Breakfast Stories

by Coco Huang

A middle-aged man sits on a bench on Thayer Street, amidst the clamor of a cold Friday night in the city, stuffing himself with bread. He wears a warm and colorful hat with a fluffy ball on top. I would learn later it was a gift from a friend. 

He doesn’t have many close friends. “I keep friends away from me,” he says. He giggles. “Because people who are close to you are the only ones that could hurt you.”

“You think that your friends would hurt you?”

“You can only get hurt by someone you love.” His eyes flicker in the dark as he looks into the city lights. “People ain’t who they are, what they seem to be.”

“Then who do you trust?” 

He answers instantly. “God.” 

He’s a construction worker, a cook, a fighter, a believer. Tonight he’s been looking for a restaurant job. “It’s hard getting a job these days,” he says, showing me his broken leg and fingers that have lost sensation.

Three months before, his homegirl had run into a conflict with a guy. The man swore and screamed at her, trying to hit her. So my interviewee threw a rock at the guy’s head. The other guy cut my interviewee’s arm with a knife.

He ran straight to a liquor shop rather than a hospital.

“I need to drink after that. I just need that liquor,” he says, deadpan. 

His homegirl wrapped her shirt around his arm, and when they got to the liquor shop people were shocked to see his arm bleeding badly. A girl “freaked out.” He told everyone to calm down (the girl said: “how could you fucking calm down!”) He said he’d go to the hospital. 

He did. But it was too late. His nerves were damaged; he can no longer feel the three fingers of his right hand. 

“Didn’t you call the cops?”

“No, I didn’t."

“Why? You don’t trust the cops?”

“Cause I was about to shoot him, shoot the guy,” he says calmly.

“Did you shoot him?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I went to God and asked him what I should do.”

“And what did God say?”

“He said ‘do you wanna spend the rest of your life in jail?’”

God is so realistic. We both laugh. “If you live by a sword, you die by a sword.” He repeats these words over and over, as if to remind himself of something important. •

by Calliope Speredakos

A light breeze blows across the Providence River, and geese honk at the water’s edge. RISD student Stephanie Wallace stands nearby, notebook in hand, sketching. She’d been crying just minutes before – a nasty trip over a bench had left her with a bloodied shin and smudged magenta eyeshadow – and she’d decided to take a respite from her walk until her leg was no longer throbbing in pain. 

I catch her at this moment, just as the sun begins to set, and ask her about her meal many hours earlier. 

“Well, I had a kind of dissected breakfast,” she begins. During her short commute to her job at a cafe, she ate a KIND Bar – “you know, the one with dark chocolate and almonds.”

 Work began at 8 sharp. Wallace didn’t eat anything else until her first break, when she tried a spinach and feta danish. Danishes are not her go-to breakfast food, only her at-work food, she says. To Wallace, “go-to breakfast food” means oatmeal with a cut-up banana and blueberries on top. Wallace’s relationship with oatmeal began over high school summers, when she worked as a smoothie bowl preparer on the Jersey Shore near Stone Harbor. As an employee, her supervisor taught her how to cut and arrange fruits and make a pretty meal for customers. 

Now, she says, “it’s kind of satisfying to cut up a banana like I learned there and spread it out in a nice clean little line.” She smiles. 

Wallace is a big breakfast eater – “they say it’s the most important meal of the day!” – and explains that, even as a child living in Pennsylvania, breakfast energized her and made her feel prepared for the day. Turns out that today is no ordinary day. In just a few hours, Wallace will be attending a home rave for her friend’s 21st birthday – “Cheer Up!” it’s called – and she’s excited. 

We stand for a few moments, looking out at the murky water. The geese had stopped their racket when we first began speaking. Silence envelops us. 

“Is there anything else you’d like me to know?” I ask, planning on wrapping things up.

“Yeah,” she says after a brief pause. “The birds. There are so many birds here. That’s actually what I was doing, cataloging the birds.” 

She points out sparrows, and pigeons, and geese, and ducks, and even a pair of ivory-white swans, calmly gliding together side-by-side. Wallace says that birdwatching is meditative for her, a way to connect to the earth and the natural world. She observes how the birds interact, how they migrate, what they look like. She even reveals to me that she is a trans woman and processes the emotions that come with this – both positive and negative – through the birds themselves, through their serenity and tranquility. 

