My father shared a story with me before he died. He prefaced the story by saying that he experienced his only miracle that day. It happened when he was kid, a boy of 9 or 10. I guess this was on the farm about 1935. He grew up in rural Iowa, before electrification. His mother raised chickens. One day, while he was in the house, he saw her incubating a bunch of eggs in the kitchen. He was amazed to see the chicks begin to hatch out. He watched with wonder, as each egg shook with life, and the chicks broke their shells, and found their way into this world. This event touched something in him, that resulted in his remembering it 70 years later.
He told me this story, which he had never shared before, a few months before his death. I knew the moment was important to him, and was awed by a similar experience I had had in my last days of high school. As I was finishing twelfth grade, and confronting a new life, I attempted to write my first poem. It was about being in an egg, about to hatch out. The poem centered on the experience of being compelled to seek, a larger, less confining world to occupy. At the time I was very aware I didn’t know what was beyond my shell. I was caught in complex situation, between a world I knew, and one I didn’t.
I remembered these two events, my father’s story, and my own experience, while I was contemplating this life. This memory set me on a reverie, that is filling me with a kind of full-bodied awe. Taken by the coincidence of my father’s experience, and the vividness of my own recollection, I started imagining this life as an experience of being incubated. I have long thought of my life as a learning and growing experience. What if, I am here being prepared, for another, perhaps more complex existence? This question occurred in my thoughts — but it has a lot of explanatory value.
When I look back at my life, which aging is increasingly compelling me to do, I see that there are patterns of growth that I cannot take credit for. It is like I just got more mature. There was little, or no effort on my part. Seemingly, Life just grew me into something more.
During my reverie, I began to think of Life, as a kind of incubator. Things started coming together in a new way. I think of myself as “Lucky,” the product of some universal happenstance, but what if, I was really intended? Afterall, I am being raised here. Then perhaps, this life, which I call mine, has a kind of coherence, I’ve never considered before! Maybe all those relationships, jobs, failures, gentle moments, realizations, and griefs, have prepared me for a newer, broader life? The shell feels a lot like death now. I am confronted by a compelling feeling that I know: I am confined by a world too small for me, and caught before, a world beyond my knowing.
I grasp this pattern. I have been somewhere like this before. Despite the many indignities – the loss of vitality, health, social status, prestige, and a basic de-humanization — I am hatching out, becoming the next iteration of Life. I’m not old, I’m quasi-new.
The incubator seems to be working a kind of alchemical magic. Changing the grossly inexperienced, into something fit for the Universe’s needs. I like this reverie. It beckons me toward a new and unforeseen entrance.