I swear, my mind as I grow older is a Time Machine. In a heartbeat I can go back decades...and stay there for a while. Sometimes, my eyes grow shiny before I even know what part of my life I zoomed back in on.
I just can't control the Time Machine, or the Memory it decides to visit. Tonight, it was all fired up by a bowl of oatmeal. Or as my Kathy calls it: "Porridge."
Quaker Oats was the king of my childhood winter breakfasts. Mom could make a huge pot of it, very quickly...and then shuffle the grown ups out the door, then the older kids, and the us younger ones would wolf down any leftovers.
We all got a bowl of oatmeal. Steaming hot, with milk ready to pour over it. All of us had a different liking for how we stocked our oatmeal.
I was simple: more sugar. More milk. My bowl of oats looked more like a thin milkshake than anything else.
Mom and Dad...well, no sugar. When they were growing up, you had to be pretty well off to have sugar to 'waste" in oatmeal. Heck, they didn't even use milk added. Nope. They just got the water boiling and put in enough oats to choke a horse. When it was so thick you couldn't stir - it was ready.
If we had fruit, they did put that in there too. Usually dried berries, or bananas. Because most fruits when I was a kid, came only in season.
My sisters loved bananas on their oatmeal.
My eldest sister sprinkled cinnamon on hers, and a dab of Honey.
My two oldest brothers put peanut butter in theirs. And that made me sick to my stomach to even look at!
One brother, for whatever reason, would break up his bacon (if we had some that day) and mix that in with his oatmeal.
So tonight, I had a bowl of oatmeal. My first bowl in probably this decade...if not longer. And yeah, I put way too much sugar and milk in it. But I did not eat alone.
Nope.
When I lifted my head, I was surrounded by by red heads, a few brunettes, my Mom and Dad's silver hair...and the chatter of a large family headed out for the day.
And I smiled.