I feel there’s nothing else for me to say. So I thank her for her time and wish her good luck at the rave. Wallace turns back to her birds and gazes over the water at the beauty around her. The sun slips slowly below the horizon. I walk away, heading north along the river, and the geese resume their honking. They seem glad to have her back. •

by Nina Py

Ana Powers smiled and paused in silence for a few seconds. She sighed gently and said, “yogurt.” Another small pause. “With granola.” 

Powers’ body swayed back and forth, almost dancing with the winter wind, accentuating her apparent amusement and confusion in reaction to the question. She was waiting for the RIPTA bus she takes home from work every day, her hands in the pockets of her big winter jacket, and walking in place to keep her legs warm. 

She likes to keep her breakfast simple, she said: no honey or fruits, just plain yogurt, and a mix of any granola that caught her eye on the supermarket shelves. It’s the easiest and quickest thing to prepare in the morning and take to work. Powers had the habit of eating breakfast at work, which explained the importance of having a breakfast that was quick to prepare but delicious and energizing. 

She’d had breakfast that morning, but generally, she said, “I am not a breakfast person.” She often sees preparing breakfast as a waste of her time. She’d rather be sleeping. Winter days are the hardest. “I don’t think I’ve ever especially liked breakfast.” She seemed used to eating breakfast only as a sort of mandatory ritual that kept her alive. Powers searched her mind special meal she liked to eat for breakfast—maybe on special occasions?---but couldn't find anything there. She nodded: no, just the bowl with yogurt and granola she always carried in a glass Tupperware, along with a metal spoon tucked in her bag. 

The bus arrived, ready to take Powers home after another long day of work. •

by Cecilia Sarantopolous

Urban Outfitters stands out among the bustling fast-food restaurants that pepper Thayer Street. The store’s pastel colors match my jetlagged, jaded state.  But the “please close the door behind you, it’s cold” sign at the entrance wins me over.   

Mindlessly flipping through a rack of cotton t-shirts, occasionally I glance around the room. I see  a woman in a a black puffer jacket and gray joggers. Her hair is neatly laced in a ponytail yet the hair also looks untamed. Her cheeks are flushed. Black Nike sneakers finish off her look. 

She  wrestles for a moment with my random request to interview her. But her tension vividly releases when I ask: “what did you have for breakfast today?” 

Cassandra Kaul’s chest puffs up with pride. “Scrambled eggs and protein yogurt!”  

“Wow!” I say. “That meal probably contains as much protein as I get in a day.” 

“Oh, that was totally me before this winter break. My new year’s resolution is to be more active, but I couldn’t do it without setting a specific goal. Running a marathon was way too ambitious for the notorious slacker that I am, so I decided to run a half-marathon in May! I need all the protein I can get until then.” 

I find her openness disarming. “That is such an amazing resolution!” I say. “It puts mine to shame: ‘wake up before noon.' What other regimens are you following to prepare for the run?” 

“I run every other day. My coach told me to count my strides: run for fifty strides and walk for ten. And repeat, repeat, repeat until I’m drenched.”  

“It sounds like you’ve got the feat so well planned.” 

Kaul smiles, receiving my encouragement. I thank her for her cooperation and wish her the best of luck for May. She wishes me the best of luck with waking up before noon. •

by Sophia Miller

Many Brown students would recognize the jeweler who sets up a stand outside of the campus bookstore–his quintessential cap, ponytail, and toothy grin. But not many of us know much else. What of his passions or his life? 

Or, more revelatory, what does he eat for breakfast? 

One cold January day I walked up to José Ruiz’s stand and proposed an interview, starting with that all-important question. Ruiz, 66 and quick to laugh, agreed wholeheartedly. Casually interlacing Spanish and English, he launched right in. It all starts with coffee, he said. “I love my milk coffee every morning, my café con leche!” He follows up with toast, sprinkled with olive oil and roasted red peppers. This morning, Ruiz topped his toast with a fried egg. 

