The alarm goes off on his phone and we snooze once or twice, twisting together, enjoying the half-light state of the morning. I’ll pinch his toes with my toes. We are in a perpetual state of cuddle and will find any excuse. Eventually, we wrench ourselves out of bed. I open the blinds in the bedroom and the winter light blasts dozens of plants. The view out over the park to the Botanical Garden is magnificent in every season. Our Ficus lyrata is now taller than me. The plants think winter is summer because the sun is so warm and direct between November and February.
It is breakfast time.
The house is bright.
Jesús is grinding the coffee.
We will sit at the kitchen table and slowly fall awake. The old black and white enamel-top table had been gathering dust in my father’s basement, a relic of his wife’s aunt, who was a nun. She likely bought it new in 1940. It even has the original matching chairs. We sit in them now.
Our Eutopia is this time each day, almost every day for the past fourteen years.
– Matthew López-Jensen
