This is the perfect egg that I found in my jacket pocket this morning, after that jacket had gone in and out of the coop to feed and water the hens, after it had walked on the beach with four jumping dogs for an hour, after it had driven to the pool, and hung on the hooks in the lobby next to the other swimmers’ coats, and after last night, when it had attended the drug task force meeting and was draped over the back of a chair in the social studies classroom where the meeting was held, right after it had helped shovel a few buckets of sand and spread their contents on the icy walkways around the house, including the path to the coop, where in the sunshine of yesterday afternoon, I believe that the egg was placed gently in that pocket for safekeeping. At least I think that’s when I grabbed it.
Imagine if you knew you had an egg in your pocket for nearly 24 hours. Think how careful you’d be and how you’d probably be so aware of it that you’d not dare move, certainly not scatter grit on the ice, definitely not leave it on a public hook at the pool– maybe not even drive to the pool or attend a meeting or take a walk with it at all– so careful and attentive are we. Even with an abundance of caution, if you were me, it would break in your pocket and make a horrible mess.
This is a lesson for leaving February and entering March.
I am in love with this egg that I paid no attention to at all, and this marvelous world that made it, through no efforts of mine, and the spring sunshine and cackling chickens, the shedding dogs and even the dirty windows, and especially the miracle that it is my second granddaughter’s seventh birthday and in those seven years our family, which was big to begin with, has grown — there are now six grandchildren and one on the way, plus a whole pack of in-laws, making tonight’s family dinner too crowded to set the table for–
I know as Marge Piercy wrote, that attention is love– but I also know that love has it’s own way of attracting my attention. You could say it’s a chicken-or-egg thing. Or you could believe, as I do right now anyway, that God is love, and where love is, God is also, and I’m pretty sure that She just tapped me on the shoulder.
