On Being Present + Greek-Style Tomatoes and Eggs

When I first was learning how to drive, I was fascinated by the concept of oncoming drivers flashing their lights at you, alerting you to a police officer up ahead. Back then, as a new, young, and dumb driver, I had the tendency to push the speed limit¹, especially driving on the long stretches of empty road that were commonplace in rural Florida. When other drivers flashed me, it felt less like a warning to slow down (which I’m sure in many cases, was — no officer waiting ahead), and more like an acknowledgement that I was part of the club; our automotive secret handshake².

Don’t worry, pardner, we got your back.

I was reminded of my membership in this secret society the other day when a car flashed me as I was driving to pick up some sandwiches. After reflexively braking, even though I was already driving below the speed limit, I threw up a wave and continued on my way. Just around the bend in the road, sure as can be and tucked into a pullout, sat a police officer.

As I passed the cruiser, I was struck by the fact that the officer wasn’t monitoring a radar gun, wasn’t focused on the road and passing traffic, wasn’t even staring blankly into space — but instead, was sitting, slumped, staring at his phone. More compelled by TikTok than traffic violations, here was a public servant distracted by his device, shirking his duty. By parking his car on the side of the road, he still did a decent job of slowing down traffic — but I have to think this is a case where the end doesn’t justify the means.

This isn’t meant to be a disparagement of our men in blue. The same thing happens day in and day out across the country, the world — with folks simply not being present in what they should be doing. You read articles about “quiet quitting,” about workers showing up to the office³ and avoiding real work. You hear of artists more concerned about their social media mentions than producing anything new. Even more disturbing is when you see couples out to meals together, each staring at their phones — or worse, out with their children, with the kids on their iPads and the parents on theirs.

Very few people have it in them to be present.

We — we all — need to be more present. I’m as guilty of it as anyone, checking emails and notifications when I should be working, texting friends across the country when I should be talking to Mrs. CWD. Especially with kids, I need to remember to tune in, to be listen and to pay attention⁴. There’s no need to check Twitter when Kiddo and the Warthog are working on their downward facing dogs⁵! Life is too short to spend it thinking about something else, about somewhere else⁶. We owe that to our friends, to our families, and — most importantly — to ourselves. How we expect to accomplish anything in a world where we’re always multitasking, splitting our attention, thinking about what comes next⁷?

Auntie CWD and Uncle Steady recently gifted the world a new addition to the extended Family CWD. Being entirely focused on eating, always, Mrs. CWD and I decided an appropriate “Welcome Home” gift would be to prepare the newly 2x parents some kolaches⁸, so they would have a quick meal to reheat and eat between diaper changes and asynchronous naps. For the time when they simply can’t work up the mental energy to be present enough to cook — something you always should be present for! — which, in this case, is forgivable.

While you can fill a kolache with almost anything — sausage and cheese being more traditional — we filled these with a riff on tomatoes and eggs that Mrs. CWD and I first had on our honeymoon, in Greece. In honor of being present, of remembering a time when the only concern Mrs. CWD and I had was whether to order loukoumades or strapatsada for breakfast, of the joy — and tests of patience, of presence — that a newborn brings — here is a recipe which you can enjoy for breakfast, for lunch, or for dinner.

Just make sure you’re there, all the way there, when you eat it.

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Dice a boatload of bacon and add to a large pan — as always, I recommend cast iron. As the bacon renders, dice up an onion or shallot or two and add to the pan. While the onions soften, grate one or two tomatoes into a bowl — which, when done, should resemble a thin tomato sauce. Add this to bacon and onions, and cook, stirring often, until the tomatoes are mostly reduced.

As this is going on, crack at least 6 eggs into a small bowl and loosely beat. Add these to the tomato mixture, along with some feta cheese, and cook, again, stirring frequently, until the eggs are mostly cooked through. Top with some oregano or thyme and enjoy.

