i want to whisk eggs for you

fantasy eating, part 1 of 239420384203984786

Sir William Russell Flint, 1880 – 1969, Blustery Day St. Malo.

A rare moment of clarity in want. I want to be in a house by the sea. With you, the person that I love and who loves me very much. A few others. 3? 5? Not sure of the where, the who or the when. But I want you there and I want there to be so much laughter. Childhood-reminiscent, head tilted back, mouth gaped open, ouch it actually hurts laughter. A house dynamic that is of course not perfect—I want my fair share of bedsheet gossip with you, the one-who-loves-me-very-much, about that weird comment made at dinner—but one that is easy and familiar and light.

I want there to be an impossible-seeming, barely-even-enjoyable, gazillion-piece puzzle sitting out on the coffee table that slowly gets put together as we walk past it all week long. All weekend long. Perhaps it’s a short while. It could be summer (the sticky, bittersweet end of it), or the dead of March. Any time is fine, I think. Really, I just envision the tables. For meals, for good mornings, for solving the world’s problems, for fists slamming down when the game is lost, for resting tepid mugs of tea and water glasses marked with lip stains.

I want, so badly do I want, to scramble eggs in a house by the sea. I want to serve them to a bunch of puffy-eyed people in sweatpants (who, again, I really, really love). Leave the butter out to soften; bring over two kinds of jam, peanut butter, marmite, honey, whatever anybody wants. I want to hear “Who wants more coffee?” and I want to hear “I had the weirdest dream” and I (really do) want to listen (I promise).

Maybe it would be nice to hear guitar strings mindlessly being plucked from outside the screen door and feel all warmed up inside because of it. There are, of course, no phones in this vision of mine. There is just music and the smell of charcoal and burning twigs. In the dark, all together, I want us to get a little drunk and to sing and to each be wracking our brains so hard trying to think of the next perfect song to suggest. The one that will make everyone laugh and go ohhhhhh yeah, let’s do that. Like when we’d crowd around on tree stumps when I was a kid and we’d sing American Pie, all 8 minutes and 42 seconds of it, and I’d let my marshmallow go black and I wouldn’t have to realize that I felt very safe because I just was. Here and now I want to feel you, my person, palm my thigh and say Shall we head to bed? and for us to leave to go brush our teeth beside each other while one of us checks the weather for tomorrow.

Maybe in the morning we’ll split up, pair off, take a walk. Or I’ll decide to stay right on the couch and read 80 pages of my book, splayed out next to my friend who is lying in the other direction reading 80 pages of her book (we’ve agreed to swap when we’re done).

Maybe we’ll all pack into the car (I won’t be driving) and head into town. Sample the sticky golden nuts, or the saltwater taffy just pulled from the candy shoppe that very importantly has two Ps and an E at the end.

We could head to the overpriced market and fill our shopping carts with clanging bottles of booze. I could get distracted by the selection of cheese in the fridge, cheeses made and wrapped up in paper just a few miles over, and buy four or five wedges of them. Stick them right up to my nose and laugh at how stinky they are and mention that we’ll have to eat them quickly if we don’t want the fridge to reek.

I want to laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, with people that love each other and love this place and this time, even if it doesn’t happen again for a long while, or maybe even ever. I want to lounge under fleece and snack mindlessly and talk about horrible summer blockbusters and laugh. To feel good in the company we’ve made. I want to rest my sweaty socked foot on the knees of yeah, again, you (my person) while we all play cards, and while the oven preheats for bread. A giant, loaf of fiery garlic bread that certainly none of us made. To be served warm, with bowls of burst tomato pasta and a tart salad that we did make; that we cobbled together rather impressively even, in this small rental kitchen fit with only the dullest of knives.

To be eaten, some of us with wet hair from our pre-dinner showers, at the table that someone has set. In a house, by the sea, where cans of cracked, abandoned seltzers scatter every countertop and good, boogying tunes have been playing all afternoon.

Prepare toast.

Whisk eggs (2 per person sitting around your dining table) vigorously in a bowl, and add kosher salt and a shitton of black pepper.

Heat a nonstick skillet with some big knobs of the best butter you can find on medium-low.

Pour in eggs, let set for a minute, and ever so slowly, push with a spatula, in unhurried drags from all sides, to the center of the skillet.

When still a little wet, crumble in some feta or goat cheese.

Take the skillet off the heat just before you think the eggs are done.

Eat with hot sauce, salted avocado, greens that were really going bad in the crisper drawer sauteed quickly in olive oil and dressed with lemon juice, hot coffee, and a locked and flipped-over smartphone.

Serve for the puffy-eyed people around who reaaaaaallllly love you and who you love right back.

~