THAT MAY BE A MIRACLE YOU'RE (NOT) SEEING

I see miracles every day. Every day. I am in touch with the miraculous, hold it in my hands. Oh, I go looking for miracles--you bet I do. Stumble after them in the dark sometimes. Other nights, I shine a flashlight in the nests, reach in and take the eggs I find there. Eggs, the everyday miracles that populate my world. Eggs, amazing containers of possibility and life—breakfast, too.


Maybe I have a low threshold for wonder. Maybe not.


Each evening I gather the dozen or so eggs our hens have laid that day. Our mixed-breed chickens lay eggs in an assortment of colors, sizes and shapes. Some eggs are, well, egg-shaped. But others are pointy, roundish, squat or as near rectangular as an egg can get. Some have thin thin shells, others are almost hammer-hard. Colors range from white to beige, ecru to ochre. I've learned to associate certain eggs with particular hens. Mrs. Lapinski lays long white missiles, thin and pointy at both ends. Now in her dotage, CeeCee lays wrinkled, light brown beauties with what look like vertical stretch marks. One unidentified hen drops gargantuan bombshells. You'd think she'd be easy to spot—find the stiff-legged hen walking about with a look of perpetual stupefaction. Apparently she's in stealth mode.


It takes but a moment for a hen to stand, squeeze her pelvic muscles and allow an egg to gently drop onto a bed of straw. She usually climbs into the nest well in advance of this final production, however. Settles in, sits quietly, bides her time. The process began 18 to 36 hours earlier when her body released an egg cell into her oviduct where it could be fertilized by the rooster. Layers of white formed around the nascent yolk, then a membrane, last of all, the shell. The miracle of life in so humble a casing.
After laying the egg, the hen cackles to announce her success to the world around. The higher her status, the more likely the rooster and other hens will echo and amplify her cry. Me, if I'm within earshot, I'll echo anyone's cackle.


Despite what a rooster might tell you, a hen will lay eggs whether or not he's in the picture. In his absence, her eggs will be infertile. Great for breakfast, but no little chick will ever hatch from them. Most store-bought eggs fall into this category. Commercially-raised hens may go their whole short lives without ever seeing a rooster. Our hens should be so lucky. They lay fertilized eggs; our rooster sees to that. He never tires of sexual activity, goes at it almost every chance he gets. Let him mount a hen, bend his cloacae to hers, spray his misty sperm, and the egg she lays will contain the potential for life.


Take that fertilized egg from the nest, refrigerate it, and nothing more exciting than omelets will happen. Keep it consistently warm in an incubator or under a broody hen—one whose hormones have kicked in, convinced her she wants to be a mother—and in 21 days a chick will hatch from it. It never ceases to amaze me.


You've seen the inside of an egg. There's no chick in there. Only a big blister of yellow pus floating on a clear sea of slimy snot. How such glop and goo can be transformed into a living creature, a wobble-legged chick, wet, blinking, bedraggled, now dry, fuzzy and fluffy, ready to run, scratch and come to mother's call--how such a thing can be boggles my mind. This is the stuff of miracle.


It happens every year about this time out in our coop. Out of nothing, something. From snot and pus, peeping cheeping life. Happens out of sight, deep inside. Transformation and change.


Reminds me of the coming out process. 


Reminds me more may be going on inside at any one time—inside me, you, or anyone else—than anyone could ever guess. Even now, today, a miracle may be hatching.

IT ISN'T ONLY MEN I FIND PERPLEXING

Riddle: A box without hinges, key or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid. What am I?

Reply: You are a metaphor for life.  You sometimes arrive at my house spattered and dirty.

When our hens climb into the nests with muddy feet or feathers they soil the day's offerings. Hence I wash eggs before using them. I'm doing this now. I handle each egg carefully, examine it closely for the least little spot of dirt.

I like eggs, and not just the way they taste. Our hens lay in sepia tones that range from caramel to tan to beige to, well, eggshell. Some eggs arrive freckled, some splotchy, some bumpy, most smooth. And the shapes! Here's one with a ridge that spirals round its center; another about as rectangular as eggs come. I once read about an ad agency's struggle to find a dozen perfect eggs for use in a television commercial. They bought carton after carton of eggs. In the end they used styrofoam eggs.

If I could, I would keep every egg that catches my eye. That way I could hold and appreciate each egg anytime I wish. But there are limits to what a person can do. So I wash these eggs, set them in the dish drainer, then pick them up one by one. I turn each in my hands, admire its color, shape, individual style. Then I strike it against the edge of a stainless steel bowl. Crack.

How can I marvel at an egg one moment, break it open the next? Perhaps this is what it is to play God. To love life, cradle it in one's palm, then serve as agent of its destruction. Or transformation. 

I cannot save eggs--or anything, anyone--from their fate. All things hurry towards dissolution, change. They don't need my help. Things are what they are. And we are eggs, all of us--with something so magnificent, so golden as life encased in a fragile shell. 

I run my fingers along the beige egg with the spiral ridge, imagine a dancer twirling an orange scarf about her. "Beautiful," I say. "Amazing." Crack.  

"Come here, little speckled freckled Brownie. Thank you for giving yourself." Crack. 

"And you, Square Egg in a Round Body. You hold gold within. Thank you." Crack. 

Yesterday I was outside when I witnessed something new in the night sky. First I heard the croaking and purring, the calling one to another. Then a huge flock of cranes--a hundred or more--passed overhead in several vees. I've seen Canada geese before, yes. And ducks go by, yes. But these were cranes. They were magnificent. I wanted to hold onto the moment. All I could do was watch, notice, appreciate. Say thank you. Say good bye. 

How to stay open, aware, attuned to life? How to say to all that comes my way, "I notice you. Thank you." How to let go? It's a tough riddle to crack. 'Guess I'll keep practicing on eggs.

This essay appeared in The Letter, January 2008