It’s Ba-aaaack: The Big Egg Hunt

Easter’s on its way and London is once again festooned with colossal, artful eggs. I wrote last year about the inaugural event sponsored by Fabergé; this year, chocolate giant Lindt is sponsoring the Big Egg Hunt.

If you’re anywhere near London, please take advantage of this playful outdoor art exhibit.

[Pictured is one side of Equinox by Barbie Harrison.]

What the…?

Oh, right. Easter has arrived. What did the Big Bunny leave for you?

“Hippity, Hoppity, Easter’s on Its Way…”

There’s something about eggs.

I don’t know what attracts me to them: their smoothness? their asymmetry? their promise of new life? Something about them seems like Hope to me.

In kidhood, I had a large tin egg illustrated with Peter Cottontail scenes which, with enough rotations of the handcrank, would play a tinny version of “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” I no longer have the musical oddity, but it comes to mind each Easter.

Last weekend, I happened upon some eggs of a different kind. They’re part of The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt and charity auction in London—grand in scale, unique in design, a few even falling into the “exquisite” category. Each of the 200 eggs was created by an artist, architect, jeweler, or designer to benefit Action for Children and Elephant Family. These eggs, of course, led me to people and places and loveliness that I hadn’t known existed.

Take a gander yourself and see where the eggs take you. (If you’re anywhere in or near London, you must go see them. I’ll be jealous, but that’s okay.)

[Pics from top to bottom: “Caeruleus & The Good Egg” by Rhea Thierstein, and “Pandora” (dinosaur hatchling) by Martin Aveling.]

Where Dark Arts and Job-Hunting Converge

ome time ago I read a job ad that was unusually well written (you knew exactly what they wanted) and even clever. It made me want to work for the hiring company. It tempted me to write to them just to express my gratitude for the standout ad. The hook was:

“Do you ___________, ___________, and know the Dark Art of pickling eggs?”

I was fairly skilled in the first ___________, would have liked to learn how to do the second ___________, but the third? I never knew pickling eggs to be a Dark Art—only a family tradition.

Next I considered applying for the position I wasn’t qualified for just to be able to write, “Indeed, I am steeped in the Dark Art of pickling eggs. My family has practiced this Rite of Spring for generations.”

In fact, I was pickling eggs just this week. ’Tis the season, after all. But it didn’t go as smoothly as I anticipated.

First, I couldn’t find my grandmother’s recipe—one of the many hazards of moving. So I placed a call to my mother.

Then, it took forever to free the eggs from their blasted shells. Once I got them into the secret rosy juice, one of them floated to the top. What did that mean?

For me, it meant calling my cuisine-expert sister for an explanation, and for advice about the shells. Why go to the Internet when you can go to family?

Sometimes, a simple task can take a village…

[The pic is from Jules Food…, where you will find a recipe for pickled eggs so that you, too, may practice a Dark Art. The drop cap is from Jessica Hische.]

Ripples from an Egg-straordinary Conversation

he pooch and I headed out for our usual stroll the other morning, but suddenly the sidewalk morphed into a slalom. Every few feet we had to dodge the splatter of a raw egg.

Strange. I expected to see smashed eggs and pumpkins the day after Halloween—not several days afterward.

I smiled. Memories stirred of the bus ride I’d taken the afternoon before Halloween. I was traveling downtown to make my COBRA payment and visit with a few former colleagues. It was pouring rain so I took the first bus that stopped. Unfortunately, it was the least desirable route: seven miles of stop-and-go at every other corner.

Halfway through, as I was wondering whether I would fall asleep or heave first, a man sat next to me. Then he asked if it was okay to sit next to me, but he didn’t wait for my reply. He kept talking.

He’d been seated a few rows ahead of me earlier, until he had to move to let the person next to him exit the bus. I had sensed some discomfort of the people around him. Some distrust. So I braced myself for whatever was about to unfold.

The man seemed young but looked old. He was thin, not tall, well equipped for the rain with umbrella, raincoat, and hat. He talked incessantly.

This, I think, was the source of discomfort for others. He spoke as if word spaces didn’t exist. He quietly mumbled most of what he said and periodically enunciated some phrases at normal volume. His phrases came out in question form.

He was seeking conversation, or connection, and I did my best to oblige. He wanted to know why I didn’t have an umbrella or rain hat, whether children came trick-or-treating to my door, if I would be going to a Halloween party and what people did at those parties (he’d never been to one), but over and over again he wanted to know why people threw eggs on Halloween.

He stumped me there. I never did it myself, never saw a reason for doing it.

We continued chatting until the bus arrived at my stop. I wondered if anyone would take my place as his conversation partner.

In the Before Time, when I had a job, I usually had a bus story to tell my work family. Now that my work family has been disbanded, I told my tiny tale to my former boss. I said I didn’t know why encounters like that didn’t bother me yet I can get tongue-tied in every other human exchange. (I was worried there was some kind of hidden superiority-inferiority element to it and I would soon have to confront the revelation that I’m a jerk with confidence issues.)

My boss surprised me with a quick answer to my question: “Lill, love,” he said, “innocence. You talk to people like that because they exude innocence.”

I’ve thought more about this since then, and especially after seeing the smashed eggs on the sidewalk. I might have an answer for that fellow bus-rider about why people smash eggs.

It’s a display of power. There’s a certain thrill for some people to destroy a fragile thing. It provides immediate gratification and, because it’s so easy to do, it can be done well. Houses of cards, sandcastles, small animals, children, people who are “other”—all are at the mercy of those seeking power. And since Halloween is admittedly a night of mischief, these thrill-seekers get a free pass for one night.

This is also the answer to my question about why that bus conversation didn’t bother me. When I encounter a fragile thing, my immediate reaction is to protect it. Help it. Engage it.

The world is made up of two kinds of people: the powerful, and the fragile. And I am neither.