Breakfast According to Jenga or Have You Notices This Morning?

This morning began with a minor crisis.

I had run out of Greek yogurt.

For several years now, my breakfast has been remarkably consistent. A bowl of Greek yogurt topped with blueberries, a cup of coffee, and a few quiet moments before beginning the day. Routine has its comforts, especially as one grows older. We spend much of our lives seeking novelty, only to discover that there is something reassuring about knowing what will greet us each morning.

Today, however, the yogurt container was empty.

I considered my options and settled on a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries. Hardly a sacrifice. In fact, it was quite good. Yet the change was enough to attract the attention of the household’s chief supervisor.

Jenga, my furry companion, took up his usual position beside me.

He has appointed himself guardian of all breakfasts, inspector of all deliveries, and observer of any activity that might conceivably involve food. Whether his presence is motivated by affection, curiosity, or the faint hope that something edible might fall to the floor remains an open question.

There he sat, quietly watching.

Cats have a way of doing that. They can spend long stretches of time appearing to do absolutely nothing while somehow giving the impression that they are paying close attention to everything.

As I ate my oatmeal, I found myself wondering why such a small change in routine felt worthy of notice. The answer, I think, was not the oatmeal at all. It was the moment.

The coffee was hot. Morning light was beginning to fill the room. The house was quiet. Jenga sat beside me, fully committed to his supervisory duties. Nothing remarkable was happening.
And yet everything important was present.

That thought reminded me of something I have learned repeatedly and then somehow forgotten, only to learn it again.

The moments we cherish most are seldom the ones we plan.

We imagine that meaning will arrive with great journeys, important decisions, celebrations, accomplishments, and dramatic turning points. Certainly those have their place. Yet when I look back over my own life, many of the moments that remain vivid are surprisingly small.

A child standing in a shower.
A conversation that lasted longer than expected.
A walk through a familiar neighborhood.
A cup of coffee in a favorite café.
A cat sitting beside me while I eat breakfast.

These moments seem insignificant at the time. They do not announce themselves as memories in the making. Yet somehow they remain.

Perhaps that is because they contain something we often overlook: presence.

Cats understand this better than we do.

Jenga has never worried about next week. He has never regretted yesterday. He does not maintain a calendar, make travel plans, or concern himself with the future of the stock market.

His interests are straightforward.
Breakfast occurs.
Sunbeams appear.
A lap becomes available.
Why complicate matters?

We laugh because it sounds absurdly simple. Yet there is wisdom hidden within that simplicity.

As human beings, we are forever reaching toward the next thing. We finish one project and begin another. We return from a journey and immediately wonder where we should go next. We solve one problem only to discover a new one waiting patiently in its place.

Meanwhile, life continues to unfold in quiet moments that ask nothing of us except that we notice them.
This morning’s breakfast was one of those moments.

The oatmeal was perfectly acceptable. The blueberries were sweet. The coffee was good. Jenga maintained his post throughout the proceedings, apparently satisfied that standards were being upheld.
Nothing extraordinary happened.

But perhaps that is precisely the point.

A good life is not built only from extraordinary days. It is woven from thousands of ordinary mornings that we were awake enough to notice.

Jenga, I suspect, understood this from the beginning.

As for me, I am still learning.

As a philosopher once observed  “Great truths sometimes arrive disguised as minor inconveniences”.
This morning, it arrived in the form of an empty yogurt container.
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Jenga, of course, had noticed all along.