This morning I held a brown egg in my hand, felt the smooth cool surface against my palm. Tapping it on the side of my small glass bowl, I felt for a tiny crack and opened the shell, spilling the precious golden yolk into the bowl. As the last of the clear egg white drizzled out, I saw that the shell was cream-colored on the inside.
"Huevo."
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| by Eric Ginsburg, http://www.worldoferic.com |
The Spanish word for egg.
And the name of a cat I think of each time I cook breakfast.
More than a decades ago - in the spring - I spent some time getting to know a new group of people who lived or played in Chelsea on the West Side of Manhattan, a beautiful old neighborhood with a young, fashionable population, teeming with small restaurants and bars where, like in the song, everybody knows your name. As an artist my down-time is generally sporadic and out-of-sync with most other people, but this was a quiet interlude, and I thought it might be worthwhile to see if I could fit myself into the structure of other lives.
Which meant for these young professionals - fast thinkers with tight deadlines all week - weekends spent sleeping late and socially decompressing. Besides the odd shopping trip or movie, that meant cafe society, all day, all night. Not that my body could keep up, but I adopted the strategy of ordering a snifter of Remy and glasses of ice water, which allowed me to remain inconspicuously on the scene but still awake and aware - kind of a cultural anthropologist in my own backyard. Illuminating conversations, sophisticated flirtations, and more than a few colorful rounds of eight-ball in the back room - in the first or third person - were stored away like jewels in the little box of my consciousness to shape and inform my thoughts for years to come.
Those days began with New York brunch, a light, often eggy meal served by most establishments at lunch time with one or many cocktails included in the price. One lovely Saturday, after two of the "unlimited mimosas" - concocted of orange juice and (probably cheap) champagne - had given me a headache, I enjoyed the short walk west to our favorite local "bar" bar, one that did not serve food. A long dark crowded place at night, this day its front windows opened to the returning sunlight, painting it all like Edward Hopper including the gentle breeze. I picked up my cognac and started for our table in back.
"Huevo!" A young waitress in jeans and an old t-shirt called out with the voice of a small child at play. Looking down as she slipped around the bar, she gestured with a silver pen in her hand, pointing down.
"Huevo!" A silver body low to the floor streaked from behind the bar, dashing in sync to the movements of her hand. Moving closer, I saw a red dot of light dance across the floor. The pen was a laser pointer, and Huevo the name of a kitten. She stopped me in my tracks - I had my own cat, a tiny tiger and tail-less wonder of affection and impudence, but every kitten is a revelation.
Her gleaming hair was silver, faintly lined in pale to medium tones, and although by her proportions I could tell she was only 5 months old, she was already as big as many cats. Her head was long, her body oval shaped, her eyes flashed pale gold in their intensity of purpose - perhaps somewhere in there was the origin of her name.
"Huevo!"
Spellbound by the play between the two, I did not ask. I could have watched all day. They were perfectly in tune, the waitress waving the magic wand for her darling's delight, then allowing her a moment of rest before once again calling out, "Huevo..."
Now that brunch has long since given way to breakfast at home, I still hear that call every time I pick up an egg.
"Huevo!"
Crack, and it rolls into the bowl, all gold and wet. I see her eyes.
Huevo.
The world is an uncertain place for kittens, and in any case I never saw the waitress or her kitty again. I hope she had a long and happy life filled with love and playtimes until she parted ways with this plane. But she is also still a kitten, and always will be, when I travel back in time and space and the walls of our kitchen fade away for a moment.
Huevo, whatever she was and possibly will be, always is for me. And that makes me wonder whose Huevo I am - does someone think of me in those days, perhaps when they see a snifter of brandy, and wonder?
We all draw circles around our lives, our memories, and while they seem distinct it may be that they are more like eggs broken together in a bowl, no longer enclosed, yet not aware of one another. The shells are an illusion.
Which reminds me of a little cat who only thinks she can catch a dot of light.
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| "Austin" by Eric Ginsburg, http://www.worldoferic.com/ |
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