Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Wing and a Prayer

Thinking back, now, it seemed so obvious, it seemed so perfect – being instructed to bury an egg beneath the window on nothing more than a wing and a prayer (oh, that time was tragic and epic and the whole “wing and a prayer” sentiment played beautifully in that near final act and is no part, in anyway, an artistic exaggeration or embellishment for my previous bohemian sadness), hoping that, one day, it’d all make sense. Back then, though, the egg sat (Christ, did that fucking egg sit!).

That hard boiled egg sat, nestled in a purple shot glass, from near Fet Ghede (2006) until Ostara (2007) with only a trio of succulents and a handful of Ukrainian newspapers to keep it company. Every fucking day I’d see the damn thing staring blankly at me, making me frustrated that I hadn’t found the fucking time to bury one single goddamn egg like Papa told me to all those weeks and months and days before.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN AN EASY FUCKING JOB, YOU KNOW? ALL I HAD TO DO WAS BURY ONE GODDAMN HARD BOILED EGG IN SOME DIRT JUST BELOW MY COMPUTER ROOM WINDOW. It was never the right time, or conditions, or I was too busy, or I’d forget, or I just couldn’t be bothered (which, really, is just an accumulation of everything previously listed) and before I knew it March had come on and the egg Papa traded for back in November had become a permanent resident on my intricately carved, yet almost unusable £5.00 middle eastern wooden table.

(“ONLY A FIVER? FOR SERIOUS? ONLY BECAUSE THE TABLE TOP IS COMPLETELY WARPED AND STARTING TO SLIGHTLY ROLL INTO ITSELF? AND BECAUSE THE LEGS ARE UNSTABLE AND SLIGHTLY MISSHAPEN DUE TO “ONE OF A KIND ARTISTIC CRAFTSMANSHIP”? OH, AND BECAUSE THE LEGS THAT ARE UNSTABLE AND SLIGHTLY MISSHAPEN DUE TO “ONE OF A KIND ARTISTIC CRAFTSMANSHIP” DON’T ACTUALLY FIT INTO THE TABLE TOP THAT IS COMPLETELY WARPED AND STARTING TO SLIGHTLY ROLL INTO ITSELF MAKING EVERYTHING UNBALANCED AND LACKING IN ANY STRUCTURAL CAPABILITY? HELL, WE’RE TAKING THAT FUCKER HOME!”)

After four months it started to smell. Not, like, full on, or very in-your-face noticeable, but something was slightly off. By the time I realized where the very organic scent was coming from a small puddle of liquid had appeared at the very bottom of the shot glass. (I don’t know, I didn’t want to know, I didn’t even bother to look.) I was disgusted, but that statement, surely, could not be fully appreciated unless you knew me completely.

(Long short – way before all of this CSI business became popular I had entered pre-med with the intention of becoming a forensic pathologist; anatomy, dissection, microbiology – loved it, loved it, loved it and excelled in it all savant-style. I’ve butchered animals, fed pets menstrual blood clots, picked apart putrefying road kill, scrubbed the remnants of a friend’s father off a wall, and regularly clean the house toilet without so much as a complaint. I DO GROSS AND SICK, AND I DO IT GOOD BECAUSE, MOSTLY FOR THE MOST PART, IT’S FASCINATING AND WONDERFUL AND TERRIFIC AND MAKES ME FEEL ALIVE AND TALENTED...EXCEPT FOR THE TOILET. I FEEL THAT I COULD REMAIN LIVING AT THIS LEVEL OF ALIVE AND TALENTED WITHOUT HAVING TO CLEAN THE TOILET. (I have surgery hands whose goodness is now only known to liquid eyeliners. LOLOLOLOL, MAYBE SHE’S BORN WITH IT?) With that sort’ve in mind – imagine what would really disgust me. In fact, I don’t even want to think about it...ew.)

But that was when I was depressed. I was Underground, waiting in hopeless limbo for a resurrection that was only supposed to take a few days but took a few months. (It’s easy to get lost down there, and even easier to not find your way back. I GUESS THAT’S WHERE THE BALL OF STRING COMES IN HANDY.) By spring of 2007 I was tired of the whirlpool (which made it even worse since I was the one who originally decided to jump into it, thinking I was one billion percent ready of the consequences because, GEE, I HAD COME ALONG WAY, YOU KNOW? HOW HARD CAN THE ROAD TO A BETTER, MORE COMPLETE PERSON BE?), and in that fed up restlessness I finally did something and broke out of that hollow mould I had been living in – I buried the petrified egg.

“Cailleach Beara, goddess of the changing seasons, renewed her own youth whenever she was tired of being a hunchbacked old woman.” – Goddesses, A World of Myth and Magic