“Now wait a minute, I’m not finished yet,” he said with a laugh. This morning Ruiz added a pear, a few olives, and some cheese, “the one with the holes in it.” Nearing what seemed to be the end of his breakfast, Ruiz clarified that if the meal doesn’t fill him up, another “milk coffee” rounds it out. I asked after his coffee recipe. Another laugh. “Well, more milk than coffee!”

Every morning Ruiz gets to his spot at around 10 o’clock. “I’m my own boss; I get here when I want.” We talked about the importance of routine. He said that settling down and achieving discipline in his work came to him late in life. “I traveled. I was a wanderer… until a certain age, around 36, 37.” 

He promised me that I was young and didn’t need to worry about all that. I’m allowed to get lost because we all eventually find our way. 

Another Thayer local approached, a man experiencing homelessness that I had seen a few times outside of Chinatown. The two men embraced and started chatting. This new man displayed to me a number of pieces he had gotten from Ruiz, which included a bracelet and a handful of rings. Soon a postman joined our little huddle. He seemed in a rush but he asked after Ruiz and exchanged a fist-bump. 

Next, a customer sidled up to the table. Ruiz propeled into detail about his jewelry, speaking both to me and the potential buyer. Along one side of the table, a dozen intricately braided bracelets were laid in a line. “I can braid like nobody’s business!” Ruiz exclaimed. I turned my attention to his necklaces; the jeweler continued his descriptions. I picked up a butterfly pendant, a “mariposa,” which he said he favored. Ruiz pointed out a few necklaces featuring blue gems, calling them “ruby star from India,” meant to give good luck.

Ruiz’s jewelry was beautiful. I rushed back to my dorm to get enough cash to buy something. When I returned to his table, Ruiz struck up our conversation anew. We got to talking about his hometown of Ibiza, an island off of Spain. He’d traveled all over the world, but nothing was as beautiful, he said, as his home on the water. 

I paid for two necklaces, the one with the mariposa and a silver chain. We said our goodbyes and shook hands. “Thank you José.” I accepted his smile. I knew that, if I walked past his stand again, he would wave and draw me into conversation, like an old friend. •

by Gabi Venegas-Ramirez

Basam had two boiled eggs, a croissant, and a coffee this morning. He boiled the eggs for exactly six minutes, ate a plain croissant, and made his coffee with lots of milk but only one teaspoon of sugar. He’s been trying to cut down. 

Basam makes his breakfast every morning at around 9:30 in the kitchen of the Blue Room at Brown University. Then he heads downstairs to open the store and start the day. 

Basam, 51, works at the Gourmet To-Go store in the lower level of the Faunce building. The store is open from 11 to 6 today. It has all the basics a college student could need—ice cream, paper towels, plastic cups. The day is winding down and Basam stands at the counter, cheerfully scrolling through songs to play over the speakers.

He tells me about his morning. 

He says he lives just 15 minutes away, in Pawtucket—but he never takes the bus. “I hate buses,” he says with a smile. He’s never ridden a bus in his entire life. He laughs. His family used a car to get everywhere, and as soon as he turned 15 he got his own car He beams. He rode the train once, five years ago, with his brother in law. They took the Amtrak from Providence to Rhode Island—but just for the experience. It was fun, he says, but he’d rather drive. 

Basam arrived in Rhode Island when he was 21 years old. He came from a wealthy family in Syria. Still, he says, life  is better in the United States. “I never go,” he says about Syria. “I go for visits, but I would never go live over there, with the war and stuff going on.” He has brothers and sisters living in Damascus, he says. They’re doing okay. “I feel bad for all those people, but us, we get used to living over here,” he says, shrugging. 

He scans a girl’s bag of chips into the register. 

I ask him about his family here. He has three kids, he says, two boys and a girl. He smiles,  talking about them. His two sons are correctional officers, and his daughter is a nurse at Newport Hospital. 

Basam says he’s been working at Brown for close to five years It’s his second job “ever” in the United States. Before coming to Brown, he tells me, he was an American businessman. He managed a lot of businesses: smoke shops, gas stations, convenience stores, all mostly around Cranston. “But then I got tired,” he says. “Plus, you know these stores, they used to get robbed.” 

