Broken Eggs and Balance

This is a picture of me trying to hold my balance at the Children’s Museum in downtown Ann Arbor. A couple of Sundays ago, we went to church, went to a breakfast nook called The Broken Egg, spent a few minutes in Literati, and then here, to try and do some balancing.

The Broken Egg seems like a sad name, doesn’t it? It’s not. It’s a creamy yellow, cheery place with S’mores French toast and omelets that are called, “Rude Roy.” There are college pennants hanging on the wall, all of them were upside down except for three: Ohio, University of Michigan, and Notre Dame. “Notre Dame!” Harper screamed when we walked in and the restaurant that’s not that big to begin with halted for a moment. “Ha, ha,” I said, looking around. “Here come the Irish.” Nobody laughed. For crying out loud, don’t make jokes like that in Ann Arbor. I should know better.

They let us stay and I don’t think anyone spit in our food because it was delicious and it has me thinking that probably it’s OK to have a name for a place that sounds sad because if you give it a chance you might see something good that comes from what’s broken. What can be made from what’s spilled?

My brother and I once had a babysitter. Susie was her name.  My brother and I actually had lots of babysitters, but none stayed longer than Susie. It’s not that Geoff and I were like the Ewell children or the Herdmans, it’s just that we screamed bloody murder if our dad tied on a tie and it wasn’t a work day, and our mom so much as slipped a foot into a high heel and it wasn’t Sunday. I can vividly remember hanging on to my mom’s leg as she was trying to leave with my dad to go to the Chicago Symphony. Me? Separation Anxiety? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Anyway, we didn’t pull that crap with Susie. Geoff and I loved Susie. Once, when she came over, Geoff  told Susie he knew about a trick with an egg. What you did, he said, as he walked to the fridge, is you get an egg, and spin it. You spin it real fast, he told her, lifting a white egg from the carton, and watch it spin off the table and land without breaking. Susie said she wasn’t sure that’s how it worked, but Geoff would have none of it. You just had to make sure you spun the egg at the right speed, he told her placing the egg on a wooden table in the center of the kitchen. I’m pretty sure the right speed is called BOILED but who has time to concern themselves with these sorts of details?

The egg broke, its yoke splattered and shell scattered on the floor and I’m sure Geoff and I were afraid of the trouble we’d get in, but here’s what I remember: Susie helped us clean the mess up, then she took a piece of computer paper and a pack of markers and sat down at our dining table and made a cartoon of what happened. “Dear Mrs. Lewis,” she began, and she drew a story that made us laugh, and then she taped it to our front door and we went to the park.

A lot can come from the spill of a broken egg is all I’m saying, but I started this post with balance, and here’s what I want to tell you: balance is impossible. I am unable to balance. I read the directions, I held my core still, I put out my hands, I stood up straight. I fell. Again, and again I fell. I kept getting back up and trying, though. It was fun to try.

“Balance is not meant to be mastered.” That’s what a yoga instructor said. I was in OBX taking an outdoor yoga class with my cousin Tara and my sister-in-law Kellee. It was sweltering out and not even 8am. There were probably 50 people there and we were all on the side of the lawn the sun hadn’t gotten to yet, but that line was slowly diminishing and as sweat streamed down the backs of my knees and plopped on my yoga mat I thought they should’ve advertised this as a Hot Yoga class because that’s what this is.

Anyway, the three of us are standing on our mats practicing a tree pose. I think it’s the tree pose. It’s that one where you put one foot on the side of your knee of the other leg and put your hands together like you’re praying or a Buddha. Do you know know that one? Nothing against people who pray or Buddhas. I’m just trying to create an image. So we’re in the tree pose, and Kellee is pregnant with her second baby, Tara is a newly titled Head Manager at the health club in her area, and I just finished my first year of teaching after an eight year break. I don’t know how the rest of them feel, but I can’t figure out when to do what: work, clean, cook, write, hang out with my kids and husband, make and keep friends, read books, learn to sew and knit, paint my nails. It’s all a lot and if I do one thing, I give up something else. What if that something else goes bad? I wondered if Kellee and Tara worry about that as the foot that was on my knee slipped off and I half fell. That’s when the instructor said we aren’t supposed to master balance. She said what happens is you get to one level, and once you’re comfortable, you move to the next one. You never master balance, though.

We’re not supposed to get it. We’re supposed to keep trying. Forever breaking. Forever seeing what’s been splattered and scattered, and trying to make something from it.