Blessed by eggs

Should I eat them?

I’m working on a few different things right now. One of them is an essay inspired by a passage from Anna Kornbluh’s 2024 book Immediacy, or the Style of Too Late Capitalism. People really hated it and I don’t think it’s fair. Another is a personal thing about my twin, on the occasion of our birthday next month. There are also a few pieces that I hope make money.

Writing across so many genres is a good way to feel fewer feelings than you’d have to deal with otherwise. At the end of the day, I close my eyes and perform a mental scan of my body, starting with the vertex of my skull, crossing my face, the full extent of my limbs, my torso, all the way down to the edges of my toes. It helps me label my thoughts. Some are true, some are bad, some are wishful, some won’t let up.

This morning something strange happened. I was on my way back from grocery shopping, two blocks from the Key Food Fresh N Save, four to go before my building, when I made eye contact with a woman headed in the other direction. Who saw who first? I bet it was me, like a creep; in one moment her face is tilted towards the sidewalk, and in the next she raises her chin. She was in her sixties and regally beautiful, high squarish cheekbones, expressive eyes, wiry dark hair. Gray dress and a floral gossamer headscarf so delicate it looked like it might wrinkle if you stared at it too hard.

She asked me if I wanted more food, gesturing towards her own bag of goods. It was one of those multicolor polypropylene totes that every store sells these days. I said ok and she took her time fishing around in it before extracting nine items: two sticks of string cheese (white, individually wrapped); another single-serving portion of cheese (also white); one clementine; one banana; two Ferrero Rocher chocolate eggs, one in brown tinfoil, the other in gold; two normal eggs. She’d just come from church, and it’s Lent, which means she can’t consume animal products. The real eggs are hard-boiled, she told me. The chocolate eggs are male and female respectively. She explained which color corresponds with which sex, but now I can’t remember.

I thanked her and asked which church she went to. St. Nicholas of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Orthodox of the Two Americas. Actually, she just said the local Romanian church. I know it well; it’s two blocks north of my place; I’ve taken an interest in it before because I like the Byzantine cross, plus it’s directly across from the cash bar with the hand-painted blue brick exterior that someone once called New York’s last true dive. That’s roughly as credible as “New York’s best pizza,” but I’ll take it.

There are a lot of Romanian immigrants on this side of Sunnyside, plenty of restaurants, festivals, you hear the language all the time, so you’d think that even in my badly underslept state I’d remember that Romania has nothing to do with the Romani people, but no, for twenty seconds I lingered on a thought I am ashamed of because it pertains to a stereotype and has nothing to do with this particular event in any case. Here goes: this woman just handed me a bunch of eggs, even indicating some as male and female, and it’s the vernal equinox — actually I’d already been meditating on the date, thinking about rewatching The Wicker Man; thinking that Beltane’s around the corner and the one person I know who celebrates just texted me for the first time in ages, maybe I’ll go to his Beltane thing in May; and maybe it’s time to rewatch Valerie and Her Week of Wonders too, I love the score to Valerie and Her Week of Wonders; now it is spring, the city laughs in flowers, only a few more blocks home… and then this stranger stopped me in my tracks. If I eat the eggs I’ll probably get pregnant, but what happens if I don’t?

Three years ago, when I was living in Philadelphia, I deposited groceries in someone else’s car because I thought it was my car. It was late, I was tired, the car was the same size and color as mine, the door was unlocked. As I realized my mistake, it occurred to me that it might look like I was breaking in. This freaked me out so thoroughly that I forgot to grab my groceries before I dipped out of there. I’ve always wondered how that played out on the other person’s end.

The funny thing is I was already planning on boiling eggs today. A weekend routine. Even weirder, I’d just re-read “The Story of the Eye,” which is very famously about eggs.

I can’t find the lyrics to Luboš Fišer’s “Orlic’s Song (Brother and Sister)” anywhere online. One of the prettiest songs from Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. More importantly, I can’t decide what to do with the free food. I could keep it circulating, but for now it’s all in my fridge, except for the banana.

Throughout our interaction, the woman kept saying this isn’t weird, this isn’t weird. A request for trust and belief. If I’d been honest, I would’ve said this is actually really weird, but it’s good. It’s a gorgeous day. God is good. I’m keeping the food in a dedicated container until I think of something else.