Warm Bread,Waiting

A short tale of nourishment

It’s 1pm, and the line spilling out from inside a Spanish town bollería is forming a wide C on a the sidewalk and part of the street. You ask who is “último,” and stand in line - loosely, as all you have to do is track the person that gets to order right before you. A brunette with a teen daughter stands behind you, but also next to you, intermittently adding her voice to the line’s comments about the fresh bread you can all smell, but not yet see. It’s Christmas Eve, and the shop closes at 2pm.

Once inside, the wide C compresses into a tight U. The baker’s shop is narrow, with transparent glass displaying turmeric corn, wheat spirulina, chia spelt, multigrain wheat, apple walnut and plain white loaves to our left. The bakery display bears fingerprints at different heights in the glass. Many people are speaking at once - to each other, to their children, or to the two women behind the counter. The rhythm of the voices is fast and jovial.

The brunette who is tracking your turn points out that there is only one wheat spirulina and one apple walnut left, and asks if you would like to split both loaves with her. The offer is tempting, as you haven’t tasted either one. Things start moving really fast then: the clerk says she will slice the bread but not split it, the daughter volunteers to divide the loaves, both breads disappear from view, and the other clerk asks if you want anything else. As you are thinking, the brunette shows you two plastic bags with sliced bread inside - half cream, half brown - and asks if the division looks fair. She hands you one of the bags and you place it inside your larger shopping bag, slung over your shoulder. You follow the brunette out of the store. You squeeze past the tight U and take a quick breath when you are back out on the street, on display of the wide C that is waiting its turn.

The brunette and her daughter are waiting for you. “It’s time to taste the warm bread. Let’s take the first bite together.” You hesitate and look around before reaching your hand into the bag. The bread feels warm and you smell the cinnamon as the slice reaches your lips. The onlookers ooh. You laugh, and shake your head. You learn that the brunette is your neighbor, and marvel at the coincidence. You mean to share your WhatsApp number, but your phone stays in your purse.

If there is a part of you shaped by large city living, you may be accustomed to keeping to yourself when buying bread at a store, which in many cases is a safe move, a wise move. In a parallel universe, the brunette would have gotten one bread and you the other one, and that would have been the end of it. Perhaps you would not have gotten to know either of the breads and stayed with your tried-and-tested corn bread. You would not have made French toast with the apple walnut bread and would not be looking forward to running into the brunette to tell her. You would not have learned that adding spirulina to bread softens it, or that it would the perfect bread to go with the chutney your other neighbors gifted you for the holidays.

What happens to a nervous system when buying bread becomes a communal act? What heals when nourishment arrives, not only through food, but also through connection that doesn’t require self-abandonment?

A fresh loaf of spelt bread, from the same bakery