Home Away From Home is Just a Meal Away

This morning, I am having a late breakfast in Notting Hill. It's a nice, neighborhood place full of locals. It's 11:25 but the place is packed; I was lucky to get a seat. I came here specifically for the ricotta hotcakes and I am hopeful that they will live up to their internet-based reputation.

A place like this, that is full of families, couples and friends makes me long for the company of mine. I would love to sit here with my girls, my "wimmens" as we call each other. We could occupy one of the larger tables by the front window for hours, drinking coffee, bloody Mary's, wine, and eating everything we could get our hands on between laughs and outbursts that would be hard to blend into the rumble of other conversations and may disturb every diner around us. It wouldn't be the first time we did that. In college, we scared away many people that sat adjacent to our table. We were often so loud that the tales of our miscellaneous shenanigans could be heard on the other side of the dining hall; we had some juicy and some silly shenanigans to share those days. These days it's tales of children's schools and report cards, our jobs, our relationships, our divorces, deaths, illnesses.  Gone are the days of drunken nights with boys that gave out free beer at the bar where the boy that we had a crush on was playing with his band. Man were those great days.

(Just a side-note: as I typed "great"in the last sentence, I had a typo that caused the word to auto correct to the name "Greg". That wasn't the name of the boy in the band, but he was a part of many a tale that haunt me still....I will always wonder what happened to that beautiful blue-eyed boy.)

So many people would hate a place like this. The noise, the annoyingly sweet couple sitting directly in front of me holding hands and talking closely as they lean towards each other over their plates of food, the obnoxious and pretentious woman next to me that insisted on plugging in her iPhone so she could get phone calls about reserving a villa somewhere fabulous because she just doesn't travel enough.  But I love it. I love the noise and sharing the personal experience of a meal. Sitting alone in a room like this isn't lonely at all. Here, I am part of the larger group.  A part of the crowd that has gathered here to share a meal, share stories and experiences; the highs ands lows of their days. Here feels like home.