My favorite personal ritual is to grab a book and read over breakfast at a local café. I love how it feels to be immersed in a crowd, yet isolated in my own world, inside the pages of a good story. I also love to look up and see locals and travelers’ faces as they spend a few carefree, restorative moments around a table, savoring conversation and a wholesome, comforting meal. At times, I wander off the pages in my book and allow my mind to playfully imagine scenarios in the lives of my breakfast companions.

The ladies who sat at the table next to mine appeared to be friends traveling together. Or perhaps they were sisters who had not seen each other in a long time and decided to go on a road trip to find common grounds after living different stories for many years.  

They spoke for a while, and then fell silent, each staring at their food, perhaps contemplating what to say next. There was no discomfort in that silence. Rather, there was an ease of being about them, like two people who know each other well enough to sustain both conversation and void. No obligation. Just go with the flow. All is well. 

I tried to assess from their respective body language whether one might have a grudge toward the other, or envy, or admiration; or perhaps the one on the left felt a bit bored and the one on the right restless.  

Time stands still at a breakfast café. Everyone stops there a while to play a part in a chapter of the establishment, silencing for a while the ever-flowing chapters of their own lives. We all sit there eating, chatting joyously with the waitress off and on as if we were all friends, or long-time acquaintances. In that single moment, we are unburdened by life, by wrong decisions, by loss and by work obligations. Perhaps we should spend more time in cafés because here we play out the simplest, purest expression of who we are, truly. 

I returned to my book and my dish, faintly aware of the conversations around me, until every few sentences I read became interspersed with the words or activity from a nearby table, and my mind plunged into another story, my imagination reaching behind the faces and beyond this moment to design one of thousands of possible scenarios for the hidden lives of my fellow, incognito breakfast companions. 

A family of three sat at another table not too far. The one whom I assumed to be the mother bent her head toward her phone for the greater part of the meal, but this did not stop her son from offering commentaries to which she replied without hesitation. A skilled multitasker, I thought. The son did not appear offended one bit. It is good to accept others as they are. Much easier that way. I see him as a theology student, or perhaps a philosopher at heart, wise beyond his years. How else could he so calmly accept others’ distracted presence around him.  

He lives at home. All three pretty much live in silence. There is nothing pressing to discuss. The mechanics of each day are flawless and reliable. Dad reads his paper and goes to the local grocery store for a morning cup and a chat with the town’s mayor and one or two local businessmen. He rarely comes back before one o’clock or even two. He was silent through the entire breakfast. This is not his routine, so he is on hold.  

A couple arrived and sat further away. Husband and wife. They looked at the menu for so long, it seemed they were reading every single dish description, or silently hunting for typos. This must be a game they enjoy. The woman held her coffee cup high, gracefully, like a noble woman waiting to have it filled anew. These two are spies, I thought. They own an inn in another town. Just bought it a few months ago, and they go around touring hotel and B & B dining rooms, observing. They are looking for that je ne sais quoi touch or atmosphere to duplicate in their own establishment. 

Meanwhile, the two ladies at the closest table are plotting an itinerary for the rest of the day. They sound at once curious about things to discover and disinterested. Was it really necessary to come all this way to get together again, thinks one of them as the other realizes that if she knew her friend as much as he thinks she does, what to do next would not require any planning at all. Have they grown apart irreparably after all?  

The young man with his parents is very polite. He says thank you to every little gesture of attention from the waitress and keeps his elbows off the table. His name is Marcel, or so I imagine it to be. As a young boy, he was not certain he liked that name. In fact, he was not certain how he fit in with the other kids, so he decided early on to be amiable and polite. People who knew him in private thought he was funny, as in “you should be a stand-up comic” funny. His parents laughed at his witty remarks and philosophical sense of humor. He didn’t know it now, but a few decades later he would recall this very morning in a Vermont café during an interview on a talk show, when the host inquired about his journey to fame as a stand up comedian.

My gaze turned back to my book again, and my dish. And just like that the curtain fell on my imaginings. I invite you to try this creative game the next time you breakfast or brunch alone. It is sure to uplift your mind from whatever small or large challenge you may be facing at the time. And I invite you to breakfast alone from time to time. You will love it.