Ninotchka Rosca wrote that an egg can hold together the elements of time.

An egg is a universal symbol for life.

An egg is life that is all potential, tabula rasa, perfection by not being anything. An egg is and is not.

I myself was once an egg, but now am a 37-year-old something.  In between I was a pianist, a nerd, a frustrated writer, a pacman addict, a karaoke killer, a student, a teacher.  An optimist, a bully, a victim, an activist, a feminist, an analyst, an apologist, a socialist, a realist.  Daughter, granddaughter, sister, surrogate mother, auntie, mother.

Every day I play with my child and try to reconnect to the egg that I used to be.  Babies are enchanting when they are still hatchlings, I believe, all fuzzy and sweet-smelling.

At the end of our lives, Ninotchka Rosca wrote in Sugar & Salt that the soul can ascend only in innocence, after it passes on all its knowledge to others.  In the act of giving out what it knows of the world, the soul becomes unchained to the world.  In my head, such a soul is unblemished, unmarked, and as unremarkable as the next soul rising with it to heaven.

I wish to be an egg.