Part 6 - Monday Morning Song

The very next morning, I managed to get downstairs to the big dining room by 8 am. Sitting around a large, oval, central table or the four booths around the edge of the room, we feasted monastery-style:
white bread, simple cereals, and milk that wasn't quite cold enough. We poured out coffee from blue IKEA carafes into our little clear glass mugs - all 35 of us. There were two married couples; the rest were single 20 and 30 somethings. I was not married, but certainly not single, and I was one of the youngest students, being only 19.

A beautiful, artsy-seeming German woman stood up and made an announcement from the head of the table. She rested her knee on her chair, as if to avoid seeming too in charge. Her thick accent made it all seem so romantic...like I had joined some international hippie commune.

"The prayer meeting starts in 15 minutes, in the lounge."

Hurried, final
spoonfuls slurped;
the clink and clatter
of collected dishes;
padded,
socked
feet
slid
and stepped:

this the Monday morning song of Bellevue.

...