Sunny Side Up Sundays

My dad wasn’t much of a cook, but he had three standby staples: meatloaf, buckwheat pancakes, and fried potatoes. Happy were the Sunday mornings that we’d have leftover spuds from earlier in the week, dry and a bit shriveled from their trip around the microwave. Dad peeled and cubed the potatoes with a paring knife, then skins and all would go into the hot pan with too much butter. He would tell us how he grew up eating real butter in Wisconsin because margarine was against the law there at the time. Eventually, margarine was legalized but came in a bag that had a capsule of yellow dye in it. You had to break the capsule and squish the bag around so the margarine would turn yellow, making it look like real butter. Nowadays Ralph Nader and his hippie friends don’t go in for all that, he said. Everything has to be au naturale.

I knew the fried potatoes, which I loved, would be served with fried eggs, which I hated. In the same way that I misheard the chorus to “I Fought the Law (And the Law Won)” by the Bobby Fuller Four as “I fought the lawd and the lawd won,” assuming it was a tale of triumph over sin, I misunderstood my dad’s cautious attitude about food safety as a moratorium on egg whites. He joked — as I understood it — that if an egg carried salmonella bacteria, it lived in the white. I believed him. For that reason, and to this very day, I find eggs with visible whites hard to swallow. Sure, I eat eggs, but only if they’re scrambled or baked into other things, so it doesn’t make any sense. The white is still there. But an invisible threat is easier to ignore.

I carried on the tradition of making fried potatoes and scrambled eggs on Sunday mornings for my own kiddo. Call me a millennial cliche, but I love brunch. I really do. There’s so much potential in a Sunday morning. It’s last call for weekend fun and I always wanted to make the most of it. I’d put some blues on the stereo, get out my paring knife, and pour myself a drink. Hot Wheels and dinosaur figurines raced each other in my son’s fantasy world on the opposite side of the kitchen island while I scrubbed and chopped the Yukon golds.

I danced my practiced steps between the stove and the cabinets, grabbing bowls and utensils then heating up the pan with a flick of the wrist at just the right time. By the time the potatoes were sizzling away, it was time for another drink: maybe the second half of the prosecco bottle or some glugs of whiskey in my orange juice.

There’s nothing to do while potatoes take their sweet time except watch beads of condensation slide down the glass lid and sip. The week has been hell, in between the rock and hard place of mother and breadwinner. I have screamed and cried and lost too much sleep. I scared my son when I lost my temper over an actual glass of spilled milk. The shame I feel is immediate and overwhelming. It is not his fault that he is the only witness to my loneliness. But, here, in the glow of this Sunday morning, I am ready for salvation, for gratitude and wonder to find their way back to me. Alcohol bends back the sharp edges and reminds me again that I am capable of loving this wild, funny child more than my heart can handle.

Soon, it’s time for a second pan, melting some cold butter, and listening for the sizzle of a few whisked eggs. Timing is everything. I put plates down on the table for us, swirling on slide guitar and sunshine, sure that one more drink would let me feel this free forever. As I reach for the bottle, I pray that I’m right this time.

Dozens of Sundays later, I’m alone in the kitchen brewing decaf coffee the old-fashioned way. There’s an assortment of flavored vinegars, syrups, and zero-proof spirits on the breakfast bar where the whiskey used to be. Somehow, I’m drinking more now that I’ve stopped drinking alcohol. I own tea strainers and hand-thrown pottery and a SodaStream and a ceramic water dispenser. Jars of loose tea line the shelf above the kettle. Glasses and mugs are on display, ready for guests. Plastic water bottles and most of their lids live in the cabinet below, the unruly quantity requiring a separate basket for easy pre-teen access. I think about my dad, who hated coffee and phrases like “single origin pour over.” Every day, he only drank diet pop from the same plastic cup he always kept in the freezer. So, I didn’t get this from him.

There are so many things that have stayed the same about Sunday mornings. I still believe in their limitless potential. I still believe in brunch. I learned new ways to make scrambled eggs and clip fresh chives from the garden in spring, just like Dad taught me. What’s different is that I’ve learned that I don’t have to use my tightest grip on feeling free. The third drink never delivers on its promise, but Sunday always will.

Kate Herald Browne teaches people how to tell stories that change the world for good. She holds a PhD in English and uses her background in storytelling research as a learning designer, gender studies professor, and curator for TEDxNormal. Her autobiographical wellness writing has appeared in Runner’s World, Refinery29, Autostraddle, and SELF magazine. Recently, Kate added a new dimension to her story exploration practice as a singer/songwriter, performing as a solo artist and leader of the Evening Orchid Band, a pop-up music jamboree.

IG: @kateonthemic