Around five years ago, his wife, Maggie, convinced him to sell the stores and come work with her? at Brown University. He started working at Jo’s, the beloved late-night dining hall on Brown’s campus, side by side with his wife. Then last year, Basam tells me, he was offered the job of managing Gourmet To-Go. And his wife, Maggie, works at Andrews Commons, another dining hall on campus. Whenever people ask him which one of the hall’s personnel she is, he says , “you look for the most beautiful one, that’s my wife.”

Basam loves his job. “This is nothing; this is like the corner of one of my stores,” he says. He tells me that he makes lots of friends here. His favorite part of the day is getting to talk to students and making them smile. 

I shake Basam’s hand and thank him for his time. He hands me a muffin and thanks me for listening to him. “This is the best part of my job, you know–the stories,” he says. •

by Linus Lawrence

One January day, Olivia Singer drove through Goddard Memorial State Park, crying out of terror—or excitement—or both.

“The fact that there were other cars around with, like, people in [them]!” she would recall later with awe.

Now Singer stood in the center of Spectrum-India on Thayer Street, surrounded by cowboy hats and dream catchers and baseball-themed Tarot cards. It was her sixteenth birthday, and the car ride--the first after acquiring her learner’s permit--represented all the fear and fun awaiting her as she entered a new phase of life.  “Freedom,” she said, when asked what the permit meant to her.

Singer’s grandmother, Shelley, stood nearby. She had agreed on behalf of the pair to a brief interview, after pointedly inquiring  as to why a college student (one who had been denied by potential interviewees three times already) was asking for a conversation. Her reaction demonstrated a type of protective and cautious quality this student had seen in grandmothers before.

The two had traveled to Providence for the afternoon from southern Rhode Island. The trip was part-celebration, part-relaxation for Olivia, who was in the midst of completing her 10th-grade midterms. She’d started the day by downing a pack of fruit snacks at 6:20 before hopping on the school bus, which took her to her first-period Spanish test. She spent the rest of her birthday taking two exams, returning home for a nap, and studying. 

The grandmother and granddaughter had been returning to their car when Olivia told her grandmother she wanted to visit one of her favorite locations. “I love this store,” she said now, amid scents of wood, candle, and other ingredients making up the shop’s aromatic stew. “It smells really good.” 

Earlier the pair had furiously riffled through a basket of stickers, in search of a gift for Olivia’s 10-year-old sister. Olivia herself was focused on acquiring crystals, a passion to which she had been introduced by one of her best friend’s mothers. “They’re for healing,” she explained earnestly. “I love them.” Olivia had a larger interest in healing, too She wants to pursue psychology. “Mental illness and stuff like that, that’s just insane,” she said. “It’s really cool, and I’m really interested in it.”

With the end of their excursion approaching, Shelley said she'd be driving the two back south. Though Olivia had turned sixteen, her declared “freedom” would have to wait another day—whether that meant getting her license, finishing her midterms, or something else entirely. But at least for this moment, scouring for crystals and stickers with the senses of the store engulfing them, the old woman and the young girl appeared connected by something beyond blood.

Shelley recalled the feeling of turning sixteen herself--similar to Olivia’s stance decades later: “I couldn’t wait to drive and do my own thing.” She also reminisced about the enthusiasm she had for stores like the one we were standing in: “When I was younger, I used to shop, and dress, and…this stuff,” Shelley said, referring to the objects around her. 

As for advice for her granddaughter, Shelley offered a two-word directive, applicable to a young girl growing up as fast as she can and to a first-time driver hitting the open road: “Go slow.” •

by Georgia Kennedy-Bailey

Kacey Morris sits in the sun, holding her six-month-old daughter and watching her five-year-old son run along the Providence River with his cousins. Zach Morris, her husband and business partner, lingers close, walking over occasionally to tease Kacey or give her a quick kiss. Kacey’s smile grows as she tells me about the coffee catering company she and Zach run together in New Orleans and the 36-acre farm they own outside the city. She gushes about how lucky she is to run her own company and have the luxury of an escape from it, too. 

But the picture Kacey Morris paints of a perfect life fades when she mentions the death of her first husband, the father of her small son who plays by the river. 

Morris is poised as she explains her outlook on her late husband’s passing. “I'm thankful for the lessons,” she says “There was a big shift in my life, so I had to just survive and then you know you can and then life actually gets easier. The more hard things, the easier it gets, as long as you can remember that. The bad things are happening for the good to happen.” We both gaze at her daughter in her lap. She ends the conversation by shifting the focus to the joy she gets from her new husband and baby. 

