack the books on the table and do not open them. I am practicing—just eating. Tasting. Listening. “I am eating berries.” Cold. Mostly crisp. Quietly sweet.

Sometimes I can do this, eat in silence with gratitude. For me it is easier in community, and I had to travel to California to know this. At the April writers’ retreat in San Raphael, we settled into a way of gathering, two to a table around the perimeter of the room, all facing the center. There was my friend, a few feet to my right. My neighbor next to me. Here were my potatoes, my salad, my bread. My water with the mint leaves floating. The window onto the courtyard of this house of Dominican Sisters. Unfathomable wealth.