The weekend arrives and most of us crave comfort food.
Doesn’t matter if we’re so old we force ourselves to gulp down steel cut oats with flax seed meal and craisins. What we really want is challah french toast. Or bacon. Or grits.
We want our mom, our dad, our Bubbi over there in the corner, back of their head to us, shoulders hunched over, feet inside slippers, flipping something hot on the stove with our name on it.
In my imagination, this something with my name on it is called “Egyptian Eye.”
Some people call it Egg in a Nest. Others Frog in the Hole. But in my childhood home, an egg over easy inside a piece of toast paid homage to the Eye of Horus, which, if you knew my dad, made perfect sense.
Despite the fact that gluten makes me cranky, and eggs make me bloated, I fried myself up an Egyptian Eye this morning. I did this as an Ode to Joy.
I forced myself to remember how much joy I used to find in breakfast.
In being a grown up.
***
It all started with an irritation.
A cranky feeling stuck in my throat, which is where cranky lives in me.
Didn’t feel like washing the dishes left over from being too tired last night. Didn’t feel like making my kids anything healthy to eat, even though weekend mornings are when I usually make the effort to do so.
In general, I felt annoyed. With adulthood. With obligations. And in that moment in particular, with the burden of breakfast.
Then I stopped, chuckled.
For years, you yearned and burned for this, I told myself. Don’t you remember? Isn’t it funny now?
You wanted to be a grown up.
Don’t you remember how you screamed at your parents, “One day! You’ll see! I’ll get to decide! I’ll choose!” How you longed for your own money? For work that paid? To stay out late. To sleep where you wanted when you wanted. Eat sugar. Drink vodka. Tell people what you thought of them.
So?
What happened?
I think I completely forgot what was so great to be a grown up.
***
I remember once feeling joy and gratitude for finally being out there in the world on my own; responsible for my own well-being.
I remember my parents leaving me at my college dorm. I didn’t cry a single tear. I felt FREE.
I remember walking through the deep tunnels of the subway system of New York City when I first moved there after college and thinking, “Nobody knows where I am right now. I can go anywhere I want. And nobody is here to stop me.” I felt FREE.
I bought groceries — first at the local market and later at the health food shop — with such pride. I strolled the aisles with curiosity. I carefully chose interesting items and paid for them with money I had earned. I felt FREE.
I woke up on Sunday mornings, turned on some Stevie Wonder and danced around the kitchen while I made challah french toast, or pancakes, or Egyptian Eye. I felt FREE.
***
It’s easy for me to lay blame.
Blame the absence of joy on things being “different now.” Harder. Busier.
Blame it on the kids.
Blame it on the government.
Blame it on my work.
Blame it on my neighbors.
Blame it on modern living.
Blame it on my own choices. My husband’s. My generation’s.
I could get sucked into this blaming so very easily.
In fact, I often do.
I often get so sucked into blaming others or blaming myself that I forget what I once held to be true.
I am an adult now. I am free.
The responsibility for my well-being is on me.
I get to choose.
***
So I chose.
I made myself an Egyptian Eye. Truth is, I offered one to my kids too. They declined, choosing “sugary cereal” instead.
Secretly I was happy.
Happy to make something just for me.
I ate it alone. Burst open the gooey yellow center with the fork prongs, watched it seep over onto the toast. Lapped it up with joy.
Felt free.
and yadda yadda, an aliyah blog 
Beautiful post. There are a lot of things I love about being a grown up but I admit there are times I still want my Mommy (I’m fifty). The problem though is that I’m a human being and I need adventure and wonder. So I’ve ventured forth across the planet and i’m still not done. So as much as I want Mommy I crave danger, excitement, and ultimately revelation, places where she can’t and won’t go (and besides who schleps their mother with them?) So I go without her. All I bring except is my trusty security blanket also known as my self and the belief that there is so much more than me out there.
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So wonderful to be self aware … Good on you for not only acknowledging what you need but taking action! I am still exploring this “belief that there is so much more than me out there.” I know it to be true, and then a minute later get stuck on my Self again!
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Me too. But therein lies blessing: we get to be free over and over again.
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I love love love this. It captures…something so complex and it does it wonderfully. “We want our mom, our dad, our Bubbi over there in the corner, back of their head to us, shoulders hunched over, feet inside slippers, flipping something hot on the stove with our name on it.”
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Thank you. That was my favorite line, too.
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Great piece, but I’m stuck focusing on the eggs. I love cooking eggs that way so much that I did it for weeks over an open flame, with every cabin group that came through, as the Outdoor Cooking Activity Director at Camp Isidore Alterman in Atlanta in the 90s. Mine was called “Rocky Mountain Toast”.
(By the way, I more recently discovered that if you cook it in bacon grease instead of butter the toast crisps up into a crispy and savory celebration of treyfy indulgence. I highly recommend it to my fellow unkosher folks. This would obviously have been totally unacceptable at Camp Isidore Alterman, and it’s probably not a great idea generally to cook with bacon grease over an open flame anyway.)
Recently Owen (7) checked out the Star Wars Cookbook on library day at school and we have since cooked it with a new twist – Twin Sun Toast… http://starwars.com/play/online-activities/cooking/twinsuntoast/. Of course, that just reminds me of the two suns over Tatooine, where Luke was a young farmhand without responsibilities of adulthood (or saving the galaxy from the Dark Side) and he had no idea how good he had it….
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I’m stuck on the eggs, too. The whole breakfast is still weighing heavy in my belly 24 hourslater! Twin Sun Toast — I like it!
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That feeling of nobody knows where I am right now is something that I remember from first being on my own, too. It was intoxicating. I revelled in it. I miss it. Somehow, you make all these decisions that lead you back to having people that live with you and care about you and suddenly you can’t just take off irresponsibly anymore. Ah adulthood, with its difficult decisions.
I’m really struggling these days with my no bread, no dairy, no egg whites. I can’t think of what to eat anymore. These eggs are so tempting!
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It’s funny. We can’t decide whether we want to be alone or with people … and can’t seem to find a way to have it both ways
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Egg in a basket in my household…..lovely post
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Thank you!
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Thanks for the remembrance. You are aging “gracefully” for someone so young and vibrant.
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OMG, all that thinking about breakfast?? Maybe switch to decaf 😉
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I do way too much thinking … it’s true, especially about food.
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