dust on old boxes—
echoes of hands that shaped melinger in the light
When I was a child, Sunday mornings began the same way. It didn’t matter if rain lashed the red-tiled roof or if sunlight tumbled in through the kitchen window, chasing the sleepy goldfish shadows on the linoleum. My parents would be at the kitchen table, a chipped enamel teapot between them, sorting coins into little piles for the week ahead.
There was a peculiar gravity to the ritual, as if time slowed in those early hours. My mother, still in her robe, hair tied back with a faded green ribbon, would hum old Slovenian folk songs—her voice sometimes thin, sometimes fierce, the melody rising and falling with the mood of the house. My father sat opposite, thick fingers clumsy over the coins but patient as ever, telling stories about flour rationing or how neighbors once traded jam for shoe repair.
Sometimes my sister and I would join them, not for the coins but for the comfort—the heat of the teapot, the soft dough rising on the stove for that day’s bread, the certainty that, for this moment, nothing else was expected of us. The coins clicked against the chipped plate, and the world outside—school, storms, politics, the endless tension between East and West—remained at bay.
The ritual wasn’t about money, not really. It was about presence, about facing what you had and making peace with what you didn’t. It was about moving through each week with a kind of deliberate humility, eyes open to both the lack and the abundance. I never understood that as a child. I only knew the morning felt anchored and whole.
Years later, after university and a blur of moves that took me from Ljubljana to Graz, and eventually to Bern, I found myself haunted by the memory of those Sundays. Mornings in Bern are quieter—no wood stove, no scent of fresh bread rising, only the distant rush of trams and the soft clatter of bicycle wheels on cobblestones. My apartment is filled with the useful clutter of adulthood: notebooks, half-finished mugs of coffee, the constant pulse of devices. There’s always something to do. Always a bill to pay or an email to answer.
I catch myself walking past my own kitchen table without pausing. Most days I take my coffee standing, scroll news on my phone, let the hours slip by in a kind of half-attention. I don’t sort coins. I tap my phone and watch numbers flicker on a screen—groceries, electricity, rent—all automated, frictionless, silent. The discipline of that old ritual is gone.
It’s not that life is worse now; if anything, it’s more comfortable. Yet sometimes, in the hush between tasks, I wonder what was lost in the trade. My parents’ tradition, born from necessity and patience, has faded in the shadow of convenience. I wonder if presence—real, gritty, wabi-sabi presence—requires friction. If ease and speed, for all their gifts, erode the careful balance between enough and too much.
When I was home in Slovenia last spring, I found an old shoebox on a shelf above the cellar stairs. Inside were rolls of coins, some tied in brittle rubber bands, others loose. There were notes too—grocery lists from my mother, penciled calculations by my father, the faded stamp of a bakery he used to visit every Friday before work. I sat on the cold floor and ran my fingers over the coins, their edges smooth from decades of passing through so many hands.
A memory floated up, clear as the river behind our house. My father, kneeling in the dirt garden, showing me how to count out seeds for planting—one for the earth, one for the birds, one for luck. “It’s not just money you count,” he’d said, brushing earth from his hands. “It’s everything. Seeds, hours, favors. You keep track, even when you’re not sure why. Someday you’ll be glad you did.”
Back in Bern, the memory stayed with me, looping quietly behind daily routines. I’d pause over the washing machine, remember how my mother would ration detergent—one spoonful less, so it’d last through the week. I’d walk to the market and recall my parents weighing potatoes, choosing the imperfect ones because they cooked down sweeter. Their rituals weren’t just about thrift—they were about care, about seeing the world as something you were responsible for, even in the smallest ways.
There’s a jar of coins on my desk now. Not because I need them, but as a kind of touchstone. Some mornings, I tip the coins out, watch them scatter, pick out a few to buy bread or pay for coffee. It’s a pointless gesture, maybe, but I like the sound—the soft clink, the gentle assertion that life is measured, in part, by the rituals we keep.
Still, most mornings are quiet, unremarkable. I drink coffee by the window, watch people pass below, wonder what invisible traditions guide their days. My neighbors, a young couple from Italy, set aside Tuesday evenings for making fresh pasta, inviting whoever happens to be free. The old man across the hall waters his plants every Sunday at exactly eight, humming a Schubert waltz as he moves from room to room. We build new rituals, almost by accident, as the old ones slip away.
A wise friend once said to me over lunch, “You can’t build a good life by accident. You have to see it clearly, make conscious choices, and let small, good habits compound quietly, day after day.” It sounded simple, but it landed with the weight of truth. That’s the lesson hidden in my parents’ ritual—even if the ritual itself didn’t survive my move to the city, my tumble into modern convenience.
There’s a kind of quiet, wabi-sabi wisdom in accepting that some traditions disappear for good reason. The world changes. The pace quickens. We trade coins for swipes, conversations for clicks. And yet, even as old habits fade, the impulse behind them—the need for presence, for deliberate attention, for gratitude—remains. Sometimes, what’s worth keeping isn’t the ritual itself, but the spirit that animated it.
I try to carry that forward, imperfectly. Once a month, I balance my accounts by hand, scribbling numbers in a paper notebook, just to feel the weight of each choice. Some days I pause over a loaf of bread, break it with a friend, share a story about old coins and early mornings. I keep a single, chipped teacup in my cupboard, saved from my parents’ kitchen, as a daily reminder of the mornings that shaped me.
Tradition changes shape, sometimes vanishing altogether, but its echo lingers if you listen for it. In summer, when the world slows and the days stretch long into evening, I sometimes walk to the river and count the ripples, think about the way time carries us forward, each hour slipping into the next.
There are other traditions I haven’t kept. My father’s practice of mending shoes—patching soles and polishing leather until they shone. My mother’s Sunday soup, simmered all day from bones and root vegetables, the house filling with the smell of patience. The village custom of knocking on doors with gifts of apples in autumn. I miss these, too, but I don’t regret their loss. New customs grow in their place—city walks, text messages that span continents, potluck dinners with friends from everywhere and nowhere.
I’ve learned to see ritual not as something fixed, but as a living thing. It grows, it withers, it flowers in unexpected places. The important thing is not to cling to the form, but to honor the need: for presence, for gratitude, for connection.
Some nights, I catch myself wishing for one more Sunday morning at that old table—coins clicking, teapot steaming, the soft hum of my mother’s song floating through the kitchen. But then I remember what those mornings gave me: the patience to pause, the courage to count what matters, the wisdom to let go of what doesn’t.
If you find yourself longing for a tradition you’ve lost, or worrying about the ones you never kept, remember: what matters is not the ritual itself, but the attention you bring to this moment. The tradition of presence is always available, wherever you are.
If this resonates, subscribe. I’ll keep writing. Maybe together, we’ll invent new rituals worth keeping—ones that honor the past, shape the present, and make peace with the quiet, beautiful loss that comes with moving forward.
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