Sometimes, I find God in the sunny-side-up eggs I make on a warm, overcast morning.
The bright yellow yolks jiggling, despite the desperate heat already at work blackening the edges. The lacey and delicate whites of the egg promising the perfect crisp, should I be willing to sacrifice the center. I prod and scrape, prod and scrape, attempting to even things out for a perfect breakfast in this small, black skillet.
It will never be perfect, thankfully. It’s the reason I return every morning, in this encounter with God. We laugh about it.
I read before breakfast. In every book I read, it becomes more and more clear that we animals aren’t made to multitask—at least, not yet. I attempt to hurry this whole evolution process along each morning at 7 a.m., cracking an egg and allowing it to blister away while I pull down the spring to start the two minutes on the four slice toaster. I promise to remember everything that is happening.
I always burn both, thankfully. It’s the reason I return every morning, in this encounter with God. We laugh about it.
Let me be clear: I have already had the morning coffee. It’s the first step of this liturgy, the incense as I walk down the hall to the kitchen table. I was taught to like coffee by the sweet bribe of too much cream. I thought it was a cup of milk That was ten years ago, and I suppose I was to have growm into black coffee by now. I try black coffee every six months, and end up drinking white coffee for the next six weeks after it.
God and I laugh about it.
Sometimes, if I can remember it, I flick granules of kosher salt into the yolks as they finally cook up. I watch the grains soften and melt into my small, burning suns. If I can find it, I twist and twist pepper onto the eggs, too. I do not like pepper. I do like the feeling of using a pepper grinder, whatever that means.
God laughs the most at this.
Maybe the holiest part, like always, is the oil and the fat: the butter. I spread the soft yellow onto the browned toast, anointing it, in all its ashiness.
A wisp of smoke prods my brain back into what I’m doing, back into the process of feeding this human and wanting, forgetting and remembering body of mine. God gently reminds me that breakfast is for eating, not philosophizing.
God does pipe up at the end, the whisper barely audible over my angry smoke alarm. You did manage to keep some of the lace. The butter looks marvelous this morning, dear.
I know, I say. I know, God.
And We laugh.
Bad Art Every Day. 