The Egg I Have in Mind

The Egg I Have in Mind

            Nestled in a white egg cup, a 44-year-old eggshell sits on my dresser.  Purchased in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1976, the egg has traveled far over a lifetime.  At the minimum, it has resided in Freiburg, Germany; Douglas and Lowell, Michigan; Greenbank, Washington; and Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  If my memory serves me right, it spent many years in my mother’s china cabinet.

            I don’t know much about egg decorating, but this hollowed-out egg is clearly the work of a talented artist.  A small hole on the top and bottom indicate that the yolk and egg white were blown out.  Then, I imagine, the artist painted the entire surface in black.  The floral designs and intricate borders appear to have been etched, showing up as the original white of the shell. 

            The etched egg caught my eye in one of the stores that our tour group visited.  We were American students studying with the Institute for European Studies at West Germany’s University of Freiburg.  Before our semester began, we traveled to Czechoslovakia, which at the time was a communist country and had a depressed economy.  The stores we entered had sparse displays and the items were expensive in the nation’s currency.  However, the exchange rate with the German mark was excellent, so the purchases I made in various shops—the etched egg, a hat, a tenor recorder made of pear wood—hardly created a dent in my wallet.

            Looking at the egg on my dresser, I am a little sad.  Week before last, I accidentally let go of a decorative box lid, which fell back and broke the top off the egg.  Imagine that: after its safe travels by airplane, automobile, and moving truck, it gets broken when a small, light lid falls on it.  The last move it made, from Washington to Oklahoma via professional movers, it managed to survive even though the packers made a grave mistake—it lay, unwrapped, on top in a large packing box filled with carefully wrapped china. 

            I think I will keep the egg after all, even though the hole on top is much bigger and the small scattered pieces still adorn my dresser.  For some reason, I can’t seem to throw the fragments away, either.  There must be some lesson to my egg’s survival through perilous circumstances only to meet its end in a supposedly safe place, but all I know is that it remains the egg I have in mind.