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There we have it, folks — the CWD spin⁹ on strapatsada. This is such a delightful little spin on scrambled eggs, comes together quickly, and tastes delicious. As always, I recommend using the freshest tomatoes you can find, ideally directly off the vine. The flavor is unmatched. In a pinch, rather than using bland tomatoes, you could use a canned tomato purée.

With that, I’ll leave you to your Fridays. We’re past the Autumnal Equinox, and now, the days will be shorter than the nights. Don’t despair — just make the most of the daylight you have. Get up earlier, go to sleep earlier. Be present as the seasons change, reveling in the changing leaves, the lower angle of the sun, the crisp mornings. Fall is a season for comfort and for spending time with those you love¹⁰ — try putting your phone away for an afternoon and fully embracing it.

1. And as Mrs. CWD continually reminds me, probably still do.

2. It’s little things like that open up the world for adolescents learning who they are and how they fit in the world. For me and my friends, getting our licenses, having the freedom to drive anywhere was a pivotal event. Rural Florida is not walkable; there is no 15-minute city. You couldn’t call an Uber back then and cabs were unheard of — except for old folks who needed to get to the grocery store. The only way to get places was to drive. The first in our friend group to get a license was hailed as a hero, because it opened up so much more of the world to independence.

Our neighbors bought their teenage girls a small car with manual transmission for them to learn to drive in. I love this idea. There’s no technology to distract from learning to drive; needing to work the clutch, to shift gears, and to steer requires two hands: there’s no opportunity for texting and driving. No self-driving cars for these girls, no giving up autonomy to the machine — in order to get somewhere, they’ll need to do it on their own volition. There’s something romantically simple about it, and I think we’ll do the same with our little gremlins — though I will have to learn how to work a stick shift myself, first.

(I suppose that’s enough reason to get a vintage Landcruiser in itself, Mrs. CWD!)

It’s funny to me to think now — in a world of Uber, where you can hang out with your friends virtually, through a screen, anywhere and at any time — how getting your license is so much less significant. I’ve read statistics that many kids don’t even get their license today, nor want a car — they’d rather have a new cellphone. I hope that that isn’t the case for Kiddo and the Warthog. I hope that they can experience the same sense of freedom I felt when I was able to just get in the car, my car, and drive without destination through neighborhoods and backroads. It’s a special feeling, doing it before GPS navigation and web-based browsing, to navigate based on feel, on remembrances of the maps you had to sketch in 9th grade Geography class. Eric Church’s song, “Talledega,” does a good job invoking this feeling.

I just hope they do it more responsibly than I did.

3. Or, more likely, sitting at home.

4. A friend remarked to me the irony of reading about the importance of giving your attention to your children in “The Creative Act of Parenting” on his phone — while he was sitting on the ground “playing” with his infant son. Whoops.

5. Yes, Mrs. CWD, this is a reminder to me.

6. Even worse is when you’re not even thinking about something else specifically — and instead, just mindlessly scrolling.

7. This lack of focus is different from the creative flexibility I wrote about earlier this year. When you’re creatively flexibly, you can deal with external distractions, bounce back from having your attention ripped away. You need, inherently, to be present if you want to have creative flexibility. It’s easy to go back to something you know intimately. This lack of presence is to opposite of that — if you never settle, never plant your roots into doing something, how can you ever expect to return to it?

(Since I’m feeling like this is a heavy footnote newsletter already, I’ll avoid mentioning the concept in The Wheel of Time — one of my all-time favorite book series — of Traveling, which is directly tied to the idea of needing to be present to be creatively flexible. Ask me about it next time you want to have a very nerdy discussion, but know that everything in life is connected — you just need to listen to the universe for signs.)

(There’s Rick Rubin, again.)

8. Writing about kolaches, a recipe for kolaches, is an issue for another day — but I did touch upon them here.

9. The CWD spin on almost anything involves adding meat, probably bacon, FYI.

10. And hunting. Archery season opens in about a week here in Massachusetts.