Saturdays Are for Slow Mornings

Slicing Squid, Sipping Tea, and Letting Saturday Move at Its Own Pace

Photo by tsering pemba on Unsplash

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My alarm went off at 7.30 am. I did what I always do on a Saturday, which is nothing about it. I hit snooze and let myself drift for twenty more minutes, and when I finally opened my eyes it was 7.50.

No guilt about it.

Some mornings are meant to be earned slowly, not seized.

The Squid From Uncle

I brushed my teeth, splashed some water on my face, and walked into the kitchen still half asleep.

My daughter has a holiday today, so there was already a different softness in the house, the kind that only comes when nobody has anywhere to be.

My dad mentioned that our driver uncle had dropped off some squid earlier that morning. It was already cleaned, sitting quietly in the refrigerator, waiting for someone to decide what it wanted to become.

I decided it wanted to become breakfast.

I sliced it into neat little pieces, washed them well, and let them sit in a bowl of masalas doing their slow work of seeping in.

There is something almost meditative about marinating.

You cannot rush flavor.

You just have to trust the wait.

Three Batches, One Kitchen

I fried the squid in a pan with a little oil, and because I was cooking for three different appetites, I did it in three batches.

One for me, one for my daughter, one for my dad. It is such a small thing, standing at the stove and portioning out care in batches, but it felt like the entire shape of my morning.

Pic: Jose Heavena — Squid Fry at Home. Prepared by me.

Alongside it, I made a tamarind and onion curry with chillies.

Before breakfast, I gave my daughter a cup of water first. Just water, nothing else, the way mornings should start.

Then she sat down to rice with tamarind curry and squid fry, and I ate the same plate beside her.

No separate meals, no separate menus.

Just one table, one pot, one morning.

Tea, Then Work

After breakfast I had a cup of tea and sat down to work by 9 am. The morning moved the way Saturdays tend to move for me now, unhurried but not unproductive.

I finished my first blog post and slipped quietly into the second one, the words coming a little slower than on weekdays, but coming nonetheless.

Somewhere in between paragraphs, I boiled some milk and stirred in a bit of Star Vita millet choco mix.

One cup for my daughter, one small cup for me.

A little sweetness tucked between deadlines.

What Saturdays Are For

I keep coming back to this feeling.

Saturdays are the days to take it slow and intentional.

Not lazy, not wasted, just unrushed.

A morning where squid gets sliced with care, where curry is prepared instead of rushes, where work still happens but at its own gentle pace.

That is the whole lesson this morning taught me again.

Slowness is not the absence of doing.

It is doing everything with a little more attention.

Dear Heami readers, I hope your Saturdays give you room to breathe too.

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