‘Cause you can’t jump the track,
we’re like cars on a cable,
And life’s like an hourglass, glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button, girl
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe… just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe.
Grandma Anne had a small hourglass in her kitchen. It was her egg timer, and I’m sure thousands of other kitchens had the same thing. In my Grandma’s kitchen, that timer was the magical key to making Eggs in the Egg Cup. The starring attraction was a perfectly soft-boiled egg. The proper dipping tool was a lady finger (toast cut into strips).
Forty years later, I could soft-boil some eggs. I could slice my toast into strips. I could find proper egg cups for serving. It wouldn’t be the same. I don’t have Grandma’s egg timer, or her loving touch.
Hourglasses don’t care about how time passes. Their job is only to measure its passing. Each grain of sand merely represents a moment in time.
We know better. Some moments carry more magic than others.
When I started this post, it was going to be about time passing through the hourglass and how it symbolizes our lives. We only get one pass through the hourglass (it’s glued to the table). We don’t know how much sand is left. We don’t know if our hourglass will fall off the proverbial table and shatter in an instant.
Nothing new there, but I had a sense there was something else, so I started writing to find out.
The image of Grandma Anne’s egg timer and lady fingers filled my head. I haven’t had Egg in the Egg Cup in forty years. Grandma Anne passed away more than twenty years ago. Yet I can see the many breakfasts she served when I spent the night at her house. I smell the bacon. I hear the crunching of the toast.
She taught me Yahtzee, and then Triple Yahtzee. I can hear the dice rolling around in the cup. She folded a napkin in the bottom of the dice cup to keep the noise down. She shared a lot of Grandma wisdom on strategic thinking during those Yahtzee games.
One thing is certain as the sand passes through my hourglass. I get only one pass. But I get to experience my memories as often as I’d like…even when I least expect it. How cool is that!
Photo Credit: Nick Valdovinos
Encouragement is Personal 