Breakfast in Spain

Last night I fell asleep with your breath at the back of my neck. I’d been having trouble sleeping: still, now, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with an unreasonable amount of energy, most of it mental, most of it preventing me from falling back asleep easily. I’d woken earlier, and, wanting to keep from waking you with my restlessness, left the bed to go read in the living room.

I came back, though, lonely for the warm curve of your body. I laid down and you, while still sleeping, turned towards me and threw your left arm over the left side of my body. I began a soothing fantasy in my head: us near a beach somewhere in the south of Spain, having breakfast some breezy morning, olives and fresh eggs and bread and I don’t know, what do Spaniards eat for breakfast? Salted almonds? And do they drink strong coffee with clumps of sugar (from the humidity of the ocean air) and thick milk? In this fantasy, I was trying to explain to our host, in my silly Spanish, the plot of an obscure Hemingway novel, por ejemplo: “. . . y el cuento occure en el sur de la Espana, cerca de aca. . .” and I was trying to figure out the conjugation of being jealous, “la esposa celosa,” de or con su esposo?, when I realized your head was further down than usual, usually you’d rest it just above mine behind the pillow, but last night it was buried at the bottom of my neck. And I could feel you breathing deeply and evenly, as peacefully as the waves at the beach in my poor fantasy, and I missed you even though you were holding me quietly.