EGGS

A friend of mine turns up with wine and eggs as presents.
The wine is delicious and well chosen. The eggs are things of beauty. Various. Odd. Indiividual as the hens which laid them. The opposite of uniformity.

The gifts set me thinking about presents. I once gave some presents of a book of poetry, written out by hand. The poems were written as part of a team event I did with a Board of Directors, trying to get them to expand the language they used to refer to each other, to see the individuals as muses, worthy of lyricism. It worked, and a s a tribute to their efforts I decided I'd write them all out by hand in lovely bound books, one copy for each f the nine or ten Board members.

Of course, I had completely underestimated the task, which took me weeks. But when I arrived at their offices with a haversack full of this labour, there were audible gasps, when I gave them out.

But was it worth it? In a sense the gift was irrelevant. The narrative of doing it was the point. Without doing it I could not now be recalling it. Such is the life of those plagued by the idea that the more interesting narrative choice is the guidance system for life decisions.

Should all art be gift?

Should even all life be gift?

After all, when we say it's our life, we ignore the fact that life is given, is itself a gift.

The eggs get me thinking too. They are so different from factory eggs, supermarket eggs. But not only is the greater volume of eggs in uniform packages, the greater volume of humanity is too. Eggs in cosy uniform little six packs. Humanity in uniform cosy little office environments, cosy uniform little housing developments.

Isn't that odd? Or is it me that is odd?

Am I the blue egg, rejected for quality reasons yet hiding the bright yellow double yolk?