Less than five years after her late husband’s death, Morris sits on a bench next to the Providence River and watches her new family laughing together. She tells me of her love for a warm coffee shop and the chickens on her new farm. The loss may have been devastating and life-altering, but the “bad things” are only a small part of her story. •

by Pauline Gregory

Enter an antique store on Providence’s East Side and see a clutter of unique objects, each one as random as the next. A fan hums and 70s music murmurs from a radio in the back—“More, More, More” by Andrea True and “Rock the Boat” by the Hues Corporation. A small dog  wanders. Old pictures and college banners adorn the walls. The doodads seem endless. 

Melissa Campbell volunteers here a few days a week, stocking the store and handling the cash register. A middle-aged woman with brown hair, she holds her glasses as we converse. A native of Syracuse, New York, she has been living in Rhode Island ever since she moved to the state with a past romantic partner. “We met in a bar,” she says, and although their relationship didn’t last, they remain good friends. 

“This morning I had toast and lentil soup,” she says. Sometimes she eatsoatmeal, but usually just toast and coffee. She lives in Ashaway, Rhode Island, a rural area near Westerly. 

This store sells on  consignment, and workers volunteer their time at the store. Four others volunteer here. Each person rents a space and fills it with goods to sell; the store owner gets a percentage. Campbell acquires the goods she sells from her own personal collection, from other consignment shops, and from donations. 

Her main job, though is as a part-time yoga instructor. She received her training in Rhode Island after moving to the state with her ex boyfriend. She has traveled all over the world, and has taught as far as India. “I love it!” she says. Campbell’s background is a testament to the unique and diverse stories of Providence residents. •

by Zoe Redlich

Jessie Miller smiles to herself as she floats through the colorful aisles of the Urban Outfitters on Thayer. Her fingers graze over the textures and fabrics. Her eyes catch on shirts with bright vintage beer ads and others with posters of Nirvana. Somewhere out of sight, Miller’s two best friends wander the store. For them it’s just another Friday night shopping outing; for Miller it’s  an hour of artistic inspiration. She’s a  crocheter hoping to own her own shop one day.

“Honestly, I have no idea where to start,” Miller says. “I have a lot of stuff I’ve made over the last few months, so I really want to get something started up where I can sell that stuff.”

Miller works at a call center for a medical office in New Bedford. The stress of the job combined, with a lifelong struggle to maintain good posture, has caused Miller daily pain in her shoulders for the past year. That’s why she started the morning rushing through breakfast to get to an appointment at a  chiropractor. 

Still, Miller’s positivity shines through her recounting of the early morning.

“I had nothing for breakfast except for a frozen coffee,” she says, laughing. “It’s a slushy frozen coffee drink. Really good. It was an early appointment, so I guess eating anything just slipped my mind.”

Apparently determined to  emphasize the silver linings in her day, Miller goes on to cheerfully explain how the appointment started with a ten-minute massage.

“It was completely unexpected, so that was a nice highlight of my morning.”

Miller explains that every few months she’ll get a massage from a local spa, carving out an hour from her otherwise busy life to enjoy herself. But she can’t afford one as often as she’d like.

Fortunately, Miller has other methods for finding relaxation and joy—mainly in crocheting.

“It’s kind of an out of body experience,” Miller says. “You kind of get taken away by it and then look at the clock and realize two hours have passed.”

Both Miller’s grandmother and mother crocheted. Miller hopes to branch out to knitting and other fiber arts. She has always prided herself on her ability to master new skills. Miller grabs the crocheted rainbow scarf she’s wearing around her neck and holds it up.  The scarf’s bright colors pop happily against  the black of her down jacket and dark jeans.

Pride in her work drives Miller to want to take steps in selling her pieces. As of now, she can see herself filling her shop with trendy  vibrant clothing and fabrics. Still, Miller says she’s open to the changes that come with any creative process. She looks forward to how they might help her understand herself and her art.

“I think the creative process is very intuitive,” Miller says. “As you continue to tap into the creativity, you start to figure out who you are more and more.” •