Breakfast Epiphanies

Lately I’ve been thinking about the way we weave little narratives around everything we do in life as well as in fiction.  The Hounds of Spring opens with Poppy letting the dog out then eating her breakfast.  During revisions I fretted that this was too dull.  At my first public reading the other day I was still fretting, I mean, who cares that Poppy eats yogurt and blueberries for breakfast?   Poppy cares and it's her story.  Breakfast and the way she starts her day was also the "way into" the story.  How we approach breakfast most likely is, in microcosm, how we tackle life.  We love telling people in great detail about what we eat for breakfast; it matters to us, so it should matter to the reader as well, no?   Most of the time our lives are banal, happily banal, I might add.  

So it occurs to me that starting with breakfast and introducing Poppy as a contemplative person gives the reader an indication, early on, of what sort of book they have chosen to read--this is a story that will wander and reflect--a story that matches more closely our daily experience that change happens in small increments too.